Donde dos almas se sanan
Introducción: presentación de la animita
Se va el cuerpo, queda el alma
Imagen 1. Animita de Catalina
Lili Almási-Szabó y David Arturo Espinoza
Calle Compañía de Jesús, Santiago centro, Santiago de Chile.
Diciembre, 2024.
“Mira, cuando alguien muere en un accidente, lo único que queda es su cuerpo. Su alma aún no tiene lugar en el cielo. Él se queda aquí en la Tierra. Se aferra a donde dejó el cuerpo. Por eso le estamos construyendo una casa para que pueda vivir allí”.
Ernesto, 56 años, Chillán (2015)
Imagen 2. Animita del Virola
David Arturo Espinoza
Calle Chacabuco, Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Julio, 2025.
“En el lugar donde ocurrió un accidente está bien poner algo, una placa, una crucecita, un recuerdo. Mejor que en el cementerio. Porque ahí está solo el cuerpo. Pero donde ocurrió el accidente, está ahí su alma […] Una animita tiene una razón de ser. Ahí murió alguien. Y en qué condiciones murió, si fue una persona buena, una persona mala, fue trágico o no fue trágico, y el precio que le tenga la muerte para la familia […] Levantamos una animita a esa injusticia de que murió”.
Javier, 51 años, Santiago (2016)
Imagen 3. Animita en el barrio de Lo Franco.
Santiago Urzúa.
Quinta Normal, Santiago de Chile.
Julio, 2024.
“Chile es un país tremendamente legalista. Si algo no está escrito en el código romano, esculpido en piedra, no vale, no existe […] Pero aquí no es el caso. Aquí existe un derecho adquirido por el solo hecho de ser familia afectada, víctima de una muerte trágica. No está escrito en ninguna ley, pero es un derecho adquirido […] Las animitas, como muchas otras cosas en Chile, se sostienen únicamente gracias al voluntarismo, tal como ocurre, por ejemplo, con los bomberos […] Por un tema de respeto, la legalidad tiende a diluirse en cuanto a su rigidez o a su capacidad de imponerse físicamente”.
Pablo, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
La animita como advertencia
Imagen 4. Animita en una avenida concurrida.
Belén Miranda Osses
Av. Pajaritos, Maipú, Región Metropolitana, Chile.
Enero, 2023.
“Las animitas no son un fenómeno, son una realidad. Están ahí, en esos lugares, porque ahí es donde ocurren las cosas […] La animita te advierte que es una curva peligrosa o que la cuesta es riesgosa. Mira, está lleno de animitas […] En todo Chile esto es casi un comentario obligado: ‘Ojo ahí, donde hay tantas animitas’. Fue un accidente, y un accidente no ocurre en cualquier pasaje; ocurre en lugares peligrosos, en sectores alejados del radio urbano. Influyen la topografía, el clima, la peligrosidad de la vía, la neblina, la camanchaca, la lluvia intensa u otros riesgos […] Una animita llega más que un letrero para quienes manejan por ahí, más que una señalética de velocidad. Porque una señal —un disco pare, por ejemplo— es solo una advertencia. En cambio, una animita es la señal de que [algo ocurrió aquí]”.
Imagen 5. Sin título
Lili Almási-Szabó
Chillán, Chile.
Septiembre, 2016.
“Los caminos son peligrosos porque la gente maneja cansada y estresada. Por eso también se construyen las animitas. Salen apurados a la pega [trabajo], porque tienen que llegar a una hora. Y de vuelta, salen tarde del trabajo, ya van cansados, con hambre, y no logran concentrarse. A veces basta con estar de mal ánimo. Una pelea, por ejemplo. Desde que murió mi hermano chico, pongo especial cuidado en no manejar cuando estoy muy agotado. Pero igual, lamentablemente, uno tiene que subirse al auto. La pega es la pega [El trabajo es el trabajo]. A veces incluso me pasa que, manejando, parpadeo más lento de lo normal. Ahí me entra el susto”.
Jaime, 55 años, Quilicura (2017)
Imagen 6. Animitas en la Ruta 5.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Entre Chillán y Santiago, Chile.
Marzo, 2016.
“La ruta 5 es un ataúd largo y estrecho. Chile es el campeón mundial de las animitas. Aunque se discute si el origen de la tradición es europeo o precolonial, una cosa es segura: ningún país tiene más animitas que Chile”.
Pumarino, Las Últimas Noticias, Feria del Transporte (2012)
Imagen 7. Sin título.
Belén Miranda Osses.
Av. Esquina Blanca con Av. Segunda Transversal, Maipú, Región Metropolitana, Chile.
Noviembre 2022.
“En las rutas urbanas se dan dos fenómenos importantes a destacar. Primero, las animitas aparecen más hacia los sectores populares y sectores medios, y no hacia los estratos más altos. No sé si eso se debe a creencias u otros factores. Lo segundo, yo diría que prácticamente todos —o al menos un porcentaje importante— están relacionados con atropellos, principalmente de ciclistas. Hay algo bien llamativo ahí. La animita suele estar asociada a muertes repentinas, a situaciones con las que los familiares no quedan conformes. En cambio, cuando ha habido un fallecido producto de un atropello por imprudencia, no se genera una animita; por ejemplo, cuando alguien cruza la autopista de manera imprudente”.
Rodrigo, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
Imagen 8. Animita de Diego.
David Arturo Espinoza
Carretera Austral con Río Puelche, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
En la intersección de río Puelche con la carretera Austral está la animita de Diego. Estuve explorando animitas en Puerto durante el verano, y también conocí varias en Santiago y Valparaíso, pero la de Diego es la primera que emula una moto. Hay de bicicletas, ¿pero de motos? Solo la de él, que yo sepa. Llegué hasta una calle antes de la animita, y antes de cruzar hacia ella pasaron varios autos, lo que me dio tiempo para pensar. Desde donde estaba, parecía una moto detenida en la calle. Quiero decir: se notaba que era de neumáticos, pero la silueta calzaba perfectamente con la vía desde mi perspectiva. Pensé que era como ver un fantasma, pero no en el sentido “¡Buuu!”, que te quiere dar susto, sino más bien como el eco de algo que pasó y que ahora busca decirles a las personas: ‘¡Ten cuidado!’.
Animitas milagrosas
La animita de María Márquez, Nercón
Imagen 9. Animita de María Márquez.
Pedro Pablo Medina
Ruta 5, Nercón, Chiloé, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“Toda la vida viendo a mis compañeros de viaje o de paseo persignarse al pasar cerca de ella. La animita de Nercón, María Márquez, cuida la carretera y a sus andantes. Junto a un puente, frente al mar, y al estero en donde encontró la muerte. Ella está, concede favores, y permite el compartir. Pocos son los que no saben de ella, su presencia es significante y una calle aledaña lleva su nombre. Y es que nos acompaña, o quizá la acompañamos, desde cerca de 100 años.
Pedro Pablo Medina, relato de observación (2025)
Imagen 10. Animita de María Márquez.
Pedro Pablo Medina
Ruta 5, Nercón, Chiloé, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“Cuentan que hace cien años
Una niñita murió
/:Su alma se fue al cielo
Junto al creador:/
Todo el pueblo te venera
Como bella tradición
/:Y yo te doy homenaje
Animita de Nercón:/
Animita milagrosa
Dulce veneración
/:Toda la gente te honra
Con plegarias y oración:/”.
Fragmento “Homenaje a animita Márquez”, Marco Bastidas Cárcamo (2019)
La animita de Fortuoso, Puerto Montt
Imagen 11. Animita de Fortuoso.
David Arturo Espinoza.
Calle Las Quemas, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“Caramba, ¡ay, amor!
Allá por el año veinte
Existió una muerte violenta,
Milagrosa animita.
Caramba, mataron
Mataron a un campesino,
Que tendrá por muerte violenta
Milagrosa animita.
¡Ay!, se llamaba Fortuoso,
Caramba, sigue vigente.
En camino Las Quemas
Va mucha gente,
Milagrosa animita
Se llamaba Fortuoso,
Sigue vigente,
Milagrosa animita.
A mucha gente, ¡ay sí!
Caramba, él ha cumplido.
Y se encuentra su placa
Agradecido,
Milagrosa animita.
El ánima Fortuoso,
Caramba, soy respetuoso”.
Cueca Fortuoso Soto – Mario Cárdenas con Los Piolitas Cueca Brava
Imagen 12. Animita de Fortuoso.
David Arturo Espinoza.
Calle Las Quemas, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“[…] También, hay un porcentaje importante [de animitas] que se pierden en el tiempo, mientras otras sí se mantienen hasta la eternidad”.
Luis, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
La animita de Romualdito
Imagen 13. Animita de Romualdito.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Enero 2017.
“Los niños que pasan junto a Romualdito señalan con sus dedos y preguntan en voz alta: ‘¡Mamá!, ¿qué es esto?’. La respuesta: ‘Es Romualdito, ¿ves? ¡Es un santito! ¡Salúdalo!’. Otra madre, sonriendo, le dice a su pequeña hija, de aproximadamente un año, que la mira con sus ojos grandes mientras está en sus brazos: ‘¡Mira! ¡Ahí está Romualdito! ¡Adiós, Romualdito!’. Seguramente han pasado por allí varias veces. La mujer reduce la velocidad, pero no se detiene. Caminan despacio. Levanta la mano de su hija, esperando a que ella comience a mover sus deditos. Finalmente, la niña saluda con la mano, y el dúo desaparece entre las casas”.
Lili Almási-Szabó, diario de campo (2017)
Imagen 14. Animita de Romualdito.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Enero 2017.
“Bueno, aquí [en este país] creemos en los milagros. ¿Dónde puede estar ahora esta alma que ha fallecido? Solo él o Dios lo saben, nosotros no. Tal vez está descansando, o tal vez está en el cielo. Yo no puedo decirle eso, hija. Si esta persona murió con Jesús, entonces ahora está durmiendo. Si murió en pecado, tal vez está en un lago de fuego, o un ángel o un pájaro lo recogerá y lo llevará al cielo. Eso no lo sé. Es la fe y las peticiones de la gente lo que mueve a estos seres. Mire, aquí están los regalos, los mensajes. Se debe decir: ‘Mira, Romualdito, te traigo un paquete de velas, un pequeño regalo, una placa. ¿Lo ve?'”. El caballero señaló una placa de agradecimiento en la que decía: “Gracias por favor concedido” […] “Si usted viene aquí y le pide trabajo, porque desea hacer esto y aquello, hay que cumplirle [al alma]”.
Imagen 15. Carta para la animita de Romualdito.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Enero 2017.
La animita de Astrid, la Niña Hermosa
Imagen 16. “La Niña Hermosa”, Animita de Astrid Soto.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Km 22 de la ruta 78, Santiago de Chile.
2023.
“Me tocó un caso en la ruta 78. Había una animita, la Niña Hermosa. Se llama Astrid Soto. Su accidente ocurrió en 1998. El memorial que estaba por la calzada en sentido hacia Santiago, en el kilómetro 22. Era un lugar muy complejo, y era mejor cambiarlo de calzada […] El proyecto contemplaba hacer un memorial estructurado con estacionamiento, acceso y salida vehicular, con techo, con pavimentos, con un pequeño paisajismo y con iluminación. Y entró el dilema de que cómo trasladamos la animita, porque una cosa es llevar los peluches, pero el muerto estaba en el otro lado. Entonces no es lo mismo, en términos de la afectividad. Las conversaciones con la familia fueron súper bien, y para resolver, se contrató a una médium. La médium nos indica que Astrid estuvo a favor del cambio de ubicación”.
Imagen 17. “La Niña Hermosa”, Animita de Astrid Soto.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Km 22 de la ruta 78, Santiago de Chile.
2023.
“Mi Niña Hermosa, mi Niña Milagrosa, mi Niña Majestuosa, hoy vengo a visitarte para agradecer tu favor concedido, agradecer tu presencia en mi vida y las infinitas ayudas y bendiciones que le has entregado a mi vida para poder lograr y hacer realidad cada una de mis peticiones. Astrid, gracias por acompañarme, cuidarme y protegerme en este viaje tan importante para mí, gracias por permitirme que saliera todo bien. Por favor, te pido me ayudes a que todo siga saliendo bien con el tema de mis licencias y reliquidaciones de las mismas, te pido por las ventas del local y, bueno, tú sabes que cada sueño y proyecto que tenga en mente pueda salir bien y prosperar. Te pido para alcanzar mi prosperidad y tranquilidad tanto física, emocional como económica. Por el bienestar tanto de mi familia como de todos mis seres queridos”.
Animita en el espacio cotidiano
Encuentros cotidianos
Imagen 18. Sin título.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Calle Clave, Barrio Puerto, Valparaíso, Chile.
Octubre, 2024.
“Al ladito de una tiendita escondida a los pies de los cerros de Valparaíso, justo en la esquina donde la calle se angosta y casi se pierde entre las casas apretadas, hay una animita chiquitita, viejita, pero bien cuidada. El sol ya destiñó su color. Pero siempre tiene algunas flores, como si alguien se preocupara todos los días de pasar a dejarle un cariño. Desde ahí, parece que vela por los que entran y salen a comprar el pan calentito pa’l desayuno o la once [merienda], como una especie de guardiana silenciosa del barrio. Nadie la mira mucho, pero todos —incluso los perros callejeros— la respetan. Ellos no levantan la pata como lo hacen con los postes y paredes. Algunos vecinos le dejan una moneda, otros bajan la cabeza al pasar, como si supieran que esa presencia cuida, observa, y acompaña”.
