Abraham Hawley Suárez

This project explores the use and transformation of religion and secularism as governance discourses within Mexico’s new religious policy. As part of a broader anti-violence effort, in 2019 the López Obrador administration launched the “Creamos Paz” strategy (Let’s Create/Believe in Peace) through the Office of Religious Affairs. The initiative promotes peace and public morality collaborating with local officials, scholars, and interfaith groups, challenging Mexico’s anticlerical secular tradition and reflecting the growing influence of religious freedom and diversity discourses. My study examines how these collaborations reshape religious actors’ power within the Mexican secular regime, amid the rise of evangelicalism. It also investigates how peace and pluralism discourses legitimizing these actions may conceal mechanisms of limited inclusion and veiled exclusion, potentially affecting Indigenous groups and non-Christian religious minorities. Research methods include participant observation in government offices and interfaith events at federal and local levels, interviews with bureaucrats and religious leaders, analysis of official documents, and multivariate analysis of government statistics. My ethnographic and interdisciplinary approach uncovers the local and transnational dynamics shaping Mexico’s secular state, bridging the gap between secularism anthropology and Latin American “laicidad” studies. By observing an understudied bureaucratic area—religious affairs offices—my research also reveals religion’s role in state formation.