No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
An Oriental Encounter: Interculturality, Awe, and Equivocal Compatibility at the Egyptian Coptic Mission of Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2022
Abstract
Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
An ethnic church from the Middle East without a missionary tradition has grown in a decade to several hundred parishioners in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Using anthropology and ethnographic methods, this article argues that interculturality, even if marked by subjectivity, equivocations, culturalism, and ephemerality, can also be characterized by the seduction of symbols, mutual appropriation, and inclusion. I will give particular attention to the role of assigned beauty and awe in the constitution of meaning and show that shared relational intelligence and the emotional security provided by the priests allow for semiotic distortions to be overcome.
Resumo
Una iglesia étnica del Oriente Medio, sin tradición misionera, ha crecido en la última década hasta varios cientos de feligreses en Santa Cruz de la Sierra, en Bolivia. Usando métodos antropológicos y etnográficos, este artículo aborda la conversión y el proselitismo como un encuentro intercultural y muestra que la interculturalidad, si está marcada por la subjetividad, equívocos, culturalismo y efimeralidad, también representa un fenómeno caracterizado por la seducción de los símbolos, la apropiación mutua y la inclusión. Damos atención especial al papel de la belleza asignada y del estupor en la constitución del significado, y mostramos que la compartida inteligencia relacional y seguridad emocional proporcionada por los sacerdotes permiten de superar las distorsiones semióticos.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2015 by the Latin American Studies Association
References
Abdel-Sayed, Gabriel 1980 “The Coptic Orthodox Divine Liturgy: Some Texts and Their Use.” Coptic Church Review 1 (3): 116–124.Google Scholar
Bagnall, Roger S., ed. 2007 Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Botros, Gahda 2006 “Religious Identity as an Historical Narrative: Coptic Orthodox Immigrant Churches and the Representation of History.” Journal of Historical Sociology 19 (2): 175–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckser, Andrew, and Glazier, Stephen D. 2003 The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Canovas, Rodrigo 2006 “Religiones migrantes: De los árabes en Chile y en México.” Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. http://alalite.org/files/chile2008/ponencias/Rodrigo%20Canovas.pdf.Google Scholar
Capiberibe, Artionka 2007 Batismo de fogo: Os Palikur e o cristianismo. São Paulo: Anna Blume Editora.Google Scholar
Chaillot, Christine 1980 “The Coptic Church under a New Prosecution.” Coptic Church Review 2 (4): 139–140.Google Scholar
Chaillot, Christine 2011 Les Coptes d'Égypte: Discriminations et persécutions, 1970–2011. Paris: L'Oeuvre.Google Scholar
Crollius, Ary Roest 1991 “What Is So New about Inculturation?” In What Is So New about Inculturation?, by Ary Roest Crollius and T. Nkéramihigo, 1–20. Rome: Editrice Pontifica Universita Gregoriana, 1991.Google Scholar
Dulley, Iracema 2010 Deus é feiticeiro: Prática e disputa nas missões católicas em Angola colonial. São Paulo: Anna Blume Editora.Google Scholar
Fabricant, Nicole 2009 “Performative Politics: The Camba Countermovement in Eastern Bolivia.” American Ethnologist 36 (4): 768–783.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabricant, Nicole, and Gustafson, Bret, eds. 2011 Remapping Bolivia: Resources, Territory and Indigeneity in a Plurinational State. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Gauchet, Marcel 1997 The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Translated by Burge, Oscar. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafson, Bret 2006 “Spectacles of Autonomy and Crisis: Or, What Bulls and Beauty Queens Have to Do with Regionalism in Eastern Bolivia.” Journal of Latin American Anthropology 11 (2): 351–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Olivia, 2006 “The Eternal Return of Conversion: Christianity as Contested Domain in Highland Bolivia.” In The Anthropology of Christianity, edited by Cannell, Fenella, 51–76. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassan, Sana 2003 Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert W., ed. 1993 Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howe, Richard Herbert 1978 “Max Weber's Elective Affinities: Sociology within the Bounds of Pure Reason.” American Journal of Sociology 84 (2): 366–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirshner, Joshua 2008 “Migration, Informalization and Public Space in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.” Bolivian Studies Journal 15/17:150–189.Google Scholar