Imagen 19. Animita de Clemente
Santiago Urzúa
Puente de lo Curro, rotonda Carol Urzúa, Vitacura, Santiago de Chile.
Julio, 2023.
“Al borde del río Mapocho, justo donde los ciclistas doblan después de cruzar el puente, hay una animita distinta a todas. No tiene rejas, ni vidrios, ni estructura de cemento. Es una animita construida de solo plantas en macetas. Como si alguien las hubiese ido dejando una por una, para darle forma a un altar con el tiempo. Entre el gris del polvo de la ruta, la sequedad del río, las plantas verdes del altar roban la atención. Este lugar invita a los ciclistas a detenerse, para sentarse unos minutos en sus bancas de madera a descansar. Quienes se detienen pueden admirar el paisaje, las fotos descoloridas del altar, y la colección de piedras y plantitas del joven Clemente”.
Lili Almási-Szabó, relato de observación (2025)
Imagen 20. Animita de Mauricio Araya
Lili Almási-Szabó
Ruta 5, La Higuera, Coquimbo, Chile.
Octubre 2025.
“En el norte son más grandes y tienen un significado simbólico, más entorno a la historia que tienen. Algunas son unas mansiones […] Ahí los camioneros tocan la bocina […] Tú ves ahí las animitas en pleno desierto. Por ejemplo, es común encontrar botellas de agua que dejan los camioneros que se detienen ahí, por la historia de la Difunta Correa”.
Emilia, funcionaria del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
Imagen 21. Sin título.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Camino Parque Lantaño, Chillán, Chile.
Septiembre, 2015.
“Acá, en el sur, el contacto con las animitas está mucho más integrado a la vida cotidiana. Está más relacionado con el poder, el conceder lo que uno necesita, por ejemplo, la gente enferma, algo mágico […] En las obras, los obreros locales, quienes están más directamente vinculados al trabajo [físico] con la animita, muestran un compromiso total. Muchos de ellos, además, a veces conocen a los deudos o conocen la historia de lo que ocurrió en el accidente […] Según las tradiciones, si alguien saca algo de ahí, es como si le cayeran ‘las penas del infierno’. En serio, hay mucho respeto por eso. Cualquiera podría tomar esas cosas —caminantes o personas que andan de paso por el sector—, pero no lo hacen. Todo se mantiene ahí”.
Manuel, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
Reclamando espacio
Imagen 22. Animita de Óscar
David Arturo Espinoza.
Carretera Austral, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“La muerte puede pasar en cualquier lugar. Por eso no se puede regular. Porque la muerte pasa por encima de todo, y de toda regla escrita”.
Javier, 51 años (2025)
Imagen 23. Animita en sitio de construcción.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Av. Cristóbal Colón con Zapaleri, Las Condes, Santiago de Chile.
Diciembre, 2017.
“Yo también soy bien creyente. Sé que estos lugares son muy importantes para la gente, porque es donde podemos conectarnos con nuestros seres queridos que han partido. La animita es ese lugar donde el cielo y la Tierra se juntan. Cuando trabajo, siempre estoy pendiente de que mis trabajadores no las dañen. Obviamente, todas las noches dejamos todo limpio alrededor, ordenamos bien. En la noche vienen a prenderles velitas. Para entonces todo tiene que estar limpio. Siempre barrimos. No dejamos herramientas, ni escombros ni basura por aquí. Ni pensarlo que alguno de los trabajadores se atreva a romper algo o llevarse algo de ahí”. Jaime también me explicó exactamente qué se puede y qué no se puede hacer alrededor de ellas: “Por ejemplo, no se puede apoyar en el techo de la casita ni sentarse en ella”.
Imagen 24. Animita de Carolina.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Chorrillos con León Bustos, Linares, Región de Maule, Chile.
Julio, 2017.
Imagen 25. Animita de Pía
David Arturo Espinoza.
Monseñor Ramón Munita, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
La animita como persona
Paola, la animita del puerto
Imagen 26. Animita de Paola.
Pedro Pablo Medina
Puerto de Castro, Chiloé, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“En la costanera de Castro, justo donde el puerto se abre al vaivén del mar y del viento, la animita de Paola se afirma con carácter. Tenía 27 años cuando un conductor bajo los efectos del alcohol y las drogas le quitó la vida en este lugar. Hoy, su memoria vive entre flores frescas y dos molinillos grandes que giran alegres, movidos por la suave brisa marina. La animita no pasa desapercibida: es colorida, firme, con algo de presencia alegre, como si dijera que aquí aún hay vida, a pesar de todo. Ese día primaban los turistas, gringos altos con gorros de pescador y cámaras colgadas al cuello. Se detenían brevemente frente a la animita, la observaban con curiosidad por unos diez segundos, luego seguían su camino. Uno de ellos me vio tomando una foto, y se detuvo unos segundos más, quizás preguntándose qué veía yo que él no había visto”.
Ámbar, entre cigarrillos y condones
Imagen 27. Animita de Ámbar
Lili Almási-Szabó
Fray Camilo Henríquez con General Jofré, Santiago centro, Santiago de Chile.
Diciembre, 2016.
“Ah, veo que han traído flores frescas para Ámbar”, comento en voz alta. Don Danilo de inmediato me invitó hacia el altar y empezó a explicar. Las flores moradas y blancas las trajo una anciana el viernes, a quien él no conoce. Pero, según él, no es familiar de Ámbar. También quedaron un par de flores artificiales junto a él. Vi los restos de cigarrillos dejados junto a los tres pequeños autitos de juguete y algunos condones. Allí había exactamente tres colillas. Estaban pegadas (o habían sido pegadas) al altar con unas gotas de cera de vela. Me enteré de que estos cigarrillos se los fumó Ámbar, es decir, fueron traídos como ofrendas. Mencioné que ya había oído hablar de esta costumbre en el cementerio. Don Danilo dijo que también se suelen traer cigarros para Ámbar.
Panchita, la niña de la playa
Imagen 28. Animita de Panchita
Sebastián Fuentealba
Las Torpederas, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, Chile.
Diciembre, 2024.
“La animita sirve para hacer de alguna manera hermoso y aceptable el horrible lugar donde ocurrió el accidente. Imagínate si tuvieras que pasar todos los días en la esquina donde tu hijo de 6 años fue atropellado. Estarías deprimida, entonces no serías capaz de soportar la presión y luego tendrías que mudarte. Desde un punto de vista psicológico, la animita es de gran ayuda para las personas. Si la familia construye una animita en el lugar de la tragedia, que es una pequeña casa con su foto, velas y sus juguetes favoritos, es como si él estuviera allí. En realidad está ahí. Se siente la presencia del niño allí. Aquellos que están tristes por su pérdida seguramente estarán felices de ir a ese lugar, ya que él está allí”.
Paula, 27 años (2016)
Clemente con su polera
Imagen 29. Animita de Clemente.
Santiago Urzúa.
Puente de lo Curro, rotonda Carol Urzúa, Vitacura, Santiago de Chile.
Julio 2023.
Lxchito el popular
Imagen 30. Sin título.
Santiago Urzúa.
Av. Carrascal, Renca, Santiago de Chile.
Julio, 2023.
“Fui a su animita y me fumé un cigarrillo con él. Le prendí uno, y le di una botella de Coca-Cola. Estaba segura de que con esto le puedo convencer, y me ayudará. En fin, murió joven, ¿entonces cómo no le van a gustar los cigarrillos y la coca? Nos sentamos juntos y hablamos sobre mi pedido”.
Maya, 16 años (2016)
Víctor y Manuel
Imagen 31. Sin título.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Ruta 43, km 52, Sector Tambillos, La Serena, Chile.
Octubre 2025.
La animita del carabinero
Imagen 32. Animita de Luis Carrasco Burgos
Lili Almási-Szabó
Ruta 43, km 49, Sector Las Barrancas, La Serena, Chile.
Octubre 2025.
“En caso de la muerte de los carabineros, Carabineros [como institución] no instala animitas; quienes las instalan son los familiares y, por lo general, los amigos […] Nosotros tenemos un número importante de carabineros que han fallecido tanto en actos de servicio como por otras causas. Entonces, si uno recorre las ciudades, se va a encontrar con animitas donde aparece la foto de una persona con uniforme de carabinero. En algunos casos, se trata de carabineros que fallecieron en acto de servicio, a quienes nosotros tenemos el mayor de los respetos y agradecimientos. Porque cuando uno egresa de la escuela, hace un juramento. Jura ante Dios y la bandera rendir la vida, si fuese necesario, para resguardar el orden y la seguridad, y obviamente para defender a las personas. Ese juramento al que se comprometió este carabinero lo cumplió”.
La animita no puede no estar
Imagen 33. Animitas sin nombre.
Santiago Urzúa.
Camino a Farellones, Lo Barnechea, Santiago de Chile.
Marzo 2023.
“La animita, si tú la sacas de la faja vial, no afecta solamente a la familia: es el territorio, son los vecinos, son todos los que se ponen en contra de esa decisión”.
Carlos, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
Imagen 34. Animita de Cristina y Mauricio
Lili Almási-Szabó
La Serena, Chile.
Octubre 2025.
“Para mí, tratar con las animitas fue como un golpe de empatía. Hay que hablar con la gente directamente, no hay otra forma. Cuando llegué a trabajar en el proyecto de Acceso Sur, entre Santiago y Talca, estaba bastante desconectado del tema. Vi una animita y pensé: ‘Hay que sacarla’. Pero al poco tiempo me llaman y me dicen que no se puede, que nadie la va a tocar, ni siquiera los obreros, porque —según la gente— caen las penas del infierno si alguien lo hace. Yo pensaba: ‘¿Cómo puede ser tan porfiada la gente?’. Hasta que me junté con los familiares y me contaron. Ahí fue un golpe de realidad: accidentes brutales, muy brutales, de esos que uno ojalá nunca tuviera que conocer. Pero en este caso lo conocí de cerca. Muchas veces, en el momento del accidente, ni siquiera el cuerpo sirve ya para reconocer a la persona”.
Imagen 35. Animita de Giovanni
David Espinoza
Regimiento, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero 2025.
“El accidente ocurrió en una intersección, y la animita de mi hermano la construimos justo en el lugar donde murió, al costado del camino […] Poco después del accidente, la animita de mi hermano empezó a ser conocida como milagrosa. La primera plaquita ni siquiera fue nuestra, y eso nos sorprendió. Nosotros lo visitábamos siempre, pero empezaron a llegar otras personas también. Mi hermano ayudó a mucha gente. Sanó a personas con adicciones: drogadictos, ludópatas, fumadores. Lo buscaban para poder dejar esas cosas. Hasta el día de hoy sigue haciendo milagros […] Años después, se construyó una entrada para autos justo donde estaba la animita. Como no teníamos dinero para pedir un permiso, la animita fue retirada sin que nos avisaran. Nunca encontramos las partes de su casita. Ya han pasado varios años y aún duele”.
Imagen 36. Animita de Juan José.
Lili Almási-Szabó y David Arturo Espinoza.
Calle Maturana con Yunguay, Villa Alemana, Chile.
Septiembre, 2025.
“Si alguien destruye la animita, ya sea por mala intención o por desconocimiento, se pierden los regalitos que le han traído a Juan José. Y esos regalitos tienen mucho cariño detrás. Se los han traído sus amigos, otros motoqueros o incluso vecinos que ni siquiera lo conocieron en persona, pero que quisieron dejarle algo. Todo eso tiene un bonito significado, algo muy personal. Por ejemplo, los amigos le han traído stickers de motoqueros, también le hicieron una cadenita que era de su moto y se la pusieron aquí. Si se pierde todo eso, se pierde. Ahora una vecina le hizo un dibujo, que lo vamos a enmarcar y poner aquí también”.
Claudia, 36 años (2025)
Donde dos almas se sanan
Imagen 37. Animita de Juan José.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Calle Maturana con Yunguay, Villa Alemana, Chile.
Septiembre, 2025.
“Las animitas son el lugar donde te puedes conectar con la persona que se fue. Es como si fuera a ver al amigo a su casa y voy a tomar té con él. Para mí, la animita de Juan José es el lugar donde me puedo conectar con él. Le hablo. Su cuerpo está en el cementerio, pero aquí es donde pasó todo el accidente, aquí fue su último aliento […] Le pusimos luces, porque queríamos que siempre tenga luz. La gente que lo conocía decía que Juan José brillaba, brillaba con su sonrisa y con sus chistes. Entonces con las luces siempre te va a brillar, donde sea que esté”.
Claudia, 36 años, hermana de Juan José (2025)
Imagen 38. Animita de Rafita.
David Arturo Espinoza.
Isla de Tenglo, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Enero, 2025.
“Yo no soy creyente, pero me atrevo a decir que en la eventualidad que el día mañana me pasara un accidente con una víctima fatal de un familiar mío, seguro que yo también iría por esa animita, pero te lo doy firmado, sí o sí voy a pelear por esa animita”.
Cristian, inspector fiscal del Ministerio de Obras Públicas (2025)
Imagen 39. Animita de Romualdito.
Lili Almási-Szabó
Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Enero, 2017.
