CURA Prof. Rubin Co-Edits LARR
Jeff Rubin, research associate for the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, an affiliated center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, has co-edited a special issue of the Latin American Research Review (LARR).
Rubin, a professor of History, is one of the editors of the 2014 special issue of the LARR. He is also a co-author of that issue’s introductory article, “Lived Religion and Lived Citizenship in Latin America’s Zones of Crisis.”
In the introduction, Rubin and his co-authors David Smilde and Benjamin Junge write:
Citizenship as it is lived in Latin America’s zones of crisis is permeated by religious symbols and rituals and is frequently influenced by religious leaders and institutions. For example, the cult of Santa Muerte (a female grim reaper) fosters a community of worship and gift exchange for ex-prisoners and police in Mexico City; Catholic priests support indigenous anti-mining mobilizations in the mountains of Peru through a practice of accompaniment; and in a Rio de Janeiro Evangelical church, the leader of a violent paramilitary group invokes God to help community residents find strength to resist the temptation of drugs. As citizenship is constructed in zones of crisis, religion shapes the ways people understand themselves, the trajectories of collective mobilizations, and individual and group survival strategies. It shapes what kinds of people and what subjectivities are being constructed in Latin America’s social movements and zones of crisis.
The special issue came about as a result of a research initiative on religion in Latin America co-sponsored by the Latin American Studies Center. For more information or to read the special issue, click here.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is the author of Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Duke 1997) and co-author of Sustaining Activism: A Brazilian Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration (Duke 2013). He is co-editor of Enduring Reform: Progressive Activism and Private Sector Responses in Latin America’s Democracies (Pittsburgh 2014)and Beyond Civil Society: Social Movements, Civic Participation, and Democratic Contestation (forthcoming, Duke). Rubin’s current project, Seeing and Not Seeing: An Essay on Democratic Possibility in Latin America, examines how social movements, business, and religion have reshaped the ways people understand themselves as citizens and act politically in Latin America’s democracies.