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Esta nota se propone problematizar las investigaciones cuantitativas sobre identificaciones religioso-espirituales en Argentina, y las consecuencias que esto tiene para el imaginario social sobre la composición religiosa del país. Para ello indagaremos las formas en que se pregunta sobre identidades, creencias y prácticas, y sus consecuencias en la construcción de esta información. El trabajo se basa en la revisión bibliográfica de la temática y en el análisis de encuestas preexistentes para encontrar espacios de vacancia y posibles aportes a nuevas investigaciones cuantitativas.

The normative framework is one of the constitutive edges of state regulation of religion. It contributes to the configuration of different forms of relations between state and religions. This can be observed in at least three areas. First, in the way the state defines religion. Second, in the way it recognises and legislates its relationship with different religions. Finally, in the rules it establishes for confessional institutions and actors at different levels of social life (education, health, prisons, etc.). In this article, we propose to comparatively analyse the national legal systems that regulate religion in Italy and Argentina, with special emphasis on the equal or differentiated treatment of different religions. The policies of recognition and integration of religious minorities find in the normative framework an empowering or limiting factor, depending on the national context. Although both countries share a dominant Catholic matrix, their historical developments and legal formats present contrasts that project different scenarios of religious governance, which we will try to elucidate.

This article analyzes the ways in which religious actors opposing the legalization of abortion adjusted their arguments and public actions to the Argentine democratic culture between 2018 and 2020. Data were collected through a qualitative research approach by conducting in-depth interviews with activists, studying public position statements in secondary sources, and analyzing pronouncements and interactions on social media platforms. Religious agents conceived of democracy as the rule of the majority that they intended to promote by means of secular arguments, demonstrations in public spaces, and the construction of electoral alternatives. Marginally, the categorization of feminism through conspiracy theories and the use of dilatory legal maneuvers ran counter to the logic of the expansion of rights. According to the empirical evidence gathered, the religious agents showed increasing adjustments to the language and criteria inherent to democratic life.

Religions have historically established ways to regulate the lives of their followers, impacting conceptions of wellbeing and health. Likewise, state agencies have incorporated a more complex definition of health, including a lack of bodily illness, stability, and social, psychological, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Using the category of care in a broad sense, we seek to put these conceptualizations into tension in order to identify points of agreement and discrepancy among the ways of defining health and wellbeing by state and religious agents. Using a qualitative approach, content analysis of documents, participant observation and formal and informal interviews with state and religious agents were carried out in the framework of two events held in 2016 and 2017 by the Buenos Aires Provincial Office of Religions under the name Expo Promo Salud. These events were generated to make visible the actions carried out by religions in the area of health in general and problematic drug use in particular. In this way, the article seeks to analyze the ways of discursively defining care, health and wellbeing and their possible impact on the design of public policies.

Resumen La cuestión de los vínculos entre religión y política en general, y religiones y el Estado en particular, forma parte de la investigación social a nivel internacional y local. La comprensión de este fenómeno llevó a la propuesta de una serie de categorías clave, como regulación y laicidad, con características particulares en América Latina. En este artículo, proponemos discutir la categoría de laicidad, sus potencialidades y limitaciones para analizar la relación entre el Estado y las religiones a nivel local. Para ello, presentaremos las organizaciones municipales que trabajan con las religiones en la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina), su funcionamiento y las redes que construyen.