Overview

This groundbreaking ethnography offers a deep psychological framework for understanding the Santa Muerte (Saint Death) phenomenon in Mexico. Emerging from a social landscape marked by ultra-violent criminality, government corruption, soaring rates of femicide, forced disappearances, and pervasive impunity, devotion to Santa Muerte signals a profound breakdown of the traditional Hispano-Christian image of God. Her veneration can be understood as a psychological response from a society grappling with ‘bad death,’ where loss and violence are ever-present in daily life. Anchored in intimate case studies and a Jungian archetypal interpretation, the book demonstrates how Santa Muerte’s inherent moral ambiguity enables devotees to navigate the blurred boundaries between good and evil, safety and peril, and justice and lawlessness. She stands as a potent response to the ongoing socio-political and psychological instability created by Mexico’s dominant patriarchal institutions (state, church, and cartels). The book explores the spirituality of the most vulnerable and marginalised in response to persistent threats and the collapse of conventional safety nets, arguing that devotion to Santa Muerte functions as a critical psychological container for destructive forces, offering a sense of order and control amid the real and existential dangers of a society living through the chaos of an ‘apocalypse.’ This is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Mexican studies, as it highlights the psychological impact of life near death.

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9781032187532

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Reviews

""Based on ethnographic fieldwork among the devotees of the Santa Muerte (Saint Death) in the greater area of Mexico City, this monograph is an outstanding contribution to the critical anthropological knowledge of the present-day Mexican megapolitan lifeworld and its religious imaginary. As a work of interpretation, Risteska’s study offers an original synthesis of Jungian archetypal psychology and phenomenology through which the social reality and experience of death is rendered intelligible in the fulness of its cultural-historical singularity and existential meaningfulness. This book shows on every page what anthropological understanding and its foundational praxis - ethnographic fieldwork - are supposed to accomplish."" - Jadran Mimica, Honorary Associate, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney

Author Information

Wendy Risteska is an anthropologist who received her PhD from the University of Sydney under the guidance of Dr. Jadran Mimica and Dr. Sebastian Job. Jungian Perspectives on Santa Muerte Devotees in Mexico: Worshipping Death is her first monograph and explores her interest in the archetypal reproduction of society.

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