This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Nepstad, S. E. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Oppositional Consciousness Among the Privileged: Remaking Religion in the Central America Solidarity Movement

Department of Sociology, University of Southern Maine, P.O. Box 9300, Portland, ME 04104 USA snepstad{at}usm.maine.edu

Many movements are strengthened by the support of outside parties yet we know little about how members of privileged groups develop an insurgent mentality. In this article, I explain how some white, middle class North Americans developed oppositional consciousness that led them to resist U.S. policy toward Central America. I argue that solidarity organizers, many of whom were former missionaries, facilitated this cognitive shift within the free spaces provided by progressive U.S. churches. In this context, missionaries cultivated a Christian culture of resistance by conveying "moral shocks" and politicizing the religious themes of conversion and resurrection. As time progressed and this oppositional culture and consciousness waned, they also created transmovement free spaces where rituals were used to reinforce this insurgent mentality.

Key Words: Central America • solidarity • religion • moral shocks • free spaces • oppositional consciousness

Critical Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 4, 661-688 (2007)
DOI: 10.1163/156916307X210982


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?