Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería

Speaking a Sacred World

Kristina Wirtz

$84.95 $72.49

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

University Press of Florida
04 February 2025

Series: Contemporary Cuba

An insightful ethnographic account of the lives of Santería practitioners in CubaHow do Santería practitioners in Cuba create and maintain religious communities amidst tensions, disagreements, and competition among them, and in the absence of centralized institutional authority? What serves as the ""glue"" that holds practitioners of different backgrounds together in the creation of a moral community? Examining the religious lives of santeros in Santiago de Cuba, Wirtz argues that these communities hold together not because members agree on their interpretations of rituals but because they often disagree.

Religious life is marked by a series of ""telling moments""—not only the moments themselves but their narrated representations as they are retold and mined for religious meanings. Long after they occur, spiritually elevated experiences circulate in narratives that may express skepticism or awe and hold the promise of more such experiences. The author finds that these episodes resonate in gossip and other forms of public commentary about the experiences of their fellow Santería practitioners.

Drawing on ethnographic research about Santería beliefs and practices, Wirtz observes that practitioners are constantly engaged in reflection about what they and other practitioners are doing, how the orichas (deities) have responded, and what the consequences of their actions were or will be. By focusing their reflective attention on particular events, santeros re-create, moment to moment, what their religion is. Wirtz also argues that Santeria cannot be considered in isolation from the complex religious landscape of contemporary Cuba, in which African-based traditions are viewed with a mix of fascination, folkloric pride, and suspicion. Interactions among the conflicting discourses about these religions—as sacred practices, folklore, or dangerous superstitions, for example—have played a central role in constituting them as social entities. This book will interest scholars of religion, the African diaspora, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as well as linguistic and cultural anthropologists.

By: Kristina Wirtz
Imprint: University Press of Florida
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 431g
ISBN: 9780813081038
ISBN 10: 0813081033
Series: Contemporary Cuba
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 04 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kristina Wirtz is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist and professor of Spanish at Western Michigan University. She is the author of Performing Afro-Cuba: Image, Voice, Spectacle in the Making of Race and History.

Reviews for Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería: Speaking a Sacred World

""Wirtz's lucid and intimate ethnography of Santería practice in Santiago de Cuba addresses classic debates in the study of religions and African-derived cultures in the Americas.. . . . A rewarding, tightly structured read.""--Caribbean Studies ""The reader comes away with a vivid sense of the complexities of the historical emergence of Santería, of the competing agendas of Santería's ritual experts at this historical moment, of the distillation of relatively stable religious stances through moment-to-moment activities and discourse, and of the intimate interplay between the divine and the all too human.""--Journal of Linguistic Anthropology ""A sympathetic and detailed ethnography of a religious community. . . . A fine book for scholars interested in cultural theory and the construction of religious communities.""--Nova Religio ""Wirtz brings . . . a background in ecology and evolutionary theory that, combined with her expertise in linguistic anthropology, give her descriptions of discursive competition as a path to religious survival a rare prescience and urgency.""--Journal of Anthropological Research ""Wirtz's attention to the socially constitutive force of reflective discourse and her detailed ethnography suggest new directions for the study of Santería and religion.""--Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology