Conversion, migration, and social identity: The spread of Protestantism in the Peruvian Andes*

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Abstract
This article discusses Protestant movements in a village in the Peruvian Andes. It tries to explain why villagers either reject or are attracted to Protestantism. The argument is that explanations traditionally proposed by anthropologists fail to account for the segmentation into competing denominations, the problem of relapse to Catholicism, and second‐ and third‐time conversion, and that new approaches are required to understand the nature of contemporary Protestant movements in Latin America. The article concludes that we enlarge our framework to include urban migrants and focus on the ties which link these migrants to their native village.