The Minister of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification and president of the Centro de Estudios Andaluces Foundation (Centra), Antonio Sanz, has signed an agreement with the mayor of Puente Genil and president of the Caminos de Pasión Association, José María Velasco, for the development of a study on popular religiosity in Andalusia. This initiative is promoted by Centra in collaboration with the Simancas Institute of History at the University of Valladolid, which is responsible for scientific coordination.
The research project, entitled Multidisciplinary Study of Popular Religiosity as a Marker of Andalusian Identity, is an innovative work that aims to analyze the material and immaterial heritage of Andalusia to understand how identities are generated and reinforced based on devotions. The work will be carried out from a socio-heritage, socio-economic, sociological, anthropological perspective, with archival-documentary support.
According to the Minister, «the analysis and reflection on the multiplicity of heritage expressions linked to popular religiosity must be based on a thorough knowledge of bibliographic, documentary, and hemerographic sources, because religious culture is an essential part of our common heritage, as demonstrated by the Government of the Junta de Andalucía from various areas of action.»
This project’s working method will be developed until the end of 2026 with a multidimensional perspective. On the one hand, the inheritance of the past will be studied to understand the genesis of Andalusian devotional heritage and the current bases of popular religiosity in Andalusia. Likewise, the present panorama will be analyzed to understand the identitary relevance of popular religiosity in Andalusia, with its ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, and socio-economic impact. Finally, the future perspective will be addressed, allowing the delineation of the dynamics that Andalusian society will develop in relation to its identity and the manifestations of its various beliefs, as well as the dissemination and expression in new generations and through their means of communication and sociability, such as social networks and blogs.
Agreement with Caminos de Pasión
To advance in the study, the Minister of the Presidency has signed this agreement with the Association for the Touristic Development of the Caminos de Pasión Route, founded in 2002 and composed of ten Andalusian municipalities –Alcalá la Real (Jaén), Baena, Cabra, Lucena, Priego de Córdoba and Puente Genil (Córdoba) and Carmona, Écija, Osuna, and Utrera (Seville)- with the common element of Holy Week, a Touristic Interest Festival of Andalusia, from a cultural and ethnographic point of view.
Thanks to the agreement with Caminos de Pasión, the research project will have access to the contacts, sources, and working methods of the association, as well as the human and material resources available in each municipality. Researchers will be able to access documentary and archival data, both computerized and digital, from municipal archives, as well as provide descriptions and digitizations of museum pieces of the identity and devotional heritage of the different localities. Finally, it will allow collaboration in anthropological fieldwork on the study of the role of women in Holy Week in Andalusia.
In this sense, Minister Antonio Sanz has emphasized the importance of this project as «Holy Week is a cultural, material, and immaterial manifestation.» «Its human and artistic implications, its socio-economic and heritage impact, its safeguarding at a national, regional, and local level, is a fundamental element of social cohesion, common history, identity links, and future for and by Andalusia,» he stated.