En múltiples visitas y conversaciones junto a devotos en distintos santuarios populares, he escuchado una y otra vez cómo se habla de los milagros como parte de un sistema de intercambio. El lenguaje cotidiano de quienes se acercan a las animitas da cuenta de una lógica donde pedir y devolver forman parte de una misma relación de valor. Una mujer, por ejemplo, me dijo con total naturalidad: “Tengo que pagarle a Romualdito por el milagro que cumplió”. En otras ocasiones, esta lógica de reciprocidad aparece más desarrollada, incluso detallando lo que se entrega a cambio. Una madre me comentó: “Le pedimos a Romualdito que sanara a nuestro hijo, y a cambio se lo llevamos todos los años”. Otra devota compartió: “Romualdito me prometió que me iba a sanar la pierna, pero a cambio yo tengo que venir a visitarlo todos los años”.
Imagen 40. Sin título.
Belén Miranda Osses.
Río Quetro con San José, Estación Central, Santiago de Chile.
Septiembre, 2023.
“En el lugar donde ocurre una muerte inesperada ponemos algo: una animita. En el cementerio queda el cuerpo, pero en la animita vive el alma. La casita hace posible que nos encontremos con esa alma, y de este encuentro viene la sanación. La familia la levanta para sanar su pérdida, las personas les pedimos para enfrentarnos a nuestras propias dolencias, pero también para, en el silencio, escuchar las de ellas. Estas dos almas encontrándose nos recuerda a la fragilidad de la vida, pero desde la celebración: son vibrantes, con flores, peluches y ofrendas. Hablan no solo de la persona, no solo de la familia, sino de todos. En esta interacción cotidiana no hace falta ni reír ni llorar. Es una instancia donde te sanas desde el silencio: la animita y tú”.
David Espinoza y Lili Almási-Szabó, reflexión final
El Culto Cuir Sinvergüenza: recreaciones rituales a partir de la performance
Imagen 1. Programa de la “Liturgia Sinvergüenza”
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
El programa adquiere un sentido político al solicitar a lxs asistentxs firmar el Pronunciamiento Contra los ecosieg.
Imagen 2. “Calaveras y diablitos”
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
En el altar confluyen elementos de la cultura mexicana. El Culto Cuir se planeó cercano a las fechas de conmemoración de los santos difuntos en México, de ahí que elementos como las calaveras, pan de muerto y cempasúchil fueran incluidos en él. Esto nos habla de la adaptabilidad de estas prácticas protestantes-evangélicas cuir.
Imagen 3. Altar interseccional y escenario
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Sobre el logo de Teología Sin Vergüenza, al fondo del escenario, la Reverenda Sex señaló: “Es poner el placer y cuerpas con vulva de regreso en el campo de lo sagrado, con el vitral de iglesia que dice: aquí también habita lo sagrado” (Reverenda Sex, charla informal WhatsApp, 7 de noviembre de 2024).
Imagen 4. Un exorcismo “para curar”, ¿de qué? “Karma is a Bitch”, performance de Ezra Merol
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Esta imagen es una representación de uno de los formatos de “terapias de reorientación sexual” o ecosieg, realizados a personas lgbtq+. Estos son llevados a cabo en distintos espacios de corte religioso, pero no se circunscribe a ellos.
Imagen 5. Muertx, ¡jamás! “Karma is a Bitch”, performance de Ezra Merol
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Dolor, confusión, sin sentido. Las consecuencias de la tortura física, emocional y psicológica a la que son sometidas las personas lgbtq+ al pasar por “terapias de conversión” o ecosieg.
Imagen 6. La salvación. “Karma is a Bitch”, performance de Ezra Merol
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
La importancia de las redes de apoyo, representadas en la muxe. Las muxes son un referente en la lucha por los derechos lgbtq+ en México.
Imagen 7. Esta soy yo, ¡perrxs! Drag, Matraka
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Las redes de apoyo y el (auto)reconocimiento, permiten la libre determinación. Matraka, drag queen del estado de Guanajuato, cuya característica de su arte es mezclar elementos de la cultura mexicana en la reafirmación de la diversidad sexogenérica.
Imagen 8. “El Otro Party”, performance de La Otra Laboratoria
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Colocando la escenografía para recibir al siguiente performancerx.
Imagen 9. Trascender el binarismo de género. Performance de La Otra Laboratoria
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
El performance se centró en cuestionar el binarismo de género y la inflexibilidad de la sociedad de nombrar a las personas lgbtq+ con los pronombres que se identifican, más allá de las categorías masculino y femenino. “¿Por qué no me pueden llamar por mi nombre?”, exclamaba al público lx artista.
Imagen 10. Sinvergüenzas y valientes
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
La Reverenda Sex y Nadia Arellano, introdujeron los bautismos trans, Exaltando a las Pequeñas Valentías. “Venir a un lugar que se llama culto, aunque le agreguemos el cuir, no es fácil y lo honramos. Venir a un lugar donde se habla de teología, en un mundo que históricamente ha sido construido por la supremacía cristiana blanca, no es algo fácil. Queremos honrarlo y queremos agradecerles por la confianza. También queremos bendecir. Bendecir, significa hablar bien, bien-decir al cielo de alguien. No es un poder que nos da la iglesia, es un poder que nos da la divinidad que hay en nosotres y hoy queremos bendecirles: Bendites ustedes, espíritus inquebrantables. Bendito su gozo que tiene la capacidad de nombrar y de seguirse expandiendo. Benditos sus cuerpos, cuerpas, cuerpes sagrados, preciosos y poderosos. Bendita su valentía”. (Notas de campo, la Exaltación de las Pequeñas Valentías por Nadia Arellano, 27 de octubre 2024).
Imagen 11. Bendita diversidad
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Las, los y les pastores cuir reunidxs para reconocer, bendecir y dar la bienvenida a lxs nuevxs integrantes a la comunidad creyente feminista y cuir. Las tradiciones/iglesias a las que pertenecen lxs pastorxs que aparecen en la fotografía, son: Comunidad de Fe Santa María Magdalena de tradición anglicana en el Salvador; Misión Cristiana Incluyente (mci) en México; Comunidad Luterana del Perú; Comunidad Abrazo Disidente, enfocada en personas lgbtq+ y neurodivergentes; Comunidad Trans-Formando vinculada a la Iglesia Luterana Costarricense; Iglesia de la Comunidad Metropolitana México y Brasil; Ministerio Latino en Oakland y la Iglesia Bautista de Nazaret, Brasil.
Imagen 12. “El agua de las ancestras”
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
La Reverenda Sex explica de dónde proviene el agua de las ancestras, mientras deposita dicha agua en el cuenco que servirá para bautizar.
Imagen 13. Recuperar el valor colectivo de lo sagrado
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
La Reverenda Sex explica cómo será la dinámica del ritual de bautismo. El cambio de nombre a través de este ritual es el reconocimiento de la disidencia y su bienvenida a la comunidad de fe.
Imagen 14. Renacer Osvva
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
“Yo soy de Yucatán y vine a la ciudad de México a tener un viaje de exploración, autorreconocimiento, sanación. Y no me esperaba para nada esto, entonces es muy significativo este renacer espiritual, erótico y sexual, ¡me encanta!”. (Osvva, Notas de campo, Culto Cuir).
Imagen 15. Renacer Yacurmana
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
“Significa toda mi ancestralidad indígena, Yacurmana es la deidad del agua. Para que el agua también fluya”. (Tacurmana, Notas de campo, Culto Cuir).
Imagen 16. Renacer Canek
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
“Para mí es importante recuperar mi nombre original, yo me llamaba Canek antes de nacer, luego nací y ya no me llamé Canek. Entonces, es mi nombre original y en este bautizo lo recupero, recupero todo eso (y me recupero)”. (Canek, Notas de campo, Culto Cuir).
Imagen 17. Renacer Ahmelie
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
“El significado siento que es porque algo me dice que me ama y que no estoy sola. Y que mi nombre es mi remembranza y mi replanteamiento de que puedo ser yo misma y que puedo recibir ese amor. Amén”. (Ahmelie, Notas de campo, Culto Cuir).
Imagen 18. Renacer Miyu Hari Alarcón
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
“Mi primer nombre, Miyu, es parte del nombre que me puso mi madre, pero no me gustaba mucho (Yu). Entonces le puse ‘mi’, porque siento que cada vez que alguien pronuncia mi nombre formo parte de esa persona. Yu, que mi madre me enseñó a escribir. Haira significa ‘Dios’ en la India, así transité a mi Dios, poniendo su nombre en mí. Me dejé el Alarcón de mi madre, como el apellido patriarcal de mi madre, y para dejar todo lo que ella significa para mí. Solo para contarles: cuando llegue a Colombia, ya voy a tener mi cédula con mi nombre”. (Miyu Hari Alarcón, Notas de campo, Culto Cuir).
Imagen 19. “La virgen de la Leche”
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Una crítica encarnada a la demonización de las identidades lgbtq+.
Imagen 20. El objeto de la curiosidad. “Delicias del Baubo”, performance de Disidentxs Histéricxs
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Frente a ellxs, una mesa cubierta por una tela plateada que se elevaba al centro por lo que parecía un objeto con forma fálica.
Imagen 21. Probar lo desconocido. “Delicias del Baubo”, performance de Lxs Disidentxs Histéricxs
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Lxs disidentxs histéricxs a punto de caer en la tentación.
Imagen 22. “Delicias de Baubo”, performance de Disidentxs Histéricxs
Foto: Hilda María Cristina Mazariegos Herrera
Club Profecía 9, cdmx, 27 de octubre 2024
Esta performance invita a la liberación y disfrute del placer. A reivindicar las cuerpas no hegemónicas y despatologizar las experiencias de las mujeres. Cuando su conducta no cumple con el rol esperado de amabilidad y docilidad, se les llama ¡histéricas!, ¡intensas! Lxs Disidentxs Histéricxs cuestionan los marcos patriarcales mediante los cuales el deseo, las emociones y opiniones de las mujeres han sido invalidadas históricamente.
Imágenes que resisten: regímenes de visibilidad y otros paisajes posibles
El pasado noviembre convocamos al vii Concurso Fotográfico de Encartes para reflexionar sobre las relaciones entre imagen, poder y resistencia. La invitación surgió de una preocupación urgente y fundamental: cómo interferir en la saturación visual y en la vertiginosa circulación de imágenes violentas que, de algún modo, colonizan nuestra cotidianidad y nuestra imaginación. Vivimos una época en la que las imágenes circulan con una intensidad abrumadora. Lejos de garantizar, por sí mismas, una ampliación de la comprensión del mundo, su proliferación produce con frecuencia el efecto contrario: saturación, fatiga perceptiva, dispersión afectiva e incapacidad para comprender aquello que vemos.
La llamada posverdad no consiste únicamente en que determinados grupos de poder mientan o manipulen; tampoco en que algunos medios de comunicación excluyan u oculten; ni, más aún, en que como individuos prefiramos mirar solo aquello que confirma nuestros prejuicios. Carlos Bravo Regidor sostiene –y coincidimos con él– que lo que está en juego es una crisis de la verdad en un contexto en el que los cambios tecnológicos, marcados por la inmediatez acelerada de la información y la saturación avasallante, así como los cambios sociales, caracterizados por la proliferación del odio, el miedo, la radicalización de los autoritarismos y la pérdida de confianza en las instituciones, agudizan nuestra dificultad para comprender lo que vemos y lo que eso produce en nosotras y nosotros.
La violencia se ha convertido en uno de los objetos privilegiados de esta economía visual. Se la muestra, se la repite y se la distribuye hasta volverla una presencia constante en el paisaje mediático. Pero esa presencia no equivale necesariamente a una comprensión profunda de sus causas, de sus tramas ni de sus efectos. Con frecuencia, la abundancia de imágenes del dolor termina por vaciarlas de espesor histórico y político. Es entonces cuando conviene hablar de regímenes de visibilidad. Toda cultura organiza lo visible y lo invisible, jerarquiza aquello que merece atención y administra las distancias entre cercanía y lejanía que establecemos con lo mirado. También construye marcos de inteligibilidad desde los cuales ciertas vidas, como lo ha planteado Judith Butler, aparecen como dignas de duelo, de cuidado o de memoria, mientras otras quedan relegadas al ruido de fondo. Un régimen de visibilidad no remite solo a un conjunto de imágenes, sino a una distribución de la visualidad: una pedagogía sensible que modela qué podemos percibir y también cómo debemos interpretar lo que vemos y qué afectos son legítimos frente a ello. En este sentido, las imágenes van más allá de representar el mundo: participan activamente en su ordenamiento.
Desde esta perspectiva puede distinguirse, siguiendo a Georges Didi-Huberman, entre imágenes de poder e imágenes de potencia. La primera no es solo la imagen producida por el Estado, por los medios o por una institución dominante; es, de manera más amplia, aquella imagen que clausura el campo de sentido, fija una lectura y captura la atención dentro de un marco dado. Es una imagen que extrae de la escena su complejidad y, al hacerlo, normaliza una relación dócil con la violencia. La imagen de poder no necesariamente oculta; muchas veces exhibe. Su operación no consiste en censurar, sino también en exponer para imponer un modo de ver en el que la conmoción sustituye a la comprensión y el shock desplaza la reflexión.
Por el contrario, una imagen de potencia interrumpe las formas habituales de representación. Es una imagen que abre una pausa en la inercia visual, nos obliga a mirar de otro modo y restituye a la experiencia una densidad ética, afectiva e histórica. No se trata de imágenes “bellas”, sino de imágenes capaces de desacomodar la gramática, de lo que he nombrado, el cerco mediático; es decir, una operación comunicativa que simplifica o consume demasiado rápido. Son imágenes que no agotan su sentido en la denuncia inmediata porque trabajan también con el gesto mínimo, el indicio, el cuidado, la vida cotidiana o la persistencia de lo común.
Este punto resulta decisivo en un momento signado por la crisis de la verdad. No porque hayamos entrado, sin más, en un tiempo de falsedad absoluta, sino porque el estatuto mismo de la imagen como prueba se ha vuelto inestable. Pensemos, por ejemplo, en las fake news. La circulación acelerada, la edición infinita, la fragmentación del contexto y la competencia por capturar atención erosionan la confianza que se tiene en que ver equivale a saber. La verdad de una imagen ya no puede descansar solo en su apariencia de evidencia. Requiere mediaciones, inscripción histórica, marcos de lectura y relaciones entre lo visible y lo decible. En ese escenario, el problema no es discernir si una imagen es verdadera o falsa, sino comprender qué régimen de verdad sostiene su circulación, qué intereses organiza, qué mundo confirma y qué formas de sensibilidad produce.
La espectacularización de la violencia se inscribe precisamente en ese terreno. Cuando el horror se vuelve espectáculo, la imagen deja de ser un espacio de elaboración para convertirse en una mercancía afectiva: captura la atención, intensifica el impacto, pero empobrece la experiencia. El resultado, me parece, es un doble movimiento: por un lado, la repetición anestesia; por el otro, la espectacularidad inmoviliza. Vemos mucho, pero entendemos poco. Sentimos un golpe momentáneo, aunque no necesariamente se activa una relación más compleja con la memoria, la responsabilidad o la acción.
Así pues, podemos entender el cerco mediático como una forma de sitiar la percepción, pues no opera únicamente por silenciamiento, sino también por dirección, saturación, reiteración y administración de la sensibilidad. El cerco organiza las condiciones en que lo visible aparece ya capturado por una gramática dominante. Con ese régimen, la violencia deja de aparecer como un campo de fuerzas –como propone Martin Jay–, es decir, como un conjunto de procesos y formas históricas que exigen lectura, posicionamiento y trabajo crítico de la mirada. De ahí que desmontar el cerco mediático no consista simplemente en “mostrar otras imágenes”, sino en alterar la gramática desde la que miramos el horror. En ese sentido, politizar la mirada supone desplazarla del consumo de escenas hacia la interrogación de sus condiciones de aparición. Supone preguntarse qué queda fuera del encuadre, qué vidas no alcanzan visibilidad, qué formas de presencia sobreviven en los márgenes y qué gestos, objetos, paisajes o vínculos pueden desarticular la gramática dominante del horror.
Es justamente allí donde se inscribe la apuesta del concurso fotográfico convocado por Encartes. Recibimos 90 fotografías. La convocatoria pedía imágenes que no reprodujeran de manera cruda el sufrimiento, sino que exploraran formas de mirar desde la resistencia, el cuidado, la memoria y la vida cotidiana. Buscaba, además, fotografías capaces de interrogar los límites de lo visible y de devolver a la imagen su potencia de invención, memoria y persistencia. Más que reunir un repertorio temático, lo que aquí se puso en juego fue una disputa por la mirada misma: una búsqueda de imágenes que resistieran la espectacularización, la banalización o la reproducción de las jerarquías sociales sin cuestionarlas.
Desde esta perspectiva, las fotografías finalistas pueden leerse tanto por lo que muestran, como por la operación de contravisualidad que realizan. La pregunta no sería únicamente qué representan, sino de qué manera desplazan el campo de lo dado como legítimo, qué relación establecen con la fragilidad o con la persistencia y cómo producen una experiencia de mirada que, en vez de reiterar el cerco mediático, abre una grieta en él. Ante este horizonte, el corpus del concurso puede entenderse como un conjunto heterogéneo de tentativas por restituir a la imagen una capacidad de pensar, de afectar y de politizar la sensibilidad sin caer en la reproducción del espectáculo de la violencia.
Réquiem por la autonomía, de Francisco de Parres, es una fotografía en la que aparecen dos cuerpos bailando. Uno corresponde a Lukas Avendaño, performer muxe; el otro, a un miembro de la comunidad zapatista. La escena juega con la ambigüedad y la tensión entre los regímenes hegemónicos que norman los cuerpos y sus relaciones con las sexodisidencias. Desborda ironía, placer y performatividad. A un lado, una figura encapuchada, vestida de negro, parece acompañar o conducir la escena. La fotografía trabaja con una tensión extraordinaria entre espectáculo, ritual, deseo, amenaza y comunidad. Su potencia radica en que desmonta una lectura lineal. No se deja reducir ni al documento de una celebración popular ni a una denuncia unívoca. Más bien, produce una escena en la que el archivo festivo, la teatralidad del género, la mascarada, la violencia y la resistencia política se rozan sin resolverse del todo. Esa irresolución es una de sus mayores virtudes. En lugar de entregar al espectador una certeza cerrada, lo obliga a permanecer en la incomodidad de una escena en la que la alegría y la amenaza coexisten. La imagen no muestra el horror; exhibe algo más complejo: la fragilidad de una libertad encarnada que solo puede afirmarse atravesando la intemperie.
Marea verde, de Doménica Salas, trabaja desde otra lógica visual: no la saturación, sino la condensación simbólica. Vemos un monumento ecuestre intervenido por enormes telas verdes que envuelven y desbordan el cuerpo del jinete y parte del caballo. En la base, casi diminuta en comparación con la masa escultórica, una persona a escala ajusta o sostiene el paño. El contraste entre la monumentalidad de la escultura, la fragilidad del cuerpo que interviene y la movilidad del textil genera una imagen de enorme precisión política. Aquí la disputa por la visualidad aparece como un acto de desmonumentalización. La estatua representa la historia oficial, la soberanía patriarcal y la permanencia monumental del poder en el espacio público. Se trata de una figura de Francisco Villa. La tela verde –inequívocamente asociada a las luchas feministas y por el derecho a decidir en América Latina– no destruye el monumento, pero sí lo desordena, lo reescribe y lo profana en el mejor sentido: le arrebata su pretendida neutralidad histórica. La imagen capta el instante en que un símbolo sedimentado del poder es cubierto por otro signo, móvil, blando, colectivo y contemporáneo. Esa tela va más allá de cubrir: desplaza el sentido de la estatua; la vuelve otra cosa y la obliga a hablar desde una escena nueva. En ese gesto, la imagen hace visible una de las operaciones políticas más relevantes de los movimientos contemporáneos: intervenir los marcos de memoria y de autoridad que organizan el espacio común.
En el marco del concurso, Marea verde destaca porque no representa la violencia de forma directa ni la reduce a una escena de confrontación espectacular. Su fuerza reside, más bien, en mostrar cómo la intervención feminista transforma el espacio público al disputar los símbolos de la historia oficial. La violencia aparece aquí no como herida visible o como devastación explícita, sino como sedimentación patriarcal en la memoria monumental, en los relatos legitimados y en las formas de autoridad que ocupan la ciudad. Por eso la potencia de la imagen no se limita a registrar una acción de protesta: muestra el gesto preciso mediante el que un cuerpo colectivo reescribe el sentido de un monumento y lo arranca, aunque sea momentáneamente, de la gramática del poder. Su fuerza está en hacer visible que la transformación política también ocurre en el plano de los signos, de la memoria y de las formas de aparecer en común.
San Judas y la crucifixión, de Ximena Torres, elabora otro registro: el de la marcha, la búsqueda y la persistencia pública frente a la desaparición forzada. En el centro aparece una mujer caminando por la calle con cubrebocas, sosteniendo una gran lona en la que se superponen la imagen religiosa de san Judas Tadeo, flores, una oración y el retrato de un hombre ausente. Detrás, otros carteles de búsqueda confirman que no se trata de un caso aislado, sino de una trama colectiva de desaparición y exigencia de regreso. La composición aglutina varios lenguajes visuales a la vez: religiosidad popular, cultura impresa, protesta callejera, retrato familiar y documento de búsqueda. La fuerza de esta fotografía radica en su capacidad para condensar la práctica de la búsqueda: la mezcla entre plegaria y denuncia, entre fe y reclamo, entre imagen devocional y exigencia política. La lona funciona como altar portátil, archivo afectivo y pancarta. La imagen de san Judas no reemplaza al ausente; acompaña y sostiene el acto de buscarlo. Así, la fotografía registra un aspecto fundamental en los contextos de desaparición en México: la búsqueda no se organiza solo desde el lenguaje jurídico o institucional, sino también desde economías morales, afectivas y espirituales que permiten resistir al abandono.
Formalmente, la imagen es muy elocuente por su frontalidad. El cuerpo de la mujer queda casi cubierto por el cartel, lo que produce un efecto muy significativo: ella porta la imagen, pero también se vuelve soporte de esa memoria. Su caminar encarna una forma de duelo activo, de denuncia encarnada. La sombra proyectada en el pavimento intensifica esa presencia, como si el cuerpo extendiera sobre el suelo otra huella de la búsqueda. La imagen no convierte el dolor en shock visual; lo devuelve como práctica sostenida, como marcha, como exposición pública del vínculo roto. Al hacerlo, desarma el cerco mediático que suele reservar la atención para el momento más sensacionalista de la violencia y deja fuera la duración extenuante de la búsqueda. Aquí lo político no está en la escena excepcional, sino en la repetición obstinada de salir a la calle con el nombre, el rostro y la esperanza del regreso.
En el conjunto del corpus, esta imagen aporta una dimensión ética potente: nos recuerda que mirar también implica acompañar la manera en que una ausencia se vuelve presencia social a través de los cuerpos que la cargan, la nombran y la exhiben. Su potencia está en mostrar que la imagen, en contextos de desaparición, además de documentar una demanda, puede funcionar como soporte de memoria, de fe, de comunidad y de exigencia de justicia.
Este concurso fotográfico logró convocar una red de imágenes en las que se reconocen procesos colectivos que rescatan la vida cotidiana en espacios públicos abandonados por la institucionalidad, pero recuperados por el cuidado y gestos de cariño. Otras imágenes acompañan ritos sociales a contrapelo de la violencia y su vorágine; religiosidades heterogéneas que sostienen la esperanza y otorgan protección; acercamientos íntimos al acompañamiento en procesos de resistencia.
Alina Peña
Primer lugar
Réquiem por la autonomía
Francisco De Parres Gómez
2019 · Chiapas
Lukas Avendaño (muxe) junto a un miembro de las comunidades zapatistas.
La escena tensiona los regímenes hegemónicos de visibilidad al situar el cuerpo, la memoria y la autonomía como paisaje político insurgente. La imagen disputa el derecho a aparecer. Gesto performativo que resiste al borramiento en un festival de danza en territorio autónomo zapatista.
Segundo lugar
Marea Verde
Doménica Salas Santos
2020 · Chihuhua, Chihuahua, México.
La vilipendiada estatua de Pancho Villa fue cubierta por la marea verde durante la marcha del 8 de marzo de 2020. El acto simbolizó la exigencia del derecho al aborto y la libre decisión de las mujeres sobre sus cuerpos.
Tercer lugar
San Judas y la crucifixión
Ximena Torres
2023 · Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
Desde 2023 Francisco Javier es una de las miles de personas desaparecidas en Jalisco. En una marcha, la sombra de su familiar y la lona que ella carga reproducen la crucifixión de Jesús y emulan el dolor de la ausencia.
Hombre vestido de representación del mal
Alejandro Cepeda
2022
Hombre se pinta el cuerpo con un lodo blanco y un arma hecha de madera para representar el mal en su actualidad: el hombre blanco y las armas que afectan a su territorio.
Corona para lo invisible
Aurora Villalobos
2025 · Centro cultural ProyectoVeta, Morelia, Michoacán, México.
El drag y la imagen reescribe el cuerpo estigmatizado como territorio de soberanía. La escena no exhibe la diferencia, sino la celebra como archivo vivo de resistencia queer.
Taller con niños ódame de Baborigame
David Lauer
Esta imagen forma parte de una selección derivada de mi trabajo a lo largo de los años en Chihuahua en acompañamiento a la Consultoría Técnica Comunitaria, A.C. y otras organizaciones de derechos humanos, además de proyectos personales relacionados con el bosque de la Sierra Tarahumara.
No somos una, no somos tres, cuéntanos bien…
Doménica Salas Santos
2020 · Chihuhua, Chihuahua, México.
Miles de mujeres ocuparon la plaza, convirtiéndola en un eco de resistencia. Su voz colectiva denunció las violencias que por siglos han cercado sus derechos y la libre decisión sobre sus cuerpos.
El Paisaje Prestado: La Construcción de un Hogar Simbólico.
Eduardo Javier Badillo Lozada
2025 · Ciudad de México, México.
Esta imagen desafía la representación convencional de la exclusión social al enfocarse en la creación de un espacio de intimidad en lo público. El cuadro colgado en la reja actúa como una ‘ventana’ simbólica hacia un hogar imaginado, una forma discreta de resistencia que intenta reconstruir un sentido de pertenencia y dignidad. El perro, en su vigilia, personifica el cuidado y el acompañamiento, transformando una escena de carencia en un testimonio de acompañamiento y cariño.
Zapatillas
Fernando Domínguez
2026 · Congreso de Nuevo León, México.
Frente al Congreso de Nuevo León, banderas con referencias legales sobre derechos trans rodean las zapatillas de una integrante del plantón trans bajo vigilancia policial.
Activista del plantón
Fernando Domínguez
2026 · Congreso de Nuevo León, México.
En el acceso al Congreso de Nuevo León, una activista del plantón trans utiliza un altavoz bajo vigilancia policial durante la mesa de diálogo sobre el transfeminicidio.
