De-indianization and evangelical ethnicity in the foothills and the Andean highlands of Jujuy. An historical ethnography

Abstract

This paper proposes a historical and comparative ethnography on the first evangelical expansion in the Andean foothills and the highlands of the province of Jujuy, Argentina. Although under different ecological and demographic conditions, this evangelical expansion occurred during the first half of the 20th century as part of the same process, as it was driven by Christian Brethren missionaries and later by indigenous evangelists. These facts occurred in the framework of the construction of the Nation State and under the domination of enclave economies -sugar mills in the foothills and mining in the highlands. The encounter of Guaraní and Colla populations with this new religion and how they adopted it tended to a process of de-indianization and towards the configuration of an evangelical ethnicity.