Abstract
This chapter addresses the need to revisit and reinvigorate academic research on the African diaspora in Mexico. Using examples from ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in Veracruz, this research illustrates how performances involving representations of the African diaspora and the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería in particular are shaped and informed by both local and national government funding, and as a result, directly linked to multiple agendas.1 This research deconstructs the use of an African-derived religious tradition in conjunction with a reinterpretation of the mestizaje, or race-mixing, concept so integral in the Americas. The importance of religion is highlighted as a cultural tradition commercialized via festivals into foreign symbols of local identity.
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© 2007 Theodore Louis Trost
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Castañeda, A.N. (2007). The African Diaspora in Mexico: Santería, Tourism, and Representations of the State. In: Trost, T.L. (eds) The African Diaspora and the Study of Religion. Religion/Culture/Critique. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609938_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609938_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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