Memoria comunitaria
Juan Diego Andrango
2018 · Kisapincha, Ecuador.
Entre chacras y neblina, el sonido atraviesa el paisaje como acto de cuidado, anuncio y pertenencia colectiva.
Otra dignidad de habitar
Julio González
2025 · Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
Es la tarde de septiembre de 2025, la dignidad se organiza para desplazarse por las calles de Guadalajara. Al frente, ciegos despojados de su hogar, con la mirada al horizonte y el olor de las calles como referencia geográfica, caminan gritando “¿Qué pasa, qué pasa? ¡Que no tenemos casa!”.
Los cimientos de la Nación
Leonardo Cassiel Hernández Valdespino
2023 · Bordo de Xochiaca
México es un país de violencia, quienes crecimos aquí, sabemos lo que es florecer entre añicos.
Memoria textil colectiva
Lizeth Hernández Millán
2024 · Ciudad de México, México.
Como resultado del primer círculo de bordado en el Museo de la Ciudad de México, se elaboró una Manta textil colectiva para llevarla a la marcha del 08 de marzo en la Ciudad de México.
Comuneros bajo la sombra del drenaje transversal
Marco Ernesto Blanco López
2024 · Comunidad de Guadalupe Victoria y su anexo La Cruz, municipio de Mexquitic de Carmona, San Luis Potosí, México.
Comuneros reposan en un túnel de drenaje durante un peritaje antropológico contra el despojo territorial, transformando infraestructuras en espacios de memoria compartida.
sin título
Naomi Greene Ortiz
2013 · Glorieta de Los Niños Héroes, ahora llamada “Glorieta de las y los desaparecidos”. Guadalajara, Jalisco, 2023.
La re-nombrada Glorieta de Las y Los Desaparecidos de Jalisco, estado con mayor cifras de desapariciones forzadas a nivel nacional, despliega una serie de rostros que se amontonan entre sí; algunxs en lonas, otrxs en posters, muchos otrxs en azulejos incrustados para evitar se removidos por las noches. ¡Bienvenidos a Guadalajara!”
Alfaro sí sabía (vigilia por el rancho Izaguirre)
Pilar Aranda Moncivaiz
2025 · Palacio de Gobierno, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
Mamá buscadora
Pilar Aranda Moncivaiz
2025 · Palacio de Gobierno, Guadaljara, Jalisco, México.
Daniela tu mamá sigue en la lucha
Pilar Aranda Moncivaiz
2025 · Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
Primer batucada infantil feminista
Pilar Aranda Moncivaiz
2025 · Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
Flor Alentejan
Rodolfo Oliveros
2025 · Lisboa, Portugal.
Los coros Alentejanos cantan a la lucha por la libertad y la recuperación de la tierra; honran también la memoria de Catarina Eufemia, campesina comunista asesinada por la dictadura.
Don Lucas y su colección de arte rescatado de la basura
Santiago Hoyos
2025 · Barrio de la Araña, Álvaro Obregón, CDMX.
Me encontré con Don Lucas durante un trabajo pagado por la Alcaldía Álvaro Obregón en el barrio de la Araña. Nos presumió su extensa colección de arte rescatado de los basureros de las barrancas y como lo usa como una forma de resistencia ante el desperdicio desmesurado que se ve hoy en día en la sociedad mexicana. Aquí lo tenemos a él posando junto a su colección.
Rostros renovados en la Glorieta
Ximena Torres
2025 · Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
La Glorieta de las y los desaparecidos es el sitio de memoria más importante para las familias buscadoras de Guadalajara, que han desarrollado estrategias para mantener cédulas de búsqueda de los ausentes en el monumento.
sin título
Yllich Escamilla Santiago
2025 · Basílica de Guadalupe, Ciudad de México, México.
Cada diciembre el recinto de la Basílica de Guadalupe se vuelve también un espacio para el reclamo, la memoria y la esperanza. Es ahí donde los padres de los 43 normalistas desaparecidos toman el espacio para visibilizar su lucha.
Bibliography
Bravo Regidor, Carlos (2025). Mar de dudas. Ciudad de México: Grano de Sal/ Gatopardo.
Butler, Judith (2010). War frames: lives mourned. Barcelona: Paidós.
Canal Encuentro (2017, 26 de enero). Georges Didi-Huberman: la imagen potente. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uvGhCgupq0
Jay, Martin (2003). Campos de fuerza: entre la historia intelectual y la crítica cultural. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Curatorships of the self. Afrodescendence in question
My grandmother's face
On the left, Rosma shows me a snapshot of a photo of her paternal grandmother during a visit to her mother's house to see the family album. On the right a close-up of the photo, which is a clipping of a photograph that is part of a memory of a family visit to Mexico City in the 1980s. His grandmother was the daughter of a fisherman born in Loma Bonita, Oaxaca, who had lived in Veracruz since he was a child.
It's the only photo I have of my paternal grandmother. That's where I got the hair and the brown [...].
Dialogues with Rosma
Ambivalences
With hipil de gala (terno or Yucatecan regional costume) reserved for special and festive occasions. This costume, considered "traditional" in Yucatán, was created from the dress used by the Yucatecan mestiza (indigenous woman) to dance jarana in the state's famous vaquerías; over time, it became a hallmark of Yucatecan identity (Repetto and Medina, 2020: 243).
My mother "[...] was in political groups, I don't know exactly what she was doing, but López Portillo was going to arrive, there was going to be a welcoming committee for the president with women and they were given their suits. They lent it to them. My mom never wore mestiza dress, no woman in my family. My mother and grandmother spoke Mayan, but they denied it. There was that contradiction, because they did not wear the traditional costume, but they did have several daily practices related to the Mayan, the use of domestic space, food, daily utensils, following important dates of the agricultural calendar [...] I built over time respect and love for the link with the Mayan that was denied me by the family lineage."
Dialogues with Rosma
José Garduza, the father
This is a photo of the field practices [...i.e.] the soldiers' field practices that they carried out every so often to train in the field and learn how to survive in uncomfortable conditions. This must have been in Rio Lagartos or San Felipe, that's where they went for their training. My dad became a soldier when he was 22 or 23 years old and was part of Battalion 33 in Valladolid, where he met my mom.
Memories of Rosma
[...] all my life I saw my dad who is very dark and his hair is very curly, like that, pashushitoThere was a "hey, his hair is different, the color of his skin is very dark, isn't it? But it's not only that he had that, but he had other features different from the Yucatecan, like maybe his height, maybe his figure, there were other features in him that I saw [...].
In civil
I like this photo of my dad because it is one of the few where he is not a soldier [...] but he is from the army because his rifle is over there [...] I think it is San Felipe [Yucatán coast], because it is an old house that looks like the house of an aunt who lived there [...] he is very young...how handsome he was...my mom liked his legs [...] My dad was outstanding in sports, he always represented the army, he traveled a lot. He was a man who liked to prepare himself [...] when he met my mom he didn't know how to read or write and he enrolled in the same elementary school where I studied, he went in the afternoons; and he learned to read and write, that was before I was born [...] I know he had a very hard life, I have no idea why [...].
Memories of Rosma
Dating
Here she is with Don José in the park. I think they were just beginning to be sweethearts. They were about 23 or 24 years old [...] My mom doesn't have a naïve face, but a naughty face," she says with a laugh, "bandit! I can say that my mom grew up in the culture of whitening. In fact, she told me that her parents said to her, 'Are you crazy, your kids are going to be born brown with that man! It was almost as if they were saying she'd had a backflip [laughs again]. And yet she chose a black man [...] and she loved that her children were brown and curly-haired.
Memories of Rosma
Absences and marks
This photo provokes two emotions in me. On the one hand, nostalgia for a love that didn't happen, that was broken. But at the same time, I think: 'It's part of the past, it doesn't have to belong to the now'. He was a good dad, playful [...] that kind of dad. The rest, to tell you the truth, I don't remember much. He was often away for the army. I don't know at what point was the transition to not seeing him anymore [...] I just stopped seeing him.
Memories and reflections with Rosma
I was three years old in that picture. And although I don't have many memories of him, the ones I do have are very nice.
Sometimes I think: 'How strong, isn't it? And it also pisses me off that I have been so absent [...] and that at the same time he has left me all the legacies that are noticeable.
Maternal family
Family album photo. Merida, Yucatan. Around 1990
In the center, Rosma's maternal grandmother. On the right, her mother, Rosma and her brother. On the left, her aunt with a granddaughter in her arms, one of her daughters and her brother's daughter.
This was in the house that an uncle lent my mom, before we moved to the one she got through Infonavit [...] I was 14 years old. We were clearly brown compared to my cousins, who were white. It's a nice photo, you can see the popular environment in which I grew up [...] My mom always called me 'Negrita'; that was my nickname, and my brother she called him 'Negrito'. We were always black. The thing is that at that time I didn't link it with an idea of Afro-descent. And now it's like [...] well, obviously there is a relationship, but it's not that I feel represented within an Afro culture.
Memories and dialogues with Rosma
The dress and the fine tailoring
The dress represents a network of support woven through sewing, a practice that provided sustenance and social mobility to Rosma and her family. The craft of dressmaking, as well as the care and dedication in its execution, were an inheritance from her mother's lineage: from her mother, a professional seamstress, to herself, a jewelry maker.
Here I was 11 years old. This dress was made for me by my mother. She had been sewing professionally since she was 13 years old in a workshop with her cousins. I remember I was very fond of that dress [...] I loved the headdress, it was incredible, really, exquisite. She used very fine lace because my mother had already started working with a designer from New York who gave it to her.
Memories of Rosma
My first communion godmother was a woman who was very supportive of my mother. She was a lady with a high economic position, her boss at Cadenita Gold, a maquiladora where my mother worked. She knew how to see that my mother was delicate, meticulous [...] There is an aesthetic that I inherited from her. My mother never did anything shoddy, she liked exquisiteness. She had a deep respect for her craft. She was brutally committed to her work. She enjoyed it.
My grandmother, from a young age, warped hammocks. Her husband, my grandfather, was a blacksmith.
Memories of Rosma
The area
This was one of the most beautiful times of my childhood: the time of the [military] zone. Those were the houses where we lived, a very nice and safe subdivision. We had a ballet teacher there -she was the one who gave me the crown- [photo above left].
Memories of Rosma
All these girls you see here [lower photo and upper right photo] were from different places: Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Mexico City [...] we shared life in the colony. In these photos we are dressed as rumberas, it was carnival time. Lupita, who was the queen, was from Oaxaca. There were several girls from there; their mothers were big, big women [...] Juchitecas. I remember them very well.
Zoom
It's my cousin's wedding. We are my mother, my brother [...] I think even my cousins, but I cut out the photo to keep only my image, to look at myself. It's part of this process of rediscovering myself. Here I look very black, although my hair is straight. I love this photo because of the color of my skin, which stands out a lot. I was about nine years old.
Memories of Rosma
You know what fascinates me? The color my mom let me wear: roooojoo. I love it because I look like a little devil with my little horns," she laughs. My grandmother said it wasn't a suitable color to wear. From her Catholic point of view, it had a certain logic [...].
The beauty
Naomi Campbell (right) was not originally in the album. It was stuck on the wall in my room. When I vacated it, I tore down all the posters [...] but this one I didn't want to throw away. I cut it out and decided to keep it there. Obviously it was because of her beauty and the color of her skin. I was about 14 or 15 years old.
Dialogues with Rosma
In the photo below I am with my cousins. They always called me 'Sorulla', I was always the black girl in the family [...].
When I was 14 I had a friend named Lupita. She used to tell me: 'No, look, you're beautiful, look! She would fix my hair in a way that I didn't do, with mousseThe curl was very tight to mark the curl. For her it was very cool that I was brown. She did see in me an Afro-descendant trait that I, at the time, could not recognize. Maybe that's when I started to see myself differently [...] You know what I mean?
The game of mirrors
I was 14 years old [...] I think it was then that I began to feel deeply how my personality was configured. It was because of a cousin-in-law, the partner of a cousin, that I met at that time. She began to shape much of my identity. She was from Mexico City, brunette, brunette, brunette. I kept a picture of her because, imagine, to me she was beautiful. I proudly showed her off saying she was my sister, not my cousin.
Dialogues with Rosma
I liked her personality, how she dressed. She always wore her hair very curly, afro. It made a big impact on me. Besides, she talked to me about things that no one had ever talked to me about: sex, drugs, the wildness, chupe [...] I liked her hair so much that one day she took me to get my spirals done. She paid for them. It's strange, because I didn't have curly hair, but in that photo I do: I have spirals, and I felt a little more represented. I love that kind of hair [...].
Framing
I cropped this photo because I like that angle. I like it a lot: the composition, my hair, my face. We had these pictures taken in the workshop. I like my expression lines, because that's where you can see my forties. That you can see a jewel, the light, the color of the clothes [...].
Dialogues with Rosma
I do have an ideal of a woman: to know how to be a strong, upright woman, with poise. I realized, when I grew up, who is considered "dark" and who is not, depending on the context. I was delighted to discover these nuances.
Ball nose
This is one of my favorite pictures. I love our little ball noses. Sometimes I tell my son: -Hey, my love, we are black, aren't we? [referring also to his father, a dark man] And he, very correctly, answers me: "No, mom, we are not black, we are brown.
Dialogues with Rosma
The other day, in La Plancha,* I saw a girl of African descent and I said to him: -Look, what a beautiful color she has. And he answered me: -Mmm, I don't like it. I like the color of millionaires better. And I said: -And what is that color [laughs]? -More white, he said. And I: -Well [...] it's not of millionaires, there are poor and rich people of all colors. But it did make me think: where do these ideas come from?
