Performing Religion in the Americas

Religious practice and belief remain astoundingly diverse across North and South America. At a time when globalization is taken to mean the ever greater homogenization of cultures, Performing Religion in the Americas reveals how individual cultures are more resilient than ever and that religion is a particularly rich area of diversity. Religion is an especially rich arena for the analysis of political and cultural performance because the complexity of devotional practice and the intensity of faith can permeate all other parts of social life. The performance of religion highlights how communities and individuals in the Americas define themselves as both similar to and different from others.Presenting detailed ethnographies from Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Canada, and the United States and drawing on a wide range of approaches - from Theater, Comparative Literature, Sociology, Anthropology, History, English, and Performance Studies - Performing Religion in the Americas reveals the breadth of faith-based cultural practice in the 21st Century.