The Religion and Democratic Contestation project sought to improve our understanding of religious responses to emergent rights-based social justice mobilizations in Latin American democracies. Building on a now completed project focused on the relationship of religion to violence in Latin America under circumstances both of dictatorship and democracy, this initiative sought to describe and compare how religious actors, organizations, and hierarchies are currently participating in transnational, national and local advocacy associated with two widespread sources of conflicts characteristic of the region's democracies: conflicts over extractive resources, environmental and climate justice on the one hand, and contestation relating to gender and sexuality on the other. In so doing, this initiative assessed the extent of continuity and change in religious approaches to rights and justice in Latin America, from the past to the present.

The environment and gender were chosen as topics to organize the current project, given the evident public debate and social contestation these two questions generate in Latin America today, and our assessment that public perceptions of these issues are changing. This project gave particular attention to interactions between religion and governments, religious and civil society actors, and between local and transnational advocacy networks, including the role of religious actors in the creation and application of the law. A primary project goal was to identify and explain the range of variation of religious orientations to rights, justice and to the law. A second goal was to identify the sources of specific conceptions of rights and justice for religious advocacy, as articulated by theological concepts and positions as well as local and national engagements, but also by religious participation in transnational advocacy networks dedicated to these issues.

This project was directed by Robert Albro, a Research Associate Professor at CLALS, together with the Center's Director, Eric Hershberg, and co-Principal Investigators Evan Berry, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion and co-director of the Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs Master's Program at American University, and Macarena Saez, Faculty Director, Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law.