Perceptions of Ethnic-Racial and Religious Diversity in Brazil and Argentina and Their Political-Legal Expressions

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between religious, racial and ethnic diversity and its scientific, political and juridical configurations. Our aim is to understand how dominant perceptions of ethnic-racial diversity, which can be apprehended through official instruments such as census surveys, are connected to the production of religious diversity and its political and legal governance in Brazil and Argentina. Our hypothesis is that race and ethnic demarcations are crucial in the political and legal process of definition of what can be categorized as a religious practice. We will analyze the constitutional framework historically given to religious freedom and ethnic-racial diversity to demonstrate this connection. How racial and religious diversity is perceived and categorized expresses itself in State responses to control it through State policies. We assume that the differences between these countries in dealing with religious and non-religious diversity strains in various ways the relations between freedom and equality regimes.