Liturgies of Empathy: Formation of Secular Spiritualities in the Fight against Gender-based Violence

This article analyzes training workshops against gender-based violence in Brazil and Mexico as spaces that produce an inner-worldly secular spirituality, examining their rituals, processes of moral conversion, and the elaboration of a specific emotional interiority. The research is based on an ethno...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Martínez-Moreno, Marco Julián
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:Perú
Institución:Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Repositorio:Revistas - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/30975
Acceso en línea:http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/30975
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Secular spirituality
Ritual
Empathy
Testimony
Gender-based violence
Espiritualidad secular
Empatía
Testimonio
Violencia de género
Espiritualidades seculares
Políticas de gênero
Rituais laicos
Testemunho emocional
América Latina
Descripción
Sumario:This article analyzes training workshops against gender-based violence in Brazil and Mexico as spaces that produce an inner-worldly secular spirituality, examining their rituals, processes of moral conversion, and the elaboration of a specific emotional interiority. The research is based on an ethnography that accompanied facilitators, activists, and professionals from the psychosocial and legal fields, using participant observation and discourse analysis. The findings reveal that these workshops function as secular rituals in which empathy is sacralized as a redeeming emotion, testimony enables the transformation from “victims” into “survivors,” and a moral dualism is established between “human agency” (good) and “oppressive structures” (evil). Furthermore, a structural symmetry is identified between the conversion logic of these spaces and the global expansion of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianities. The text concludes that the global expansion of human rights follows a religious logic of conversion, generating its own antagonist in a dialectical agonism with conservative actors, which redefines contemporary political-religious conflicts.