Agustina Altman
I have been conducting fieldwork in the Argentine Chaco since 2009. My research is focused on the complex processes of religious change among the Moqoit people of the Argentine Chaco. As part of this line of work, I began to explore in detail the Mennonite missions that arrived in Argentina in the early 20th century, as these enterprises have had enormous importance in the local forms of Christianity. In this context, I have also conducted research on the Mennonite archives located in Argentina and the USA.
In November 2022, I joined CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) as an Assistant Researcher. Additionally, I hold the position of Assistant Professor in the undergraduate program of the Anthropology Department at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Main concerns: Socioreligious change, Aboriginal Studies, Mission Studies, Mennonite Missions, Shamanism, Pentecostalism, Anthropology of Religion, Cultural Anthropology.
Supervisors: Pablo G. Wright and César Ceriani Cernadas
Address: -
In November 2022, I joined CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) as an Assistant Researcher. Additionally, I hold the position of Assistant Professor in the undergraduate program of the Anthropology Department at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Main concerns: Socioreligious change, Aboriginal Studies, Mission Studies, Mennonite Missions, Shamanism, Pentecostalism, Anthropology of Religion, Cultural Anthropology.
Supervisors: Pablo G. Wright and César Ceriani Cernadas
Address: -
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Papers by Agustina Altman
Menonita en Argentina, centrándose en la Mennonite Church y explorando las relaciones entre dinámicas religiosas y políticas locales y globales. Mediante el análisis antropológico de un extenso corpus documental se exploran sus actitudes, intereses y preocupaciones, y su relación con la sociedad circundante. Se identifican tres ejes principales: la
autopercepción de los menonitas como extranjeros que deben ser cautelosos; la centralidad de la separación iglesia-estado que lleva a la desconfianza en soluciones políticas seculares; y la oposición al catolicismo, visto como una distorsión del cristianismo. Todo ello conduce a que los menonitas en el período estudiado prioricen la estabilidad social y la libertad para su labor evangélica. Este análisis aporta a una mayor comprensión de las dinámicas las “heterodoxias sociorreligiosas” en Argentina.
PALABRAS CLAVE: menonitas, Argentina, política, campo religioso, misión.
Palabras clave: dispositivos de unidad, evangelio, menonitas, moqoit.
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ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to understand some of the social dynamics of the Moqoit evangelio. To this end, this church is analyzed as a social unit, paying particular attention to the construction of fluctuating alliances with other churches. Mennonite missionary action is also discussed –not only in relation to the indigenous people missionized– but also from the point of view of its impact on the Mother church itself, for which the mission plays the role of a true Christian utopia. In this complex panorama, I analyze the tensions between fission and fusion within the Moqoit evangelio and how the Mennonite missionary action attempts to privilege the mechanisms tending to foster unity, through the development of a series of regulation devices.
Key words: unity devices, evangelio, Mennonites, Moqoit.
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In the studies of socio-religious change in the Chaco, the active role of the Chaco Aboriginal groups in the processes of Christian misionalization is well grounded. It has been thoroughly studied how these processes involved cultural creativity, leading to a new socio-religious reality that emerged from complex interactions between pre-Christian conceptions and practices, and those resulting from the incorporation of the Chaco into the national territory. However, the complexities engaged in these processes´ specificities and their role in the construction of alternative forms of modernity are aspects that still require more intense study. In particular, in the case of the Moqoit people, a Chaco group that is subordinate to the Qom people, the specificities of their responses to missionary action need to be addressed. In this work, we analyze a conflict in a Moqoit evangelical congregation as a total social fact, which allows us to highlight various dimensions that are put into play in the contemporary socio-religious dynamics of this group.
Keywords: cosmo-politics; cultural astronomy; deep “logics”; indigenous knowledge; South American Lowlands.
Link: https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSA/article/view/22275
Palabras clave: menonitas, proyecto lingüístico, toba, mocoví, pilagá, Buckwalter,
antropología, Chaco, Argentina.
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Abstract: This article focuses on the linguistic project of the Mennonite missionary couple of Albert Buckwalter and Lois Litwiller Buckwalter in the Argentine Chaco. The analysis is based on unpublished sources as well as personal interviews with Lois L. Buckwalter and publications by both. The work of translating the Bible into the Toba, Mocoví and Pilagá languages as well as the decisions regarding the elaboration of alphabets, vocabularies and grammatical notes were consistent with the academic linguistic knowledge of the time, and an integral part of their evangelizing project. This task is framed in the context of a general paradigm shift linked to the growing role of anthropology and linguistics in the formation of missionaries. The study also highlights the contribution that the work of the Buckwalter couple represents for current Chaco linguistics.
