Latin American sanctuaries, understood as spaces of special sacredness and centers of pilgrimage, have constituted privileged settings for research in the social sciences and ethnohistory. Since pre-Hispanic times, these places have been configured as territories of religious convergence where ritual practices, cult objects, narratives and memories transmitted across generations converge. Their historicity allows us to understand the persistence and transformation of diverse devotional traditions, as well as the relationships between religion, territory and social organization.
\nIn Latin America, the mobilities of pilgrims, miraculous accounts, religious emblems and the multiple materialities associated with devotion (prints, ex-votos, relics, stones, crosses, among others) evidence complex processes of interaction between Christianity and different forms of indigenous and Afro-descendant sacredness. Far from constituting homogeneous expressions, these spaces reveal continuities, resignifications and forms of agency that have allowed the coexistence of diverse cosmologies. In numerous cases, sanctuaries have become consolidated as meeting places for indigenous and Afro-descendant populations, even across national borders, bringing together devotees of varied cultural, ethnic and political affiliations who, through the temporary occupation of public and private spaces, reconfigure territorialities and forms of belonging, particularly during religious festivities.
\nUnderstood as total social facts (Mauss), these celebrations condense multiple dimensions of collective life, making visible processes of identity construction, social memories, disputes over territory, dynamics of mestizaje and cultural hybridization, ethnic claims, artistic manifestations, heritage policies and strategies of touristic activation, among others. Such processes are organized around sacralized images and entities (virgins, christs, saints or other devotions) whose centrality transcends the official liturgical calendar. Consequently, the study of sanctuaries is not restricted to major public ceremonies, but also refers to everyday devotional practices developed in domestic and community settings, where relationships with sacred images unfold in their own temporalities and spatialities, frequently at the margins or limits of institutional control.
\nFrom this perspective, this symposium calls for the presentation of research that, from the social sciences and, particularly, from ethnohistory, problematizes the social, cultural, political and religious processes associated with sanctuaries in various geographic contexts of Latin America. Priority will be given to contributions that, through historical, ethnographic or comparative approaches, examine the continuities and transformations experienced by these spaces from the pre-Hispanic period to the present, or that delve into specific historical-ethnographic scenarios.
\nWith this call we seek to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue that promotes the exchange of empirical evidence, analytical perspectives and theoretical-methodological tools, contributing to enrich the study of sanctuaries as historical spaces for the production of religiosities, memories, territorialities and intercultural relations in Latin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","simposio_area":[44],"class_list":["post-10315","simposio","type-simposio","status-publish","hentry","simposio_area-antropologia-y-antropologia-social"],"yoast_head":"\n