The Maryknoll Sisters' Mission in Nicaragua and the Material Antecedents of Radicalization

Abstract:The 1980 killing of four U.S. churchwomen in El Salvador was a pivotal moment that called international attention to a country torn apart by violence, but the radical commitments of U.S. missionary sisters had deeper roots. Sister Maura Clarke—one of those murdered in El Salvador—spent seventeen years in Nicaragua as a Maryknoll missioner. Having lived and worked among Central America's poor for decades, the Maryknoll sisters were shaped by their interactions with local rural and urban poor. These experiences refashioned their understanding of the sacred and led them to embrace the possibility of death. This research examines the relationship between the Maryknoll sisters and Nicaraguans through material culture, including clothing, food, health, family, water, and housing. Their experiences, as mediated through the material, formed the antecedents of the sisters' radicalization.