Abstract: (The basic premise of this study questions whether the expressions of masculinity in male farmers from the 20th Century show perceptible links to their religious practices and their understanding of spirituality. Thus, the question arises: how are these important existential dimensions articulated and how do they interact with each other in the lives of these men?
The School of Planning and Social Promotion of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA, for its acronym in Spanish) conducted and encouraged the production of a large collection of autobiographic stories told by these farmers, and these were used to identify characteristics of religiousness, masculinity, and spirituality in Costa Rican farmers throughout the 20th Century.
To accomplish this, the first step was the analysis of critical theoretical-methodological approaches for each one of the variables of interest (gender, religiousness, spirituality), as well as for the different interrelations that could arise among the studied stories. As a preliminary initial path, we paid particular attention to four noteworthy points in the stories: family experiences revealed by the authors, social and labor incursions highlighted by them, the meanings they assigned to their existence, and the geographical movements of the subjects.
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