Vernacular Knowledge - Contesting Authority, Expressing Beliefs - Ülo Valk

Vernacular Knowledge - Contesting Authority, Expressing Beliefs - Ülo Valk

12. Negotiating Vernacular Authority, Legitimacy and Power: Creativity, Ambiguity and Materiality in Devotion to Gauchito Gil

Vernacular Knowledge - Contesting Authority, Expressing Beliefs - Ülo Valk

Marion Bowman [+-]
Open University
Marion Bowman is professor of Vernacular Religion at Open University, UK. She has published and researched extensively on vernacular religion, contemporary spirituality, non-traditional pilgrimage, material religion and the town of Glastonbury.

Description

Antonio ‘de la Cruz’ Gil Núñez – more commonly known as Gauchito Gil – is the focus of considerable popular devotion, promissory prayer, ex votos, shrines and material culture in Argentina. In this article, I examine how vernacular knowledge and authority are materialised and operationalised in interaction with institutional models and local lifeworlds in devotion to Gauchito Gil. In relation to the material culture that has developed surrounding Gauchito Gil, and which is seen at its strongest at his shrine at Mercedes, Corrientes Province, I show how strategies of proximity, approximation and appropriation are used effectively as material means of bolstering Gil’s legitimacy and power alongside and beyond institutional understandings and models. Drawing on Primiano’s  observation that the hallmarks of vernacular religion are ambiguity, power and creativity, this exploration of Gauchito Gil’s cult helps to demonstrate how materiality functions in conferring and transferring power, both creatively and ambiguously, to significant people without ‘institutional’ recognition or status in vernacular tradition.

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Citation

Bowman, Marion. 12. Negotiating Vernacular Authority, Legitimacy and Power: Creativity, Ambiguity and Materiality in Devotion to Gauchito Gil. Vernacular Knowledge - Contesting Authority, Expressing Beliefs. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 284-308 Oct 2022. ISBN 9781781792377. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=29221. Date accessed: 10 Oct 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.29221. Oct 2022

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