The Intimacy of Images: Saints, Death and Devotion to La Santa Muerte in Oaxaca - Couverture souple

Lamrani, Myriam

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 147733002X ISBN 13 : 9781477330029

Editeur : University of Texas Press, 2025

Synopsis

La Santa Muerte becomes a lens for understanding how Oaxacans relate to saints, loved ones, and other “special dead.” In Oaxaca, images of saints and loved ones, as well as of victims of political or criminal violence, are seemingly everywhere. While Oaxacans relate to all sorts of “special dead,” they are particularly devoted to La Santa Muerte (Saint Death), a female reaper-like figure whose popularity has risen in tandem with violence throughout Mexico. The Intimacy of Images recontextualizes Oaxacans’ relationships with their “special dead” through the lens of La Santa Muerte, examining how devotees closely interact with what Lamrani terms “intimate images”: not only devotional effigies but also photographs, films, tattoos, murals; even dreams and visions. Though Mexicans have a well-known cultural familiarity with death, Lamrani argues that devotion to La Santa Muerte builds upon this intimacy even as it also participates in the production of terror and reflects political and criminal violence. Ultimately, Lamrani finds that these human-image interactions represent more than Catholic devotion; they reveal the secrets of Oaxacan political, religious, and social life, embody changing relationships to mortality and violence, and even offer insight into the practice of anthropology itself.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Myriam Lamrani is an Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, where she previously served as Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow from 2021 to 2024.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Texas Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 147733002X
• ISBN 13: 9781477330029
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 224
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible