Religion, Politics and Death. The Articulation of Immanent Transcendent around Néstor Kirchner and Hugo Chávez Frías

Abstract

Secularization understood as the exit of a world where religion structured and commanded the political form of the society did not imply that the fundamental role that religion held for integration, legitimation and reproduction of society is presented as futile. Forcing the political sphere to rebuild through their own tools what religion once offered it, from the articulation of immanent transcendent, of political sacralization around different entities (nation, race, class, leaders). This paper addresses the way in which figures of Néstor Kirchner and Hugo Chávez Frías have been sacred after their death and how this allowed to articulate legitimacy and identity around the governments of Fernández and Maduro. To answer this question we focus on the speeches of Fernández and Maduro and observe from them the process of sacralization and how these presidents seek to legitimize themselves with this operation.