*La Plancha Park. Public recreational space in Merida, Yucatan.
The patina
Seventeen years ago I had the opportunity to develop my manual skills and aesthetic sensibility in the Restoration Department of INAH. It was an incredible experience to touch, feel and connect with objects that had had their splendor centuries ago. I was fascinated to observe the details of the Mayan vessels, to imagine the workshops where they were made, the pigments they used [...] and how those colors remained alive even after centuries of burial. The apartment was full of pre-Columbian and colonial objects. Since then, I have had a fascination with patina: the clear and forceful trace of time left on things.
Dialogues with Rosma
"Beauty in the simple and crude."
I love this photo because of my hair: always loose, unruly and abundant. My jewelry has a deliberately raw, crude, powerful aesthetic.
Dialogues with Rosma
I once made a moodboard with images of women who inspire me. They were all African or Indian, tribal women, in their daily life [...] They have such a dignified look, so full. I hate those poses of models where they look like fragile, careless girls, with their legs bent [laughter] [...] hyper-sexualized, always complacent.
Profile, selfi
I took this picture myself. I loved the light in that house. I was in my work corner, noticed the halo of light falling on me, closed my eyes and took the picture. I love my profile there.
Dialogues with Rosma
The subject of the Mayan profile is not one that I have always celebrated. It was through other looks that I recognized it. Foreigners celebrate it a lot. Once I was told that my profile looked like the glasses in a museum. And yes, I looked at it and I thought, 'Sure, it's a Mayan profile!'
But there are also Spaniards and Moroccans with aquiline noses [...] they see you with their own imaginary. Now nobody asks me if I'm from India, but when I was thinner, they always asked me. Or if I was from Bangladesh. And now, if I'm a black woman [laughs].
Jewelry maker
[...] I am trying to capture in words this strength, this presence, this transgression of what is imposed on you as conventional jewelry [...] When I work I connect with my emotions, there is a lot of connection with what I do, I like to work in silence, in my corner, it is an island, surrounded by books, and jewelry, plants, and I am in my world.
Dialogues with Rosma
[...] it is difficult to put a description to this photo, but I feel a mystique [...] looking at my work in a tone of respect. Wearing my jewelry with a Calder book [...]
Many brown people like me, at some point I talked to girls, entrepreneurs too, and many of them have thought that the success of my jewelry is due to the foreign look they think I have. How strong, right? their imaginary [...] because they also feel talented, but they feel that they have not stood out like me because they do not have this flattering phenotype [...].
Image 21. Afro roots
"Let no one doubt my Afro roots [...] [ironic tone] Phenotypically I can believe that I have Afro elements and Mayan elements, but not cultural identity [...] phenotypically yes, I see it in the mirror and I recognize it.
Reflections with Rosma on identity
[...] in the end I am not [Afro-Mexican, Afro-descendant, Mayan], because I do have traits but those same emotions I have with the Mayan, eh? At some point I also identify myself closer to the Mayan, but I don't feel legitimate either, you know what I mean? At some point I said: 'It's just that they are quarts of my identities that are there, right? Why can't we reconcile all those parts?' I feel them [...] like this [...] fluctuating, around, right? But not completely part of me.
Do you know what really marks me as an identity? The popular culture, the knowledge that I come from a popular environment, from low-income backgrounds, that is, well, like maaaaaaaaaaa, a class identity that I have stronger".
Bibliography
Fernández Repetto, Francisco and Ana Teresa Medina-Várguez (2020). "Dressing Yucatecan identity. Etnomercancía, tradición y modernidad", Entrediversidades. Magazine of Science Social and Humanities(19), pp. 241-275.
Gutiérrez Miranda, M. (2023). "First approaches to the concept of image. selfie as a sign of self-representation and self-concept", in Ángeles Aguilar San Román and Pamela Jiménez Draguicevic (eds. Processes cross-cutting of the expression, the representation and the significance. Querétaro: Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, pp. 103-129.
Nahayeilli B. Juarez Huet is a research professor at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (ciesas), Peninsular headquarters, and member of the snii. Her research focuses on three main areas: religious diversity in Mexico, Afro-descendants and the different manifestations of racism. She was academic co-responsible of the Cátedra unesco/inah/ciesas"Afrodescendants in Mexico and Central America: recognition, expressions and cultural diversity" (2017-2021); since 2016 she has served as academic co-coordinator of workshops on the use of visual tools for social research in. ciesas, Peninsular, from where he promotes collaborative work and methodological experimentation in visual anthropology. He is a member of the Network of Researchers on the Religious Phenomenon in Mexico (rifrem) and the Audiovisual Anthropology Research Network, Audiovisual Laboratory (riav) of the ciesas.
The dynamics of salvation goods in the cult of Jesus Malverde: a photographic essay on popular religiosity in Mexico.
Image 1. The Holy Cross of Malverde
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Jesús Malverde was a bandit born in northwestern Mexico at the end of the 19th century. He died at the hands of the forces of order commanded by General Cañedo, then governor of Sinaloa. After his death, hanging from a mesquite tree, he was instructed not to bury his remains so that, not receiving a Christian burial, he could not rest in peace. Malverde's soul in pain has found in his devotees different forms of gratitude. One of them is to materialize this gratitude for the favors received; at some point, this gratitude was manifested in raising the steel cross shown in the photograph.
Image 2. Malverde's images
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
It is a set of religious figures of Jesus Malverde. Most of them are images of the bust of the character, although there are others in which he is seated on an armchair/throne. There are also necklaces, medals, rosaries and scapulars with the image of the saint's face. The largest figure stands out for being the authentic central image of the main niche of the chapel of Malverde, which is concentrated with so many other images in the hood of the van, property of the chapel to carry out the traditional tour through the surrounding streets.
Image 3. Images of Malverde II
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
In this photograph, inside the chapel, an original reproduction of the bust of Jesus Malverde can be seen, but unlike the one in the main niche, in this image he wears a green shirt and, around his neck, the handkerchief is black and white. Behind him, there are dollars and photographs taped with tape. Between the wall of the niche and the image of Malverde are other images of the Catholic faith, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, St. Jude Thaddeus and Jesus Christ. Both in the devotee's hand and surrounding the saint are candles with the image and the prayer to Malverde. In front, with her back turned, is a woman; women are increasingly taking a more central role in the cult of Malverde.
Image 4. The freighter of the Divine Providence Rider
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
One type of errand often carried by Mexican cargo carriers -usually related to carnival and patron saint festivities- is to carry a carnival or pyrotechnics bull. The photo shows a person, a volunteer, carrying the image of the generous bandit on his horse, which is fixed to a metal structure that facilitates its transportation. During the procession different devotees have taken turns to carry the rider; and in the rests there are those who approach to give him liquor or beer to drink.
Image 5. Malverdista fashion
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Caps, hats, sombreros, belts or cowboy shirts bearing the image of Malverde are merchandise that, outside the festive context, have a more profane meaning; however, during the festivity they are endowed with sacredness, as they are part of the sacred meaning of the image of Malverde. In this photo, a freighter with his back turned shows the detail of the image of Jesus Malverde surrounded by marijuana leaves and, in the center, a sunflower.
Image 6. Tattoos
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
A constant in the annual celebration of the cult of Malverde are the tattoos that are carried on the chest, back and arms, mainly. However, in this photo the innovative aspect is the gender of the bearer. It is relevant that more and more women are showing their Malverde tattoos during the festivity. Particularly, this photo focuses on the face of the character without offering more detail of his clothing. The representation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, half-length behind the saint, stands out.
Image 7. Tattoos II
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
A tattoo of Malverde on the shoulder of a woman, in which he wears a small bow tie instead of the tie he traditionally wears. Again, the portrait focuses on his face. Underneath, "Jesús Malverde" is inscribed. This piece is surrounded by other tattoos with no allusions to the religious or spiritual life of the adherent. It is about a woman who, by devotion or by some command, exhibits her tattoo during the festivity. Whether they are cargueras, pilgrims who accompany the saint on their knees in his procession or through their tattoos, among other elements of sacredness or malverdista spirituality, on this occasion the female category has acquired greater relevance.
Image 8. Tattoos III
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
In the case of men, the continued use of tattoos as a way to pay for a favor has remained almost a tradition during the May 3 holiday. In previous years, the tattoos were placed on parts of the body that are usually covered, such as the chest, back or legs. This photo shows a variation in this spiritual practice, as the image of Malverde is more frequently seen tattooed on the forearm. The photograph shows Malverde's face and that he wears a bow tie and a shirt. Behind the saint is St. Jude Thaddeus, showing half of his body, which protrudes above the generous bandit.
Image 9. Tattoos IV
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Regarding the tradition of the malverdista tattoo, here we can appreciate the spiritual practice in its maximum splendor. The devotee, bare-chested, shows his tattoo, still fresh; a work that has not yet finished healing, but which allows the bearer to be ready to fulfill his command. This photo shows a reproduction of the print that usually has the prayer to Malverde on the back. That is why both the tie and the denim shirt are in keeping with the description of the image in the main niche in the chapel.
Image 10. V tattoos
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Once again, a cargo carrier carrying his image of Malverde displays his tattoo on his forearm. Both the bust he carries and the image of his tattoo have a small bow and the same jacket; apparently, the latter has been copied from the former. The truth is that the constant tattoos on the forearm are a sign of tolerance and social acceptance of the devotion to Malverde. We cannot fail to point out that in the photo it stands out that he is spilling whisky to the figure.
Image 11. Consecrations
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
During the tour through the surrounding streets, the main image of Malverde is transported on the hood of a van owned by the chapel. This photo shows a group of religious images, medals, scapulars, etc., whose owners are adherents who walk alongside the truck. The practice of spilling alcoholic beverages on the images, usually whiskey or tequila, stands out. This spiritual practice, which is traditionally carried out year after year, is one of the most popular among the malverdistas adherents, reason why a lot of alcohol is spilled and the image is damaged, which must be repaired for the following year's tour.
Image 12. Consecrations II
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
The image in the main niche, during the festivity, is easier to see or touch during the tour than being inside the chapel, since to visit it in its niche you have to wait in line and wait your turn to pass, which usually takes a long time. This exit allows to observe the authentic image together with different variations. In this photo a saint of white complexion is observed, with medium bushy eyebrows, without beard, with mustache. He wears a white denim shirt with black details and a black tie with white stripes.
Image 13. Consecrations III
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
The rider of Divine Providence riding his white horse is sacralized during the tour by another visitor who, taking advantage of the break, pours whiskey on his head. In previous years this practice was seen almost as an exclusive relationship between the chaplain and the main image, since he is usually the one who has been in charge of receiving the liquor from the devotees to pour it on the images and on the visitors themselves. This photo shows a full body Malverde wearing a red tie, white shirt and black pants. Likewise, it stands out that in his hand he carries a sack or bundle in allusion to the generous bandit that he represents.
Image 14. Consecrations IV
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Drinking liquor or using other substances in popular Catholicism and in Mexico is not something that is at odds with religious life. In Malverde's feast the adherents carry out this practice within the sacred field. This image shows a common way of sharing liquor among visitors participating in the dance, while waiting for the main image of Malverde to leave the chapel.
Image 15. Penance
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Physical sacrifices -such as pilgrimages barefoot or on one's knees- are common in Catholic devotion. In Mexico, on December 12, the day the Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated, it is normal to see the Guadalupe faithful enter the Basilica on their knees as a sign of faith. In the case of the Malverde festivity, it is an uncommon spiritual practice that required certain care, due to the fact that, unlike the winter in Mexico City, the asphalt in Culiacán during the month of May is scorching hot. However, for Malverde devotees this is not an impediment. The photo shows two people kneeling in procession behind the truck carrying the main image of Malverde.
Image 16. Penance II
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Penance taken to the extreme of accepting physical punishment (self-inflicted) as a spiritual practice, despite being widely practiced, does not have the same acceptance within the Catholic Church, since there are less risky ways to achieve forgiveness. In this photo, two people are seen making the journey on their knees behind the main image of Malverde. Their faces cannot hide the physical pain. Their improvised knee pads, made from pieces of pants, reflect the urgency to reduce the impact of the concrete with each step they take. This photo also shows that their clothes are soaked with water as other devotees try to keep both the concrete and their bodies cool.
Image 17. Penance III
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
While it is true that, due to the blood on the knee ground by the concrete, a superficial reading of this photo invites us to think of a person with self-inflicted wounds, it is also necessary to describe a couple of symbolic elements within it. The first, the tattoo of Malverde's face decorated with roses that the person wears on his thigh accompanied by the phrase "in you I trust", indicates that probably walking on his knees is not his first command fulfilled to the saint. The second, which refers to the consecration of the act, has to do with genuflection as a spiritual practice and as a Catholic penitential practice, taken to an extreme use in terms of popular practice.
Image 18. Malverde de las siete potencias (Malverde of the seven powers)
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
This image stands out for its colorfulness. This bust, resting on the base of a pillar, exhibits in and on itself elements of another belief system. On the one hand, the shirt of the saint is dyed in seven colors, symbol of the seven powers or main deities of the Yoruba pantheon. On the other hand, on this Malverde there is a necklace of Elegguá, one of the main deities of the Yoruba religion, responsible for opening or closing the paths of its believers, as well as providing them with protection.
Image 19. Yoruba Malverde
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
Since its adoption by Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers a few decades ago, the Yoruba or Santeria religion has become more present in the so-called narcoculture. Nowadays, more and more corrido singers, influencers and other personalities related to drug trafficking intertwine popular belief systems. Again, the photo shows the bust of Malverde, this time with blue eyes and slightly pink lips, wearing a red tie and denim shirt. Around his neck he wears a necklace of Elegguá, the main protective deity of the Yoruba pantheon. It is a constant that Malverde is related to Elegguá, since both are protector saints of their adherents.
Image 20. The bust and its carrier
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
In addition to the devotees who seek to deposit a candle, some accessory or their personal images, either in the chapel or on the truck that leads the procession, during the celebration of May 3 it is common to see the cargueros carrying in their arms the images that regularly form part of their personal altars at home. This bust, in particular, is shown with variations such as the bushy eyebrow and red tie. A green rosary also stands out on the saint; possibly this color is also related to Orula, another deity of the Yoruba pantheon associated with wisdom.
Image 21. Malverde's cargo carrier
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
An image from the northeast of the country resting on a pillar base. In addition to highlighting the wide tie and for being decorated with a hat, this representation is characterized by blue eyes, false eyelashes, painted lips and blush on the cheekbones. In previous years, during the tour had highlighted the images of Malverdes pelones, a rapa, alluding to the cholos and homies from the State of Mexico. However, a feminized Malverde, inspired and molded by the life story of his carguera, is innovative. He transgresses the field of the sacralized masculine with a feminized sacralized image, which corresponds more to his own reality and his interpretative frameworks of spirituality.
Image 22. Amigurumi malverdista
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
The devotees of Malverde, whose presence is more and more constant during the festivity, have introduced different innovations to the field of religious and spiritual practices and beliefs. In this photograph the carguera has substituted traditional materials such as plaster for the creation of her image. In its place she carries a Malverde made with the crochet technique. The character is seen in full body, with a red tie, a bud of cannabis and a bag of money in both hands. On the base where the character rests, coins are placed as an offering.
Image 23. Party objects and carnival malverdista
Culiacán, Sinaloa, May 3, 2024
This photograph shows a contingent of devotees of the Fidencista Luz y Esperanza Mission, dressed in red. In the background is a botarga and a carnival balloon. The representation of Malverde is different, more in the style of Tamaulipas, while the balloon is decorated with pennants.
Arturo Fabian Jimenez is a researcher and documentary filmmaker with extensive experience in the study of religious phenomena and popular religiosity in Mexico, as well as in the analysis of migration and violence against migrants in regions such as the Darien. She is a specialist in the analysis of unofficial cults and the production of salvation goods, with a particular focus on the figure of Jesus Malverde. Her work combines ethnographic and photographic methods to document and analyze the practices and beliefs of diverse religious communities. In addition, she has researched and documented the plight of migrants through video documentary production to capture their experiences and make visible the violations of their human rights. She has presented her research at national and international conferences and has published several articles in specialized journals, providing a more comprehensive and accessible view of religious and migratory dynamics in contemporary contexts.
Monoculture and the "ecuaro": Aspects and genealogies of agricultural modernization in San Miguel Zapotitlán, Mexico.
Rubén Díaz Ramírez
Autonomous Metropolitan University - Iztapalapa Unit, Mexico
D. in Social Anthropology from the Universidad Iberoamericana. He is currently doing postdoctoral research at UAM-Iztapalapa. In his academic career he has been dedicated to historical and ethnographic research on various aspects of socio-technical transformations, as well as the imaginaries of progress, modernization and development in various localities of the municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco. His current work deals with the anthropology and techno-environmental history of Poncitlán, with emphasis on San Miguel Zapotitlán.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4424-0001
Image 1. Ghosts and ruins of progress
San Miguel Zapotitlán, January 16, 2022.
(Mariana on the ejido's old Oliver tractor) Agriculture is a way of life in which the ghosts and ruins of past projects live on, visible and invisible, peaceful and violent, ephemeral and enduring. This Oliver tractor model was one of the insignia of the "modernization" of ejido agriculture in the 1950s. The children of the generation born in the 1980s played in its ruins.
Image 2. Resignification of progress infrastructures
San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 07, 2022.
(Former CONASUPO offices, now Castariz) One of CONASUPO's functions was to prevent abuses by middlemen (known as coyotes) in the commercialization of corn. The Mexican rural landscape abounds with these ruins that resemble Mesoamerican temples. Image 2 shows the warehouses of San Miguel Zapotitlán. The ejido rents the warehouses to Agropecuaria Castariz and Integradora Arca, which symbolically and functionally appropriated the materializations of the dreams of progress in 20th century Mexican agriculture.
Image 3. Residual non-human presences
Potrero Barranquillas, May 7, 2021.
(Datura blooming in an alley near wheat) Subjecting agriculture to industrial production chains in the mid-20th century resulted not only in the subjugation of farmers to the production of food for the urban market, but also in the displacement or annihilation of other species classified as "weeds" or "pests". The alleys (areas between plots) are residual spaces, home to species that are also residual and therefore survive agrochemicals. In Image 3, a common toloache plant, maybe Datura stramonium L.
Image 4. Unexpected visitors
Potrero Barranquillas, December 06, 2018.
("Avenilla" in the alley) Stories of living beings survive in the landscape. Just as one day the Castilians brought their species from the other side of the ocean, in the 20th century hybrid corn, sorghum and exogenous wheat varieties were introduced. The pathways were laid for the arrival of other unexpected species. For example, the "avenilla" (possibly Themeda quadrivalvis), which colonizes disturbed areas on hills and roads, is an indication of its movement on top of agricultural machinery.
Image 5. Wheat: irrigating with contaminated water from the Santiago River
Potrero Barranquillas, January 11, 2023.
("Rolling" irrigation with river water) Irrigation systems are infrastructures that combine time. In the 19th century, small landowners and ranchers monopolized irrigated land, but peasants won their right to water in the agrarian reform of the 20th century. These systems take advantage of ditches, canals, dikes and dams, some of which date back to the hacienda era, while others were opened during the years of the agrarian reform.
Wheat between tradition and industry
Potrero Barranquillas, January 21, 2023.
(The "stripe" to guide water through the plot) Farmers and irrigators are experts at seeing the terrain and using gravity to direct water into plots to irrigate wheat. This knowledge is passed down through the generations. The liquid for irrigation is extracted or channeled from the Santiago River, in whose channel the companies of the industrial corridor dispose of their toxic waste. As can be seen, "nature" and agriculture are contained by tradition and by industry in little obvious ways.
Image 7. Dependence: monoculture and chemical fertilizers
Potrero Barranquillas, February 23, 2021.
(The two Martins between sacks of urea). Commercial agriculture depends on chemical fertilizers. Between 2021 and 2022 the price of urea in the region reached up to 24 000 pesos per ton; 18 000 pesos according to other sources (Index Mundi 2023). The situation was aggravated by shortages caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, which started on February 24, 2022.
Image 8. An essential duo: monoculture and nitrogen
Bodega Libertad, San José de Ornelas, June 10, 2023.
(Monsanto's ammonium sulfate and pallets) The urea shortage and the Russia-Ukraine war caused an increase in the price of urea and therefore in production costs per hectare of corn, 5 or 10,000 pesos more than in previous years. In a talk among farmers I heard: the United States is "way ahead of us" because they already have planters and fertilizer applicators that dose the right amount per square meter. In Mexico, on the contrary, they "throw it evenly". Therefore, "the lands that do not need it become better and those that need it become worse because they do not receive the necessary fertilizer" (Diario de campo, May 29, 2022).
Image 9. When assemblies are altered
La Constancia, Zapotlán del Rey, March 27, 2021.
(Farmers see a patrol car pass by) On March 22, 2021, World Water Day, state police destroyed pumping system starter equipment in several of the region's ejidos and delayed irrigation at a critical stage of the wheat cycle. With these actions, the governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, blamed the farmers for the drinking water supply crisis suffered by the city of Guadalajara and tried to win the sympathy of his governors with the typical resource of confronting the countryside with the city.
Image 10. When assemblies are altered
La Constancia, Zapotlán del Rey, March 27, 2021.
(Organized farmers) The farmers sought dialogue with the government. In the end, it was agreed that the equipment would be restored, but the damage was already done. Harvests were two to three tons per hectare, half or less of the average in normal years. The price of wheat was 4,500 pesos per ton. The income of nine thousand pesos, in the case of harvests of two tons per hectare, is insufficient; it does not even cover half of the production costs.
Image 11. Agave
Potrero Barranquillas, September 15, 2022.
(New crops in the ejido) Drought, state government actions, high prices of agricultural inputs and the expansion of the tequila market led several farmers to rent their plots to agave growers (agaves, agribusinesses and agribusinesses).tequilana Weber). The fever for agave arises in part because of the high price it reached during the 2019-2021 period. According to a report in the online newspaper UDG TVthe price per kilogram of agave [...] exceeded 30 pesos, [30 times more expensive] than in 2006 when it was sold at 1 peso" (García Solís, 2020). In 2024, the price varies between 15 and 8 pesos per kilogram.
Image 12. Eliminate non-valuable species
Potrero Barranquillas, February 21, 2019.
(Preparation of the fumigation tank for wheat) Monoculture implies the systematic elimination of any animal or plant species that "competes" for space and resources with cultivated plants. As Gilles Clément points out, "the eradication of an invasive species is always a failure: it is to affirm that the current state of our knowledge allows us no other recourse than violence" (2021: 19). One of the most widely used post-emergent herbicides in San Miguel Zapotitlán is called Ojiva (Paraquat), further evidence of the war vocabulary that survives in agriculture (Romero, 2022:51).
Image 13. The harvest
Potrero Barranquillas, May 19, 2021.
(The green traces of other species among the wheat) Wheat is harvested in mid-May. This cereal was the flagship of the region's haciendas until the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and became the focus of agronomic science from 1940 onwards (Olsson, 2017: 150). Mexican wheat varieties were exported to countries as far away as India, thus creating more global biotech corridors.
Image 14. The machines
Potrero Barranquillas May 19, 2021.
(Harvester loading wheat onto Dina truck) One of the visible symbols of agrarian modernization in this region is machinery. Since the 1960s, work in the ejidos of Poncitlán has been unimaginable without threshing machines, tractors and trucks. The trucks transport the grains to the factories Barcel, Kellogg's, Bimbo, Ingredion, Cargill or PEPSICO, where they transform the grains into industrial products that are then returned in delivery trucks to the stores where the farmers buy them in the form of merchandise.
Image 15. Paying the maquila
Potrero Barranquillas, June 11, 2021.
(Pay the maquila on time) In the mid-1980s, ejidatarios purchased agricultural machinery for individual use. For various reasons, these farmers gradually lost their machinery until they became dependent on maquiladoras: owners of tractors, seeders, harvesters and other equipment that rent their services to those who require them. This is another reason why smallholdings are in decline.
Image 16. From Mesoamerican corn to hybrid seed
Potrero Barranquillas, June 11, 2021.
(There is something disturbing about the fact that private companies that commercialize hybrid corn seed own "thousands of years of knowledge accumulated by millions of producers" that have been deposited in the seed as "germ plasm" (Warman, 2003: 185). Poncitlán farmers have depended on these companies to purchase seed year after year since the mid-20th century. At that time, the hybrids were called "government corn" (Diario de campo, June 25, 2022).
Image 17. Planting generates tension
Potrero Barranquillas, June 10, 2023.
(Farmers supervise the correct planting of corn) Corn planting begins at the end of May, when the first rains have fallen. Planting generates nervous tensions in farmers because, as one of them commented to me, "We have thrown money into the plots." The investment to produce corn in 2018 was between 20 and 30 000 pesos per hectare (Field Diary, June 2, 2018). During 2023 the investment was around 40 000 pesos per hectare.
Image 18. Planting at the time of need
Potrero Barranquillas, June 10, 2023.
(Corn planting night) You have to look to the sky for signs of the weather. In 2022 a series of storms softened the ejido's soils, then it stopped raining until well into June. The rain caused planting to be delayed and the dryness withered the plants, which were born to be exposed to an inclement sun with barely any moisture. Therefore, planting is done at whatever time is necessary, even at night, because it is imperative to deal with weather changes.
Image 19. Eliminating corn competition
Potrero Barranquillas, June 22, 2022.
(Day laborers refill spray pumps) Day laborers are in direct contact with pesticides. According to one study, 385 million people worldwide fall ill from pesticide poisoning each year (Chemnitz et al., 2022: 18). But the effects of pesticides on human health reach even urban consumers of fruits and vegetables contaminated by invisible residues.
Image 20. Burning
Potrero Barranquillas, June 22, 2022.
(The day laborers eliminate the "mostrenco") The "mostrenco" is the name given to the cornfield that is born from the corn kernels that are not harvested by the harvesting machines. It is a rebellious plant that germinates where it should not: outside the furrow lines. Farmers call the work of eliminating the mostrenco and other weeds "burning", because when the herbicide acts on the plants it dries them, coloring them gold, yellow or white. A grower asked an engineer why science has not invented an agrochemical that definitively ends this problem, to which the engineer answered between truth and jokes: "If we end up with that, what poison are we going to sell them?" (Field Diary, October 18, 2018).
Image 21. Watching the sowing
Potrero Barranquillas, October 31, 2018.
