San Juan Does Not Look like Us
Popular Catholicism and Blackness in Venezuela
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2230028 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nadia Mosquera Muriel (0000-0002-7449-0781, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 14-26 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Transforming Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1051-0559 • E-ISSN: 1548-7466 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1086/730091 |
| OpenAlex | W4394768802 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
This article explores Afro-Venezuelan festivals organized around the figures of patron saints: San Juan Bautista, San Benito de Palermo, and San Juan Congo. I argue that the meanings attributed to their religious iconography in Venezuela channel cultural contestations against white supremacy elements embedded in the narrative of racial mixture, or mestizaje, in Latin America. I examine how the production of meanings about Blackness and ideas of skin color and racial identity are entangled with religious and Afro-Catholic cultural expressions in Venezuela historically shaped by plantation regimes, Catholic Church hegemony, and centuries of racism. However, during the period of the Bolivarian Revolution (1999–present) and the introduction of politicized meanings and expressions for Afro-Venezuelan groups, the skin color and racialized identity attributed to San Juan Bautista, San Benito Palermo, and San Juan Congo have subtly polarized religious believers into opposing groups that ultimately question the ideological fiction of racial democracy in Venezuela
Art · Humanities · Political science · Latin American and Latino Studies · Philosophy · Politics and Society in Latin America · Religion and Society in Latin America · Religious studies
Electric Santería
Cattle culture and colour symbolism as reflected in selected artworks of Sotho-Tswana in South Africa
Scripts of Blackness
Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil
The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World
Christian Slavery
The African Religions of Brazil
The Kingdom of Kongo and Palo Mayombe
Christian Imperialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Black Catholicism
Dance, Image, Myth, and Conversion in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1500–1800
Nkisi Figures of the Lower Congo
Afro-Christian Syncretism in the Kingdom of Kongo
On the Trail of Voodoo
Evangelical Black Activism in Brazil - Political Liminality and Situational Configuration
The Festive State
The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas
The selling of San Juan
Open veins
Race, Nation, and Diaspora in the Southern Caribbean
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |