Lived Religion and Religious Practice in Latin America: a Review of the Central Religious Categories of Classical Social Theory

The article seeks to assess a conceptual framework to interpret religion in Latin America in the XXI century. Based on the conditions of mobility, globalization and/or distancing -a product of the Covid-19 pandemic- challenges are posed to understand religiosity in religious institutions and beyond them. Along with this, the current conditions of globalization cause a social scenario different from the theorization of the founders of the sociological discipline; with which it is necessary to analyze the religious categories of classical social theory, where the sacred/profane and magic/religion present different characteristics from the Latin American context to those formulated by Durkheim and Weber. The article focuses on lived religion, as an approach to contemporary analysis of Latin American religiosity, and proposes that certain religions give Latin America an enchanted trait that questions Weber's thesis of disenchantment with the world by the presence of spirits or by the interrelation of magical and religious practices.