Challenging Stereotypes, Testing Hypotheses, and Presenting Truths About Santeria

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Clark, Maribeth

Keywords

Santeria, Afro-Cuban Religion, Syncretism, Ethnography, Tampa, Florida

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

This exploration challenges the stereotypes attributed to Santeria by the dominant Protestant culture and media of the United States, examines the observations of bygone and contemporary anthropologists, and offers new insights on the religion. It employs material from interviews with santeros and santeras living in Tampa, sacred stories, songs, and poems, and personal anecdotes to convey that the popular depictions of Santeria are not founded on reality, and that charges of irrationality and darkness and criticism of embodiment in the religion as primitive are unjustified, to test the hypotheses of Santeria�s new openness, Afro-centrism, syncretism, and growing racial and ethnic composition, and to relate that Santeria is benevolent, rational, and empowering in its gender fluidity and acceptance of �alternative� sexualities, and that its practitioners are diverse and singular. Ultimately, through the mode of experimental, creative, and self-reflexive ethnography, this project concludes that Santeria is a complex and benevolent religion that scarcely resembles its popular depictions, that includes a wide array of practitioners, all unique, yet all undoubtedly human, and that it should be accorded respect.

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