Disjuncture and conjuncture: Understanding contemporary missionary and pastoral work among the Aymara of southern Peru from a narrative perspective

The dissertation explores the stances taken by the Catholic Church toward the religious practices of rural Aymara people (a group of South American Indians), examining those stances critically from a social constructionist perspective. The work's theological perspective draws on the “convictional analysis” advanced by James W. McClendon, Jr. and James M. Smith to study those stances as a relational dynamic, and argues for a practical theory of rural Aymara religion. The work suggests that a corresponding practical theory of mission might afford the church new and effective ways to share the gospel with the rural Aymara people of Southern Peru.{09}The work explores several key aspects of this relationship in great depth.{09}Drawing on new scholarship on the history of religion in Peru and on limited field work, the dissertation maps a persistent perception held by Westerners that understands a profound disjunction between the Andean cultural world and the Christian faith, and argues that the perception of disjunction originates in Western cultural assumptions and is profoundly mistaken. The dissertation explores the approaches of contextual theology and inculturationist theology which have been applied to the church's relationship with rural Aymara people, arguing that these approaches insofar as they are rooted in Western cultural assumptions often miss the social goals and practices that inform rural Aymara discourse. The dissertation also explores three particular assumptions of the Western cultural tradition: human culture understood as an addendum to human nature rather than as constitutive of human nature (Geertz), the way primary literacy or primary orality in a social group affects the way its members process information (W. Ong), and the way collectivist or individualist orientations affect the social psychology of a group (H. Triandis). Chapter three draws on the works of L. Millones, A. Orta, T. Bouysse-Cassagne and O. Harris and is an exploration of rural Aymara self-understanding through a thick description of their discourse, myths, and practices. Includes an appendix on an alternative application of narrative theory to missionary work and another appendix which is the Spanish language translation of a focus group conducted among rural Aymara people in their own language.