Between 'traditional' and 'new' Catholic church religious discourses in urban, Western Mexico

Abstract — This paper analyses processes of belonging, identity formation and construction of knowledge within and between 'new' and 'traditional' Catholic groups in a low-income neighbourhood of Guadalajara. It argues that these two expressions of the Church carry through distinctive 'progressive' and 'conservative' messages in matter of engagement with, and empowerment in social reality, notions of personal responsibility, relation to non-human agents and embodiment of experience. However, those groups are not internally homogeneous and to a certain extent the 'new' Church–the CEBs–is similar to the 'traditional' Church in terms of subtle hierarchical control of production, transmission and withholding of knowledge.