Insecurity and Contemporary Mexican Religiosity investigates the intersection between insecurity and non-mainstream faiths in contemporary Mexico. It asks why people turn to contentious faiths during extremities. This detailed study brings to light how a belief system representing three popular saints - Santa Muerte, Jesús Malverde, and San Judas Tadeo - has beenadopted by the country s poor and marginal and co-opted by criminal fraternities. By interrogating manifestations of this new religiosity in Mexican society, Amalendu Misra demonstrates how faith can bolster the assertion ofpower in order to challenge authority and even on occasion inflict injury on adversaries. Misra also draws on testimonials, religious representations, and disturbingstatistics regarding brutality to underscore the dependence on specific forms of divinity, of those seeking to survive Mexico s ecosystem of spiralling criminal violence.
1. Intro.- 2. The Architecture of Insecurity.- 3. The Subalterns.- 4. The Saints.- 5. Unrighteous Agency.- 6. Liminality.- 7. Conclusion.
Amalendu Misra is Professor of International Politics at Lancaster University, UK. He is the author of the following monographs:
On Beheading(2022);
Towards a Philosophy of Narco Violence in Mexico (2017);
The Landscape of Silence: Sexual Violence Against Men in War (2015);
Politics of Civil Wars (2008);
Afghanistan The Labyrinth of Violence (2005); and
Identity and Religion (2004).