Keywords: Mennonites, linguistic project, Toba, Mocoví, Pilagá, Buckwalter, Anthropology, Chaco, Argentina.
This paper aims to explore the perception about Catholicism built by the first Mennonite missionaries established in Argentina since 1917 up to the Second Vatican Council. In order to do this, we will analyze the personal writings of these missionaries, including their analyses of newspapers and the Mennonite publications in Argentina. Differences in central matters such as the separation between church, state and political parties, and a non-hierarchical conception of the faith community, will be recurring subjects in the struggle for a position in the religious field under construction.
📝Este material fue elaborado colectivamente por las organizaciones Somos Monte, la Red de Salud Ramón Carrillo, el Observatorio de Conflictos Sociales del NEA de la UNNE, integrantes de la Universidad Nacional de La Matanza y del Equipo de Antropología de la Religión (ICA, UBA).
👉Buscamos difundir información sobre las Consultas Previas, Libres e Informadas que deben realizarse en los territorios, ante la instalación de cualquier proyecto o actividad.
❗Traducción al qom l’aqtaqa (lengua qom) realizada por David Garcia y las Madres Cuidadoras de la Cultura Qom de Pampa del Indio, Chaco.
❗Traducción al moqoit la’qaatqa (lengua moqoit) realizada por Abel Salteño, profesor bilingüe intercultural moqoit.
❗Traducción al wichi-lhamtes (lengua wichi) realizada por Mario Matorras, profesor bilingüe intercultural.
Madres Cuidadoras Cultura Qom
Somos MONTE Chaco
Red Salud Observatorio de Conflictos Sociales del NEA
David Garcia
Lorena García
Aure Gonzalez
Aureliana Gonzalez
Juana Silvestre
Juana Silvestre
Abel Salteño
Mario Matorras
Malena Castilla
Agustina Altman
📝Este material fue elaborado colectivamente por las organizaciones Somos Monte, la Red de Salud Ramón Carrillo, el Observatorio de Conflictos Sociales del NEA de la UNNE, integrantes de la Universidad Nacional de La Matanza y del Equipo de Antropología de la Religión (ICA, UBA).
👉Buscamos difundir información sobre las Consultas Previas, Libres e Informadas que deben realizarse en los territorios, ante la instalación de cualquier proyecto o actividad.
❗Traducción al qom l’aqtaqa (lengua qom) realizada por David Garcia y las Madres Cuidadoras de la Cultura Qom de Pampa del Indio, Chaco.
❗Traducción al moqoit la’qaatqa (lengua moqoit) realizada por Abel Salteño, profesor bilingüe intercultural moqoit.
❗Traducción al wichi-lhamtes (lengua wichi) realizada por Mario Matorras, profesor bilingüe intercultural.
Madres Cuidadoras Cultura Qom
Somos MONTE Chaco
Red Salud Observatorio de Conflictos Sociales del NEA
David Garcia
Lorena García
Aure Gonzalez
Aureliana Gonzalez
Juana Silvestre
Juana Silvestre
Abel Salteño
Mario Matorras
Malena Castilla
Agustina Altman
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The discernment of spirits in peripheral christianities: modernities and power regulation among the Moqoit people of the southern Chaco
The discernment of spirits has been -throughout the history of Christianity- a fundamental mechanism for controlling access to charism. Its development has been deeply linked to changes in the dominant ecclesial models in each period and region. With the aim of bringing new perspectives on this device, we propose to analyze it in the context of peripheral christianisms. Specifically, we will address how this theological device takes shape in the context of the evangelio moqoit. For this we will focus on the analysis of the social structure of the Moqoit evangelical churches and the role that face-to-face interactions have. We will explore how the members of these churches seek to resignify this device articulating it with the preexisting moqoit conceptions about the links with non-human powers; testimonies on health and disease management; the experience of worship as a privileged space for experiencing joy and the role of community. In addition, we will discuss the role played by the Mennonite Fraternal Workers and the attempts to regulate the experience of the Moqoit believers. Finally, we will show how the discernment of spirits shows the social construction of one of the most relevant moqoit modernity projects.
Abstract: In this paper we aim to address a series of relationships between Adventists and an extended family of Moqoit people from the southwest of the Province of Chaco during the 1950s. We will explore how Adventists, driven by their specific ethos, sought not only to propagate their dogmas among the Moqoit, but all their "lifestyle", understood as an inescapable expression of one's own sanctity. In addition, we propose to address their practices and representations of the extraordinary expressions of sacred power. Last but not least, we will analyze how the differences with the previous ideas of the moqoit constituted an insurmountable task that prevented this incipient missionary enterprise from prospering.
Keywords: Adventists; Moqoit; mission; modernity; corporality
El objetivo de este trabajo es explorar el cambio de paradigma que atravesaron los emprendimientos menonitas a nivel mundial a mediados del siglo XX y como este repercutió en las misiones en Argentina.
