Paper short abstract:

This paper draws from ethnographic research with Bolivian evangelicals to shed light on the calling as a call to kinship. I consider how one mother's concerns with putting money in durable things—especially houses—points to familial, inter-generational duty as a worldly expression of faith.

Paper long abstract:

According to Max Weber, Luther's notion of "the calling" underwent a set of permutations that, eventually, established money-making as an end-in-itself and introduced new concerns with the fulfillment of worldly duties. But what kinds of worldly duties come into play when specific subjects situated within specific religious and also relational traditions mobilize the concept of "calling"? For Weber, this is a term that gradually moved from the domain of priestly duties to a notion of capital gain within the nuclear family. In this talk, I put Weber's thought in dialogue with ethnographic research conducted with evangelical Christians in Bolivia in order to shed light on a less-studied aspect of Weber's thinking on Luther: the problem of kinship. What kinds of duty come into play in people's pursuits of economic accumulation as a means of supporting not only kin but the very concept of the family (as a trans-historical arrangement of relational contiguity through blood and money)? Looking closely at one case, I consider how one mother's concerns with putting money in durable things—especially houses—respond to a notion of familial, inter-generational duty. I am interested in how this ethnographic material troubles the idea of an intractable separation of oikos (household economy geared toward satisfaction) and market (geared toward profit). The pleasure of money-making, I surmise, stems not only from the sheer efficacy of profit but, in addition, corresponds to concerns with fulfilling worldly duties that re/produce families as entities that, with sufficient money and affection, can survive time.