Buddhism in Latin America and the Caribbean

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the historical development, institutional diversity, and contemporary dynamics of Buddhism across Latin America and the Caribbean. It brings together original chapters and translations of articles originally published in Portuguese and Spanish by a group of scholars whose pioneering work addresses a significant gap in the study of global and transnational Buddhism by focusing on a region that has received comparatively limited attention in the fields of Religious Studies, Sociology of Religion, Anthropology, and Latin American Studies. Organized into three parts, the book combines a regional overview with country-level analyses and thematic case studies. Chapters explore Buddhist communities and institutions in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and other countries of South America, highlighting the role of Japanese migration, ethnic Buddhist traditions, religious transplantation, conversion, and institutional formation. The volume also analyzes processes of adaptation, glocalization, self-orientalism, religious legitimation, and intercultural exchange, as well as the intersections of Buddhism with literature, philosophy, science, ritual practice, food, and popular religiosity. Combining fieldwork, archival research, comparative analysis, and sociological perspectives, Buddhism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Trajectories, Regional Perspectives and Case Studies demonstrates how Buddhist traditions have been reinterpreted within diverse Latin American and Caribbean contexts while maintaining connections to wider transnational networks. By bringing together regional surveys and detailed empirical studies, it provides an important resource for understanding the place of Buddhism in contemporary Latin American religious landscapes and contributes to broader discussions on religious mobility, globalization, and cultural transformation. Some chapters in this book are translations of articles originally published in Portuguese and Spanish. The translation of these articles into English was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.