1) Bibliographic data
Garrard-Burnett, Virginia (1998) “Transnational Protestantism.” Review
Article. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs v. 40 no3 Fall:117-25
2) Question(s) addressed by the author and working arguments
The books reviewed in this essay all address the role that religion may
play in postmodern society, if it has any role at all. In so doing,
they elicit such critical questions: 1) Are Latin America and much
of the developing world heading toward a future in which religious
identifies and behaviors transcend or even supersede national identities?
2) Is Latin America’s uniqueness being swallowed up in a global
homogeneization of culture and attitudes that masquerades in religious
guise?
The current debate swirls around the long-term implications that religious
change holds for the region. Religion seems to be one of the driving
motors of change in Latin America in the late twentieth century, as postmodernism
brings into question the old sureties, such as state hegemony, the lineal
nature of development, and the historic triumph of rational modernity.
3)
Conceptual references to transnational – transnationalism
The volume that addresses the issues most explicitly is Transnational
Religion and Fading States, edited by Susanne Hoeber and James Piscatori.
They suggest that in postmodern society, religious communities are
creating an emergent transnational society: Until recently, there have
been no words or metaphors for designing and populating the space that
cuts across inside/outside, a space that is neither within the state
nor an aspect of the international state system but animates both.
This space, they suggest, is partly occupied by new transnational communities.
These encompass both transnational civil society and sovereignty-sharing
states. To visualize these new kinds of entities, the editors suggest
that transnational activity is guided by “Imaginary maps whose
boundaries do not approximate the space depicted on political maps..” In
the section of Latin America, Levine and Stoll suggest two case studies
of transnational religious activism, one ineffective (Peru) and the
other effective (Guatemala).
4) Conclusions or Final Remarks
If religious change is to be considered in transnational terms, we might
do well to recall that the channels of change run in two directions.
If transnational communities can be conceptualized as plastic overlays
on maps of meaning, we should remember that the color of the overlay
is altered by the varying pigments of the underlying map.
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