Gross, “Religion and Respeto”
Abstract: This paper discusses the relationship between religious affiliation and the ways that the notion of ‘respect’ (respeto) is used in common discourse in rural Oaxaca. Drawing on the ethnographic example of indigenous Zapotec villages in the Sierra Juárez, I examine how Protestants and Catholics employ the term to justify their attitudes towards each other and towards the norms of communal life. Both consider ‘respect’ an important value in social relations, but in significantly different ways. Catholics conceptualise ‘respect’ mainly as a hierarchical value central to which is the villagers’ subordination to the authority of customs and communal leaders. For most Protestants, however, respect is a horizontal notion that is associated with freedom of religion and the right of individuals to distance themselves from local traditions without being socially excluded or marginalised. The differences between these two perspectives are reconciled by a mutual acknowledgement of the need to ‘reciprocate’ respect.