Paula Montero – författare

This book represents a unique contribution to understanding the interactions between law and religion in contemporary Brazil. It analyzes how the regulation of religions according to the classical notion of secularism has become a source of tensions since the 1990s. Against this background, the respective chapters demonstrate, on the basis of various case studies, how the constitutional principle of pluralism, introduced by the 1988 federal constitution after a military dictatorship, has been addressed by new political actors, such as religious leaders, parliamentarians, influencers, state representatives, and activists. In particular, the chapters demonstrate how the mobilization of legal language, notably the language of human rights, has become fundamental to developing and consolidating new political agendas concerning secularism, tolerance, freedom of expression, gender and sexuality, family, and cultural heritage. In the authors’ approach, human rights assume a central role in social disputes as a language in which actors constitute themselves as rights subjects, form activist networks, and pursue their goals by expressing themselves in public. Given its focus and scope, the book will be of interest to all scholars seeking to understand the relationships between diversity and the regulation of religious practices in plural societies, where the classical notion of secularism continues to show its limitations.

This book represents a unique contribution to understanding the interactions between law and religion in contemporary Brazil. It analyzes how the regulation of religions according to the classical notion of secularism has become a source of tensions since the 1990s. Against this background, the respective chapters demonstrate, on the basis of various case studies, how the constitutional principle of pluralism, introduced by the 1988 federal constitution after a military dictatorship, has been addressed by new political actors, such as religious leaders, parliamentarians, influencers, state representatives, and activists. In particular, the chapters demonstrate how the mobilization of legal language, notably the language of human rights, has become fundamental to developing and consolidating new political agendas concerning secularism, tolerance, freedom of expression, gender and sexuality, family, and cultural heritage. In the authors’ approach, human rights assume a central role in social disputes as a language in which actors constitute themselves as rights subjects, form activist networks, and pursue their goals by expressing themselves in public. Given its focus and scope, the book will be of interest to all scholars seeking to understand the relationships between diversity and the regulation of religious practices in plural societies, where the classical notion of secularism continues to show its limitations.

This book represents a unique contribution to understanding the interactions between law and religion in contemporary Brazil. It analyzes how the regulation of religions according to the classical notion of secularism has become a source of tensions since the 1990s. Against this background, the respective chapters demonstrate, on the basis of various case studies, how the constitutional principle of pluralism, introduced by the 1988 federal constitution after a military dictatorship, has been addressed by new political actors, such as religious leaders, parliamentarians, influencers, state representatives, and activists. In particular, the chapters demonstrate how the mobilization of legal language, notably the language of human rights, has become fundamental to developing and consolidating new political agendas concerning secularism, tolerance, freedom of expression, gender and sexuality, family, and cultural heritage. In the authors’ approach, human rights assume a central role in social disputes as a language in which actors constitute themselves as rights subjects, form activist networks, and pursue their goals by expressing themselves in public. Given its focus and scope, the book will be of interest to all scholars seeking to understand the relationships between diversity and the regulation of religious practices in plural societies, where the classical notion of secularism continues to show its limitations.

In recent decades, questions about who makes up a family, the role of biology in defining sex, and the origins of human life have been the source of deep social, moral, and legal controversies. This book focuses on the debates around same-sex marriage in seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States) and uses these debates to examine the demarcations and zones of transition between the religious and the nonreligious. Specifically, in a context of moral and religious diversification resulting from, among other things, the decentering of Christianity, the book analyzes the narratives, languages, and meanings constructed in the debate over marriage as a legal institution. What imaginaries emerge in relation to sexuality or the family when the Christian foundation of marriage is put under scrutiny? One of the novelties of this book is the use of legal controversies as a lens to observe the work of religious and nonreligious narratives and the materialities they produce. Rather than prioritizing the description of the values or worldviews of the nonreligious, the proposal is to understand "nonreligion" as a product of discursive disputes and the narration of alternative imaginaries about marriage configurations.