"In the Name of Christ: Violence, Politics, and Religion in Postrevolutionary Mexico"
What were the political and cultural drivers that contributed to shaping Catholics’ understanding of violence as a legitimate means to defend their religious practices and beliefs in post-revolutionary Mexico? In this talk, Dr. Gema Kloppe-Santamaria will focus on the 1930s-1950s, a period marked by the end of the Cristero War (1927-1929) - Mexico’s armed conflict over the religious question - and the so-called détente between the Mexican state and the Catholic Church. Despite the Church’s official rejection of the use of violence amongst the faithful, during this period Catholics continued to engage in belligerent and violent forms of religious militancy in the name of Christ and religious freedom. This, she argues, reflects the weight that non-canonical understandings of martyrdom, sacrifice, and redemptive violence had in Catholics’ exercise of religion. Catholics’ aggressive defence of religious symbols and places, together with their attacks against individuals perceived as “polluting” or “impious”, show that moral and symbolic considerations were deeply intertwined with uncompromising political ideologies and long-term intra-community conflicts.
Gema Kloppe-Santamaría ist Assistant Professor of Latin American History an der Loyola University Chicago und derzeit Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow am Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies. Ihre Forschung befasst sich mit Fragen von Gewalt, Religion, Geschlecht und Staatenformation in Lateinamerika, mit besonderem Fokus auf Mexiko. Sie ist die Autorin von In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (veröffentlicht von University of California Press, 2020; zitiert 2022 vom Maria Elena Martinez Book Prize). Prof. Kloppe-Santamaría ist außerdem Herausgeberin der Bücher Violence and Crime in Latin America: Representations and Politics (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) und Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico: New Perspectives and Proposals from Below (Editorial Porrúa, 2019 ). Ihre Arbeit wurde durch mehrere Stipendien unterstützt, darunter zuletzt ein Global Religion Research Initiative Project Grant, ein Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar Award und ein Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award.
Im ZILAS spricht Prof. Kloppe-Santamaría zum Thema "In the Name of Christ: Violence, Politics, and Religion in Postrevolutionary Mexico" am Dienstag, 21. Juni, um 18:30 im Raum DP8-102 (im Gebäude Domplatz 8).