The Feast of the Uninvited: Popular Religion, Liberation, Hybridity

This thesis examines how some Latin American and Caribbean liberation
theologians rooted their theologies in popular religion. My consideration of these
theologians is framed through a liberationist and postcolonial perspective. This thesis will
argue that the everyday religious and symbolic language of ordinary people-those rituals,
pilgrimages, prayers, fiestas, and processions that have been studied under the term
popular religion-has been central to the development of Latin American liberation
theologies in the last thirty-five years. Popular religion has been an area of theological
inquiry that has opened up new possibilities and trajectories for liberation theologies
within the changing context of the region, especially as they relate to issues of religious
and cultural pluralism.