Religion Without Redemption: Social Contradictions and Awakened Dreams in Latin America (Decolonial Studies, Postcolonial Horizons)

The world’s eyes are on Latin America as a place of radical political inspiration, offering alternatives to the neoliberal model. Religion Without Redemption examines the history of religious and political ideas in Latin America, in order to show how and why the continent’s politics and economics work as they do. Martínez Andrade focuses on the central role of religion in the region and how it influences people’s interaction with changes in modern economics. Capitalism in Latin America, Martínez Andrade argues, has taken on religious characteristics, with places of worship―shopping malls and department stores―as well as its own prophets. This form of cultural religion is often contradictory in surprising ways: not only does it legitimate oppression, it can also be a powerful source of rebellion, unveiling a subversive side to the status quo. Religion Without Redemption advances the ideas of liberation theory, and challenges the provincialism to which many Latin American thinkers are usually consigned.