Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • La Santa Muerte in Mexico City: The Cult and its Ambiguities

  • REGNAR ALBÆK KRISTENSEN
  • Journal:
    Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 47 / Issue 3 / August 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 February 2015, pp. 543-566
    Print publication:
    August 2015

  • This article explores the worship of La Santa Muerte through a geo-mapping of street altars in Mexico City followed by an ethnographic analysis of the devotees' relationships with the saint. I find that this saint has gained momentum among the fast-growing prison population over the last two decades. In contrast to studies that emphasise the desertification of mass incarceration elsewhere, this study finds that La Santa Muerte connects families across the social abyss of imprisonment. I suggest that the family-like relationships that devotees maintain with this saint are crucial to understanding her success. Rather than a one-dimensional sacred defender of criminals and police she is adopted by prisoners, prison officers, police and their families as a capricious ‘family member’, embracing the same ambivalence as the forces she helps to navigate.