Roejen and Stephanie welcome anthropologist Dr. Kate Kingsbury to discuss her work studying the less well known aspects of Santa Muerte devotion. Images of and ideas about Santa Muerte have multiplied phenomenally in popular media, but the perspective of her women followers - some of the most influential - are little represented. We talk about Dr. Kingsbury’s time in the field with poor, Indigenous women devotees in Mexico learning about how people excluded from standard avenues of status in society work with Santa Muerte to empower themselves and their community. We discuss the development of new religious movements, activism in academia, working with people on the ground as an ethnographer, archaeological and colonial evidence of Santa Muerte’s indigenous roots, how anthropologists understand paranormal events in their social/ritual contexts, and more!

Closing Music for The Show, Sepultura- Angel

Help Fund Dr. Kingsbury’s Research for her upcoming book “Daughters of Death”

https://ca.gofundme.com/f/fund-book-on-santa-muerte-the-skeleton-saint

Articles by Dr. Kingsbury on Santa Muerte and other topics: https://ualberta.academia.edu/KateKingsbury

For our interview, I drew from these three articles by Dr. Kingsbury:

“Mighty Mexican Mothers: Santa Muerte as Female Empowerment in Oaxaca”

https://skeletonsaint.com/2019/01/15/mighty-mexican-mothers-santa-muerte-as-female-empowerment-in-oaxaca/

“At Death`s Door in Cancun: Meeting Santa Muerte Witch Yuri Mendez”

https://skeletonsaint.com/2020/02/21/at-deaths-door-in-cancun-meeting-santa-muerte-witch-yuri-mendez/

“Supplicating Santa Muerte (Saint Death): Fierce Female Folk Saint as Source of Empowerment for Mexican Indigenous Women”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2019/03/santa-muerte/

SkeletonSaint - website for articles and pictures about Santa Muerte by scholars as well as devotees https://skeletonsaint.com/

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