Conversiones religiosas y redefinición de la etnicidad en el estado de Chiapas

Intra-ethnic violence is bringing a rapid religious differentiation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico). Conversions and changes in religious affiliation produce new religious codes and modes of communicating individual and collective identities heavily influenced by ritual sequences borrowed from the Pentecostal tradition. At stake in the implementation of these new beliefs and practices is the reaffirmation of ancestral religious traditions and the possibility of shaping a Mayan modernity that recognizes ideological pluralism. Rather than denying the ethnic specificity of Mayan society, this process adapts elements of ethnic identity to meet the needs of a relatively autonomous and endogenous modernity. Religious pluralism provides the Maya people with the possibility of defining politics in a religious way, allowing them to assert their independence from the central government and its exogenous political regulation while appealing to the legal principles of religious freedom. Not only does the adoption of new, non-Catholic expressions of religiosity underline the distinctiveness of the Mayan civilization within Mexican society, it opens up new perspectives in the struggle against endogenous social inequalities and in the fight against the nation-state domination