Para llevar esto a cabo, nos proponemos indagar en los modos en que las misiones menonitas fueron originalmente concebidas y cómo, tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, comenzó un cambio en las mismas denominado por sus impulsores “indigenización”. Uno de los factores centrales que analizaremos será la profunda influencia de la antropología en la construcción de este nuevo paradigma para las misiones menonitas. Contextualizaremos dicho impacto en el marco del “giro antropológico” que experimentaron en la segunda mitad del siglo XX las misiones cristianas a nivel mundial. Una nota central de este nuevo tipo de emprendimientos será la conciencia cada vez mayor de la relevancia de la contextualización y la comprensión de las culturas locales para el proceso de evangelización.
Otro aspecto central de nuestro trabajo es el análisis, mediante diversas fuentes de archivo como diarios personales, cartas, publicaciones e informes administrativos, de las tensiones y conflictos que surgieron entre los misioneros a partir de este cambio en el modo de concebir la acción misionera.
Palabras claves: menonitas, misiones, indigenización, Argentina
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Rooting: The impact of the "anthropological turn" of mennonite missions in
Argentina (1940-1960)
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore the paradigm shift that Mennonite enterprises worldwide went through in the mid-twentieth century and how this affected the missions in Argentina.
To carry this out, we will explore the ways in which the Mennonite missions were originally conceived and how they changed after the Second World War. This new paradigm was called “indigenization”. One of the central issues that we will analyze will be the profound influence of anthropology in the construction of this new paradigm for Mennonite missions. We will contextualize this influence within the framework of the "anthropological turn" that Christian missions worldwide experienced in the second half of the twentieth century. A central note of this new type of ventures will be the growing awareness of the relevance of contextualization and the understanding of local cultures for the process of evangelization.
Another central aspect of our work is the analysis, through various archival sources such as personal diaries, letters, publications and administrative reports, of the tensions and conflicts that arose among the missionaries from this change in the way of conceiving missionary action.
Keywords: Mennonite, missions, indigenization, Argentina
groups in the Argentine Chaco within the context of the socio-religious changes they have undergone since the eighteenth century. By using ethno-astronomy and anthropology of religion perspectives, and based on our own ethnographic and documentary work, we have analyzed both the continuities and the ruptures in the Guaycurú skies.
In doing so, we have found that social relations between humans and non-humans shape the Guaycurú experience of celestial space. These bonds have a strongly political character as they are structured around power asymmetries. The colonial experience, including Christian missions, has imposed modernity on these groups as an overall
horizon of possibilities. However, the Guaycurú have sought to redefine modernity, creating their own ‘modernity paths’.
KEYWORDS: celestial space, Chaco, ethno-astronomy, Guaycurú, indigenous people, nonhuman beings, religion
RESUMEN El presente trabajo tiene por objetivo hacer una primera aproximación a la mo-ralidad propia de los mocoví (moqoit) evangélicos del Chaco austral, a partir del estudio de sus prácticas y experiencias en el seno de esta expresión del cris-tianismo indígena. El movimiento del evangelio en el Chaco argentino tiene su origen a partir del encuentro entre misioneros pentecostales y grupos toba (qom) en 1940. Hacia 1970, las iglesias evangélicas comenzaron a ocupar una posición dominante entre las comunidades mocoví del Chaco. En este con-texto, la presencia de este movimiento religioso supuso un proceso de creación cultural a partir de la resignificación tanto del chamanismo tradicional como del cristianismo evangélico y una nueva lectura moral del mundo. En este tra-bajo buscamos explorar, a partir de los testimonios de conversión y las nociones mocoví, la pertenencia, cómo el ser-evangelio implica una nueva moralidad que incluye en sus dinámicas características típicas de los estilos de sociabilidad de este grupo étnico.
ABSTRACT " 'To enter and to leave': morality and evangelio among the Mocoví people of the Argentinian Chaco " This paper constitutes a preliminary study of the morality of evangelical Mocoví (moqoit) people of the Southern Chaco region and addresses their practices and experiences within indigenous Christianity. The evangelio movement in the Argentinian Chaco has its origin in the encounter between evan-gelical missionaries and Toba groups (qom) in 1940. By 1970 the evangelical churches began to occupy a dominant position among the Mocoví communities of Chaco province. In this context, the presence of this religious movement originated a process of cultural creation as a result of the resignification of traditional shamanism and evangelical Christianity and a new moral interpretation of the world. Based on conversion narratives, we seek to explore the Mocoví's ideas about membership in the Church, how being-evangelio involves a new morality that includes in its dynamics the characteristics of sociability of this indigenous group.