| Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion Contributor(s): Beliso-de Jesús, Aisha (Author) |
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ISBN: 0231173172 ISBN-13: 9780231173179 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $33.66 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Religion | Ethnic & Tribal - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Social Science | Media Studies |
| Dewey: 299.674 |
| LCCN: 2014043951 |
| Series: Gender, Theory, and Religion |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.90 lbs) 304 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Santería is an African-inspired, Cuban diaspora religion long stigmatized as witchcraft and often dismissed as superstition, yet its spirit- and possession-based practices are rapidly winning adherents across the world. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús introduces the term "copresence" to capture the current transnational experience of Santería, in which racialized and gendered spirits, deities, priests, and religious travelers remake local, national, and political boundaries and reconfigure notions of technology and transnationalism. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic research in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, and in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, Beliso-De Jesús traces the phenomenon of copresence in the lives of Santería practitioners, mapping its emergence in transnational places and historical moments and its ritual negotiation of race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, and religious travel. Santería's spirits, deities, and practitioners allow digital technologies to be used in new ways, inciting unique encounters through video and other media. Doing away with traditional perceptions of Santería as a static, localized practice or as part of a mythologized "past," this book emphasizes the religion's dynamic circulations and calls for nontranscendental understandings of religious transnationalisms. |
Contributor Bio(s): Beliso-de Jesus, Aisha: - Aisha Beliso-Dde Jesus (PhD, Anthropology, Stanford) is Professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and American Studies at Princeton University; prior to this position she was Professor of African American Religions at Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of Electric Santeria: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion (Columbia, 2015), which won the Raboteau Award for Best Book in Africana Religions. |