Bnei anusim: the continuity of sephardic culture in the northern andes. An ethnographic and geographic-postcolonial perspective

Abstract

Drawing on the analytical categories developed in Nathan Wachtel's recent ethnographies on the "Marranos" in Northeast Brazil, this article proposes a postcolonial reading of the Bnei Anousim migration processes in Hispanic America. Special attention is paid to the migratory waves that traveled from the Caribbean to Loja, converging with those from Recife, the Río de la Plata, and Lima, also destined for Loja. To support this interpretation, historical documentary sources, postcolonial domination theory in the analysis of spatial construction, and materials generated in ethnographic field diaries through participant observation and interviews in fourteen communities that, between 2015 and 2025, were undergoing processes of reconstructing their Jewish identity. These communities extend from the Colombian-Venezuelan Caribbean coast to the rivers of Loja, on the current border between Ecuador and Peru. The analysis reveals a clear correlation between colonial migration patterns and the persistence of contemporary Bnei Anousim cultural processes and movements, which incorporate significant Sephardic senses of belonging. To account for the heterogeneity of the recorded cultural forms, a categorization of the contemporary phenomenon is proposed, based on ethnographic and geographical data, demonstrating continuity across time and space. It is argued that the correlation between post-inquisition migration patterns, the emergence of new identities, and the establishment of contemporary movements can only be fully understood as a continuous and interrupted phenomenon.