Description

Why do people turn to contentious faiths during extremities?

Insecurity and Contemporary Mexican Religiosity investigates the intersection between insecurity and non-mainstream faiths in contemporary Mexico. This detailed study brings to light how the belief system representing three popular saints such as Santa Muerte, Jesús Malverde, and San Judas Tadeo have been co-opted by the country's poor, the marginal and the criminal fraternity.

By interrogating manifestations of this new religiosity in Mexican society, Amalendu Misra demonstrates, how faith serves as an instrument to assert power, challenge authority, and inflict injury on the adversary.

Misra also draws on testimonials, religious representations, and the disturbing statistics on infernal brutality, to underscore the dependence on specific forms of divinity, by those seeking to survive Mexico's ecosystem of out-of-control spiralling criminal violence.