The Marian Cult as a Resistance Strategy: The Territorialized Construction of Devotions in the Province of Potosí, Charcas, in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

One of the differences observed in American lands is that local actors modified and adapted the resources and practices woven around devotional figures, since on this side of the Atlantic there were different geographical, ethnic, and social borders which, added to the particular weight that pre-Hispanic traditions had in each place, acquired different characteristics in each case. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze these different processes of refraction, understanding their impact on the configuration of local religiosity. These issues are present from the beginning of the evangelization process, and are able to be reconstructed based on the information that the documents carry, as well as on other material sources. It is interesting, then, to address the characteristics and the path of various depictions —either paintings and / or engravings— in which Mary is portrayed at different stages, such as childhood, joy, pain, glorification— or sculptures corresponding to different dedications. These types of practices can be observed in different places during the evangelizing process. Therefore, it is not surprising that to observe a continuum of these kinds of strategies in the potosino space in the early colonial period.