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Paper short abstract

Based on qualitative research in northern Peru, this paper shows how popular religiosity becomes a source that nourishes social critique, affirms marginalised histories, and challenges polarising neoliberal and postcolonial orders.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores popular religiosity as a site of critique and mobilization in contexts marked by social marginalisation and historical inequality. Drawing on qualitative research among campesinxs in the northern Peruvian region of Bajo Piura, it examines how locally embedded forms of Christianity—deeply entangled with colonial histories—are reworked into practices that contest neoliberal and postcolonial orders.

Based on constructivist Grounded Theory and 43 qualitative interviews conducted between 2020 and 2023, the analysis shows how popular religious narratives articulate an incongruence with dominant socio-economic realities and legitimize the struggle of the campesinxs in a dispute over land use. Religious practices generate critical interpretations of injustice, affirm devalued autochthonous histories, and enable forms of collective reflection and everyday resistance.

By engaging with decolonial theory, Latin American Thought, and liberation theology, the paper argues that popular religiosity should be understood not exclusively as a residual or conservative force, but as a dynamic field through which polarisation is both experienced and challenged. In doing so, the paper highlights how religious practices and narratives can open critical and emancipatory possibilities beyond binary oppositions of domination and resistance and challenge a often implicit secular norm in social sciences.