Romberg R (1998)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Thesis
Publication year: 1998
This study explores the commodification of witchcraft (brujeria) in an urban, capitalist context in Puerto Rico. Against the predictions of the Enlightenment, witchcraft has not disappeared with modernity; it has selectively changed its modus operandi to adapt to the new social space of consumer capitalism and transnationalism. Due to what appears to be a kind of cultural Darwinism and a historic disregard for orthodoxy, the Puerto Rican blend of Kardecean Spiritism, popular Mediterranean Catholicism, and Afro-Latin witchcraft and magic is a winning combination that offers an answer to the ambiguities of a society guided by late consumer capitalism and the welfare state. A historic perspective and a survey of the public debate about witchcraft adds to the ethnographic research, providing a comparative view on the relationships of the state and global discourses to brujeria since Spanish Catholic colonial rule, the process of nineteenth century nation-state building, until the total separation of State and religion under U.S. rule. Witches, after centuries of religious change that transformed them from "heretics" to "charlatans," operate today in a commodified "laissez-faire" social space as "spiritual entrepreneurs." Brujeria lives and thrives in a transnational world and a post-capitalist society, turning the contemporary social space of witchcraft into an arena of complex interests and threats. The transnational circulation of goods and people has increased the pool of saints, deities, charms, prayers and potions to draw from in order to summon the occult forces that help to attain personal power and material success. This dissertation tests a major and potentially controversial question: must witchcraft be relegated to the exotic or the subversive? Rather, this research is proof of a safe coexistence and/or deep connection of witchcraft and capitalism which flies in the face of any attempt to perceive human action in dual terms. Brujeria today has elevated material success to a morally and spiritually grounded ethos; viz., a "calling" and a "blessing." This form of "spiritualized materialism" is simultaneously recharging the reproductive energies of brujeria and consumer capitalism.
APA:
Romberg, R. (1998). The profession of brujeria on spiritual entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico (Dissertation).
MLA:
Romberg, Raquel. The profession of brujeria on spiritual entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico. Dissertation, 1998.
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