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Buddhism in Argentina

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Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions

Introduction

Until recently, there was no precise information about Argentineans’ religious affiliation, because since 1960 the Argentinean Population and Household Census omitted this question. However, some recently conducted nationwide surveys again provide data about Argentineans’ religious belonging. It is 76.5 % Catholic, 9 % evangelist, and 11.3 % no religion. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses constitute 2.1 %, while other religious groups including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Afro-Americans constitute 1.2 % (Mallimaci 2013).

Although exact data on the number of Buddhists is missing, we estimate there are 30,000 adherents. This means that, in Argentina, with a population of over 40 million inhabitants, Buddhism barely attains 0.08 % of the population. However, it has undergone exponential growth, especially during Argentina’s democratization period in the mid-1980s. In our case, the pluralizing of the religious sphere in recent decades manifests itself in the establishment of...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas, University of Buenos Aires, Puan 480, office n° 465 and 465 bis, 1406, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Caton Carini

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  1. Caton Carini
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Correspondence to Caton Carini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology/Anthropology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Henri P. P. Gooren

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Carini, C. (2015). Buddhism in Argentina. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_123-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_123-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08956-0

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