Outside Institutions?: A Quantitative Approach to Religious Individualization and Deinstitutionalization in Mexico and Argentina

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze religious individualism and deinstitutionalization in Mexico and Argentina based on a quantitative research strategy which enables a description and comparison of the two countries’ religious beliefs and practices as well as those of people who defne themselves as “relating to God in my own way” in Argentina; and “believer in my own way” and “spiritual without church” in Mexico. Drawing from recent social sciences debates about religion, which have questioned some extremely individual interpretations of religious life, it can be argued that even when people detach themselves from religious institutions in a discursive manner, many of their religious practices are developed collectively and are infuenced by their sociabilities and national contexts. These fndings intend to make a contribution to recent attempts to build a complex assessment of those two categories, most of which are based on qualitative research, by means of a quantitative approach.

El propósito de este artículo es analizar el individualismo religioso y la desinstitucionalización en México y Argentina a partir de una estrategia de investigación cuantitativa que permita describir y comparar las creencias y prácticas religiosas de los dos países, así como las de las personas que se definen como “relacionadas con Dios a mi manera” en Argentina; y “creyente a mi manera” y “espiritual sin iglesia” en México. A partir de los recientes debates de las ciencias sociales sobre la religión, que han cuestionado algunas interpretaciones extremadamente individuales de la vida religiosa, se puede argumentar que incluso cuando las personas se separan de las instituciones religiosas de manera discursiva, muchas de sus prácticas religiosas se desarrollan colectivamente y están influenciadas por sus sociabilidades y contextos nacionales.