Lowrey, Kathleen 2006 “Bolivia Multiétnico y Pluricultural, Ten Years Later: White Separatism in the Bolivian Lowlands.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 1 (1): 63–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Paul, and Assad, Joseph 1999 Egypt's Endangered Christians. Washington, DC: Freedom House.Google Scholar
Meinardus, Otto F. A. 1997 “Theological Issues of the Coptic Orthodox Inculturation in Western Society.” Coptic Church Review 18 (3): 67–77.Google Scholar
Meinardus, Otto F. A. 2006 Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Montenegro, Silvia 2002 “Identidades muçulmanas no Brasil: Entre o arabismo e a islamização.” Lusotopie (2): 59–79.Google Scholar
Montero, Paula 2006 “Indios e missionários no Brasil: Para uma teoria da mediação cultural.” In Deus na aldeia : Missionários, índios e mediação cultural, edited by Montero, Paula, 31–66. São Paulo: Globo.Google Scholar
Morgan, David 2009 Introduction to Re-enchantment, edited by Elkins, James and Morgan, David, 3–22. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Morgan, David 2012 The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Motta, Roberto 2009 “Enchantment, Identity, Community, and Conversion: Catholics, Afro-Brazilians and Protestants in Brazil.” In Conversion in the Age of Pluralism, edited by Giordan, Giuseppe, 163–188. Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Murdock, Graham 1997 “The Re-Enchantment of the World: Religion and the Transformation of Modernity.” In Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture, edited by Hoover, Stewart M. and Lundby, Knut, 85–101. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orta, Andrew 1995 “From Theologies of Liberation to Theologies of Inculturation: Aymara Catechists and the Second Evangelization in Highlands Bolivia.” In Organized Religion in the Political Transformation of Latin America, edited by Pattnayak, Satya R., 97–124. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Orta, Andrew 2006 “Dusty Signs and Roots of Faith: The Limits of Christian Meaning in Highland Bolivia.” In The Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity, edited by Engelke, Matthew and Tomlinson, Matt, 165–188. New York: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Parker Gumucio, Cristian 2004 “La sociologie des religions à l'horizon 2050: Un point de vue latino-américain.” Social Compass 51 (1): 59–72. 2008a “Introduction.” Social Compass 55 (3): 259-263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker Gumucio, Cristian 2008b “Interculturality, Conflicts and Religion: Theoretical Perspectives.” Social Compass 55 (3): 316–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Partrick, Theodore Hall 1996 Traditional Egyptian Christianity: A History of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Greensboro, NC: Fisher Park Press.Google Scholar
Pina-Cabral, João de 2002 Between China and Europe: Person, Culture, and Emotion in Macau. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Pina-Cabral, João de 2010 “The Dynamism of Plurals: An Essay on Equivocal Compatibility.” Social Anthropology 18 (2):176–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Postero, Nancy Grey 2007 Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1981 Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1999 “Two or Three Things That I Know about Culture.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5 (3): 399–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stearman, Allyn MacLean 1985 Camba and Kolla: Migration and Development in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Orlando: University of Central Florida Press.Google Scholar
Strelko, Andrei 1975 “Primeros inmigrantes ucranianos en Latinoamerica.” America Latina (Moscow) 1:89–98.Google Scholar
Tagher, Jacques 1998 Christians in Muslim Egypt: An Historical Study of the Relations between Copts and Muslims from 640 to 1922. Altenberge: Oros.Google Scholar
Thomas, Martyn, and Youssef, Adly A., eds. 2006 Copts in Egypt: A Christian Minority under Siege. Zurich: G2W.Google Scholar
Watson, John H. 2000 “Mission: For Africa and the World.” In Among the Copts, 73–92. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max 2001 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Parsons, Talcott. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Youssef, Bishop 2010 Ten Years in Bolivia. Santa Cruz de la Sierra: St. Mary and St. Mark.Google Scholar
Zaborowski, Jason R. 2005 The Coptic Martyrdom of John of Phanijoit: Assimilation and Conversion to Islam in the Thirteenth-Century Egypt. Boston: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
You have
Access