“I wanted to have a Christian family”: affinities Between Religiosity and Family Styles Among Catholics and Evangelicals in a Low-Income Neighborhood in Santiago

dc.coverageDOI: 10.1007/s41603-023-00202-z
dc.creatorNeckelmann, Maureen
dc.creatorAraos, Consuelo
dc.creatorSiles, Catalina
dc.date2023
dc.date.accessioned2025-11-18T19:55:13Z
dc.date.available2025-11-18T19:55:13Z
dc.description<p>This article explores the relationship between religiosity—as experiential and practical religious involvement—and family styles—as effective kinship expectations and configurations. We begin by identifying three gaps and one risk in the previous literature: excessive focus on (Evangelical) conversion; the paucity of comparative Catholic/Evangelical studies; the absence of an extended family and intergenerational approach; and, although to a lesser extent, a risk of conflation of the religious phenomenon. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in a low-income neighborhood in Santiago, we investigated native Catholic and Evangelical individuals and couples with similar levels of religiosity and socioeconomic status. We have observed two contrasting family styles. While among Catholics, we found a deep appreciation of intergenerational solidarity with a matrifocal bias, with a secondary importance on the marital relationship; among Evangelicals, we observed a strong conjugality and relative relegation of intergenerational relationships. We explore these results using the lens of “affinities” between religious and family spheres, close to Max Weber’s classic concept of elective affinities. Evangelical religiosity produces solid boundaries with the secular world, including the influence of contextual family culture and non-nuclear kin, combined with an emphasis on individual autonomy and responsibility, which correlates with the notion of conjugality as an elective bond. Catholic religiosity is instead much more tolerant of the secular world, allowing a contextual family culture to permeate family configurations. The Catholic emphasis on Grace as an unconditional and gratuitous divine act, combined with popular devotion to Mary, reinforces the centrality of matrifocal intergenerational ties.</p>eng
dc.identifierhttps://investigadores.uandes.cl/en/publications/908facd1-4f9c-4a77-b0a5-25621bc8c713
dc.identifier.urihttps://repositorio.uandes.cl/handle/uandes/59144
dc.languageeng
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.sourcevol.7 (2023) nr.1 p.207-234
dc.subjectCulture
dc.subjectElective affinities
dc.subjectFamily
dc.subjectLatin America
dc.subjectReligiosity
dc.title“I wanted to have a Christian family”: affinities Between Religiosity and Family Styles Among Catholics and Evangelicals in a Low-Income Neighborhood in Santiagoeng
dc.typeArticleeng
dc.typeArtículospa
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