Death is Women’s Work: Santa Muerte, a Folk Saint and Her Female Followers

Abstract

Santa Muerte is a new religious movement that originated in Mexico. It centers on devotion to death. It has come under fire from the Catholic Church, the Mexican State, and mass media across the Americas. In misrepresentations that are often racist, and sexist, Santa Muerte has been portrayed by the above institutions as a ‘narco-saint’, that is a saint worshiped by narcotraffickers, and the religion portrayed as one that only violent, barbaric males follow This article counters this erroneous depiction suggesting that devotion to death is women's work. I detail how Santa Muerte has long been appealed to by women who have been at the fulcrum of the expansion of the movement. I describe how knowledge of Santa Muerte continues to be germinated by women who through gynocentric thanatological praxis are empowered and fashion spaces in which to deal with the violence, precarity and poverty that riddles the Mexican post-colony.