The Impact of Higher Education on Andean Spirituality: A Case Study with Quechua-Speaking and Rural Youth in Peru

Abstract

The growth of rural–urban migration not only affects the social and economic adaptation of the new rural generations to urban spaces but also produces a series of changes in their mental representations, as occurs with religious beliefs. Contrary to the assumption that Christianity is a religion adopted by the Latin American population in a uniform manner and in accordance with the patterns of the official religion, the present study shows the deep-rootedness of pre-Hispanic beliefs in a group of students of rural origin and from the south of the Peruvian Andes. This belief system manifests the persistence of animistic traits in the spirituality of rural youth in the Andes. The qualitative study uses ethnohistorical, anthropological, and theological analysis tools to demonstrate that young people of rural origin who access higher education (approximately 10% of the total population of rural youth) would be developing, through processes of critical analysis, new ways of elaborating a religious synthesis between imposed Christianity and ancestral beliefs of Andean origin.