Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This paper studies the devotion of La Santa Muerte (LSM) and her positionality within the territories of vernacular and folk Catholicism. Her followers, or Santamuertistas, as they are known, describe themselves as profoundly Catholic, at least culturally, and despite the resistance from ecclesiastic authorities. Based on firsthand interviews, ethnographic visits to religious events, and textual analysis of their public and private prayers, this article explores not only how her leaders weave La Santa Muerte devotion into Christian spiritual narratives of salvation (especially concerning the death and Resurrection of Christ), but also, how hegemonic narratives shape other, unsanctioned religious phenomena, beyond their apparent contradictions. It analyses how devotees position her worship within the context of other Catholic devotions. For them, LSM coexists within a spiritual hierarchy, below God, but above other saints. The paper also studies the juxtaposition of LSM with the Holy Virgin Mary. The relationship between both figures is a complex one, characterized by two tensions: one regarding Santamuertistas’ interpretations of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption, and its relationship to death, and second, concerning Santamuertistas merging of both figures as manifestations of a spiritual woman-motherhood. The study argues that these “re-writing” processes create spiritual cohesiveness and wholeness under the constraints and fractures created by rigid notions of inclusion/exclusion and exist within the context of the effects of neoliberal policies of greed and exploitation, imposed on poor Mexican and Latina/o/x immigrant communities in the U.S. within the last decades.