Development, Transnational Religion, and the Power of Ideas in the High Provinces of Cusco, Peru

Abstract

IntroductionOne narrative seems to dominate the geographic imaginaries of development specialists working with Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America. In Guatemala I was frequently told about two towns: one that was economically successful and Evangelical, and another that was desolate and Catholic. Upon starting my research in Peru, I was told a similar story önot by religious scholars, but by development technicians working on soil conservation strategies. There is a valley in Cajamarca that looks``just like Switzerland'', one friend narrated, with lush forests and fat cows that have to be milked twice a day. This side of the valley is Evangelical. The other side of the valley is devoid of trees, suffers extreme poverty and hardship, and is Catholic. Only one person among the half dozen who told me the story could identify the valley as Granja Porcö n, an Evangelical agrarian cooperative in the department of Cajamarca that has received impressive amounts of state and multilateral aid. For the others, the validity of the story was less important than its usefulness in corroborating their own experiences in working with Evangelical communities. These communities are successful, they explained to me, because they don't drink, are well organized, highly accountable, and even`stylish' in ways that Catholic ones are not.This repeated narrative, about successful Evangelicals and unsuccessful Catholics, exposes one of the many sets of meanings being ascribed to contemporary religious transformation in Latin America. Like much of Latin America, the people of the Southern Andes of Peru have undergone an accelerating religious transformation as Catholic domination has given way to an increasing popularity of Iglesias Evange¨licas (Evangelical churches) and other non-Catholic religious organizations, with some estimates suggesting that over 10% of Peruvians will be Protestant, Pentecostal or

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