Power and Pilgrimage : Dealing with Class, Gender and Ethnic Inequality at a Bolivian Marian Shrine

ISBN-13: 9783643900142 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 232 str.

Sanne Derks

Opis

Power and Pilgrimage is an in-depth anthropological study of life at a Bolivian pilgrimage site. It focuses on the experiences of pilgrims and how, in their Marian devotion, they express and learn to live with the various inequalities they experience in everyday life. Issues of poverty and class inequality lead them to approach the Virgin of Urkupia to support them in their quest for economic betterment. Another social inequality that comes to the fore is based on gender. Finally, ethnic inequalities are discussed by analyzing the dance processions in honor of the Virgin, since these reflect contested ethnic identities.