(Above, for a better view of the plots) Farming involves see. This means walking the surface of the plot, lifting the dust, listening for misaligned furrows, pulling dying plants to the surface, pulling weeds, widening a canal with a shovel; feeling sad for the unborn plants. For this looking is a way of knowing the world, "moving it, exploring it, attending to it, always alert to the sign by which it reveals itself" (Ingold, 2000: 55). The "modern" cultivation depends on these "traditional" and sensitive intuitions.
The act of looking in agriculture
Potrero Barranquillas, February 21, 2019.
(Looking at the wheat) The act of looking in the agriculture of San Miguel Zapotitlán is a search for signs of bad entanglements of the multiple species and their seasonality. The farmer looks between the roots and the leaves: If the color is yellowish, it is necessary to fertilize. If the leaves are nibbled, it is because of worms. He is on the lookout for fungus, mayapods or budworms. He is satisfied when most of the plants are glowing dark green and the plant population in the plot looks homogeneous. How different is the observation of modern urban dwellers from that of farmers and peasants?
Image 23. Temporary collapse: teocintle and maize
Potrero Barranquillas, June 22, 2022.
(Teocintle among hybrid maize) The logic of modernization assumes that efficient maize varieties will replace the old, less productive ones. Teocintle, the evolutionary ancestor of corn, grows among modern hybrids on ejido land. This evolutionary "remora" resists herbicides and is visible only when its ears protrude above the corn due to its greater length, which is when farmers pull the plant. Teocintle has been mixed with hybrids such as Pioneer (Inzunza, 2013: 72).
Image 24. Chrono-naut farmers
Potrero Barranquillas, December 19, 2021.
(Harvester emptying grain into a truck) Choosing when to plant and harvest is a delicate decision that depends on weather conditions. If you sow before the onset of the rainy season, the seed will not sprout. If you wait too long, the soil is so soft that it is impossible to plant. If the corn does not dry in time, the winter rains could make harvesting difficult. The farmer becomes a chrono-naut navigating between unsubmissive temporalities, which are churning in the Anthropocene and the Plantation Era.
Image 25. The old new demonstrations
Potrero La Bueyera, October 09, 2018.
(Registration to attend a demonstration) Demonstrations are the old tactics of 20th century extensionism and rural communication. After World War II there was a "need" to increase food production in America, "the consequence was a strong interest in the media". In that context, "persuasion was considered the right weapon" to encourage change and "facilitate the development" of the countryside (Díaz Bordenave, 1976: 136).
Image 26. Demonstrate to sell
Potrero San Juanico, October 18, 2018.
(Engineer demonstrating the filling of the cob) In contrast to the see In the farmer's mind, demonstrations are a display of visual rhetoric aimed at convincing the farmer to buy a product or service. Agricultural engineers (formerly extensionists) are the actors who attempt to overcome the supposed "skepticism" of farm people through tactics grounded in the science of communication.
Image 27. Labels to recognize the hybrid
Potrero San Juanico, October 18, 2018.
(Engineer jokes with farmers) Agribusinesses call these scenes where the benefits of their products are demonstrated to the farmer "showcases" (Field Diary, March 15, 2024). Visual aids are essential, such as this sign indicating the variety planted: Pioneer P3026W, which is associated with DuPont's Dermacor insecticide.
Farmers' sociability and advertising
San Miguel Zapotitlán, November 4, 2022.
(Thank you lunch) Since 2019, Integradora Arca has organized the Expo Foro Maíz Amarillo in San Miguel Zapotitlán in November, a fair that links farmers with agribusinesses, insurers, financial companies and the industrial sector. As the name suggests, it revolves around the complexities of yellow corn production for industrial consumption. After conferences and demonstrations, Integradora Arca offers a meal to attendees, where the companies' colorful promotional items stand out, such as the blue and white caps of Financiera Rural (FIRA).
Image 29. New technologies
San Miguel Zapotitlán, November 04, 2022
(Agricultural drones for sale) In the agribusiness sector, technological determinism persists: it is assumed that new technologies increase production almost immediately. Image 29 shows the latest innovation: the crop spraying drone. Another military device that extends its applications to agriculture and adds to the list of machinism promoted by the futuristic vision of agribusiness (Marez, 2016).
Image 30. The religiosity of the tractor
San Miguel Zapotitlán, September 20, 2023.
(Entrada de Gremios San Miguel Zapotitlán) Although agriculture is a commercial activity abstracted between the past and the future, this does not mean that religious aspects are absent in its operation. Masses for good weather and petitions to San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of farmers, are common in San Miguel Zapotitlán. Religion is an integral part of grain production for the "modern" industry.
Image 31. The religiosity of agrochemicals
Poncitlán, October 09, 2018.
(Entrada de Gremios Poncitlán) Agricultural iconography crosses domains to form part of religious parades and processions. Image 31 shows a giant container of an agrochemical on top of a float that paraded in the "Entrada de Gremios", a parade that opens the feast of the Virgin of the Rosary in Poncitlán, the municipal capital. Agriculture is not only production, it is also visual culture mixed with religion.
Figure 32: The ecuaros: polycultures in oblivion
Cerro el Venadito, San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 22, 2023.
(Commercial agriculture coexists with a polyculture practice called "ecuaro". A farmer defines ecuaro as "a small piece of land to plant vegetables or corn, as if to say: "just a small piece of land to plant vegetables or corn". pa' elotes" (Diario de campo, March 6, 2019). This practice is on the verge of disappearing, although there are still a few farmers who cultivate their ecuaros. In Image 32, an ecuaro can be seen in the dry season and in the distance the plains with wheat.
Image 33. Diversity even in the drought
Cerro el Venadito, San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 22, 2023.
(Ecuaro del tío Conrado) The peasants were expert makers of multi-species arrangements before monoculture. Ecuaros have been characterized as "agroforestry systems" where "a large number of perennial and annual plants, wild and domesticated, [as well as] species with different uses" coexist (Moreno-Calles et al., 2016: 5). In this, polycultures are different from monocultures, where the survival of wheat and corn is assured, but not of other species. Image 33 shows the living fence formed by timber and fruit species.
Image 34. Equaro and clearing
Cerro el Venadito, San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 22, 2023.
Before planting the cornfield, the farmer "cleans" the land. He cuts the species considered weeds, while tolerating other useful plants, with this action he creates the landscape from the existing biodiversity. Image 34 shows the nopal cactus, called blanco, which is highly valued in local cuisine for its flavor and texture.
Image 35. New farmers
San Miguel Zapotitlán, June 16, 2022.
(Mariana planting a new ecuaro) The pandemic publicized the "return to nature" at the level of popular discourse. However, this phenomenon is relatively common in post-industrial societies where "neo-peasants" and "neo-artisans" claim local knowledge and praxis by returning to the rural world from the cities (Chevalier, 1998:176). In Image 34, Mariana covers up the holes - dug with a hand tool called a hoe - where she deposited the seeds in the hope of harvesting.
Old and new associations
San Miguel Zapotitlán, August 24, 2023.
(Association of corn, zinnias, pumpkins and beans) The new farmers learn to cultivate the milpa by listening to the teachings of the old farmers, but also through YouTube videos, which were filmed by people who practice permaculture in Chile or Spain. So the milpa becomes a laboratory of experimentation - as it has been for millennia - where new associations between living beings are assembled and global paths are traced that are different from those of monoculture.
Image 37. Emotive seed selection
San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 9, 2024.
(Mariana selecting the seed) The seeds that are sown in ecuaro agriculture have been selected by farmers for dozens of years. Their genetic history is reason enough to promote their care. Even in the midst of this region where agriculture is becoming more and more technified and commercial, people conserve local varieties of bean, squash and corn seeds, and plant them wherever soil is available. This popular mode of seed conservation could ensure the preservation of native maize.
Image 38. The milpa beyond yields
San Miguel Zapotitlán, March 9, 2024.
(Pumpkin and its seeds next to multicolored cobs) An essential question in agrarian economic history is whether the milpa is productive. If one compares the harvest of the ecuaros with the yield of monocultures, the answer is no. The monoculture is designed to produce massive quantities of raw material for raw material for the monoculture. The monoculture is designed to produce massive quantities of raw material for industry. In comparison, there are not even accurate figures on production in ecuaros. But what is lost in quantity with polycultures, is gained in diversity and wholesomeness: the taste of pumpkins or corn without pesticides is unbeatable. And the relationships between humans and non-humans intensify around the cultivation and sharing of these foods.
Bibliography:
Chemnitz, Christine, Katrin Wenz and Susan Haffman (2022), Pestizidatlas. Data and facts about the facts in the world.Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung; Bund. Friends of The Earth Germany; PAN Germany; Le Monde Diplomatique. Retrieved from: www.boell.de/pestizidatlas.
Chevalier, Michel (1993). "Neo-rural phenomena", in. L'Espace géographique. Spaces, modes of useSpecial issue, pp. 175-191. Retrieved from: https://www.persee.fr/doc/spgeo_0046-2497_1993_hos_1_1_3201
Clément, Gilles (2021). The garden in motion. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.
Díaz Bordenave, Juan (1976). "Communication of Agricultural Innovations in Latin America.
The Need for New Materials," in Communication Researchvol. 3, no. 2, pp. 135-154.
García Solís, Georgina Iliana (May 8, 2020). Without shortage, blue agave becomes 3 thousand% more expensive. UDG TV. Retrieved from: https://udgtv.com/noticias/sin-desabasto-el-agave-azul-se-encarece-en-3-mil-/168584
Index Mundi (2024). Urea monthly price. Mexican peso per ton. Retrieved from: https://www.indexmundi.com/es/precios-de-mercado/?mercancia=urea&meses=60&moneda=mxn
Ingold, Tim (2000). The Perception of the Environment. Essays on Livehood, Dwelling and Skill.. London: Routledge.
Inzunza Mascareño, Fausto R. (2013). "Hybridization between teocintle and maize in the Ciénega, Jal., Mexico: narrative proposal of the evolutionary process," in. Journal of Agricultural GeographyNo. 50-51, pp. 71-97.
Marez, Curtis (2016). Farm Worker Futurism. Speculative Technologies of Resistance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Olsson, Tore (2017). Agrarian Crossings. Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Romero, Adam (2022). Economic Poisoning. Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture. Oakland: University of California Press.
Warman, Arturo (2003). Corn and Capitalism. How Botanical Bastard Grew to Global Dominance. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Global manifestations of the Israel-Palestine conflict in anti-war aesthetic images from around the world
Concern over the armed conflict unleashed on October 2023 in the area known as the Gaza Strip has led to mobilizations, takeovers of public spaces and performances around the world. Although it is part of a long-standing territorial conflict between two ethno-national groups, it has become a global concern for different student groups, religious, human rights and political activists who are speaking out against a war that has contravened international agreements and has increased hate speech and attacks on civil society - mainly children and women, the elderly and journalists.
During 2024, the war intensified and expanded its territorial radius beyond Palestine. This situation has given rise to multiple demonstrations that make use of ritualized symbolic expressions to demand a halt to the war and denounce the horrors it provokes. Pro-Palestinian committees have been formed in different cities to oppose the war and denounce what Amnesty International called genocide. On the other hand, tensions have also shifted to public spaces, which has led to police repression of protests.
Due to the importance of this topic in today's time, the magazine Encartes launched an open invitation to participate in the vi photography contest with images capturing objects, subjects, places, landscapes, symbols and aesthetics that have accompanied the mobilizations and demonstrations around the Israel-Palestine war conflict taking place in different universities, public squares, in front of embassies, in national festivities, in political and religious ceremonies and even in parades and other festivities.
The call stated that the images had to cover the following contents: to show the processes of aesthetic creativity that generate anti-war and anti-nationalist manifestations, denouncing violence, using not only words but also staging, installations and shots of emblematic sites and stylistic interventions of symbols, as well as the creation of an iconography of denunciation or the metaphoricity (deconstruction of signs of power) with which the conflicts of race, nation, ethnicity, territory, religion and gender are expressed.
The call was extended to visual artists, filmmakers, researchers, communities, collectives, students of social sciences and humanities to send their photographs accompanied by a descriptive title and caption data (emphasizing the event, the place where it took place, who are the participants and the date), and a short text explaining the expressive meanings of the demonstration.
The response was very good. We received 105 photographs from 21 participants. The photographs received document demonstrations around the Israel-Palestine conflict in nine different cities, showing the impact that this issue has had on a global scale: Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Mexico City, Tijuana, San Cristóbal de las Casas (Chiapas), Santiago de Chile, New York and Los Angeles (United States) and Uruguay. Due to the quality of the images and the strength of the situations they were able to capture with their cameras, it was not easy to make the selection and even less so to decide which ones would get the first places. Thus, we had to establish several criteria to make a selection of 17 photographs: first, we considered the quality of the photograph (framing, aesthetic composition, image resolution); second, we took into account the expressive force of the image (that in itself could generate a message); third, the members of the jury had in mind the narrative as a whole and tried to ensure that the photos chosen would allow us to form a visual narrative that would account for the diversity of situations, places and actors involved in the demonstrations. In this way we were forced to avoid repetition of content and to choose only one photograph when this happened. Five members of the editorial team participated in the selection committee.
We decided to award first place to Elizabeth Sauno's photograph, which shows a demonstrator depicting a Palestinian mother carrying a bloody baby in her arms. The photo was taken during the March for Palestine on December 17, 2023 in Mexico City. Second place was awarded to Rodolfo Ontiveros for the photograph "Fences" which generates the metaphor of the body as a territory lacerated by barbed wire; it was taken on September 5, 2024, during a demonstration on Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. We decided to award third place to two photographs: one by Charlie Eherman and the other by José Manuel Martín Pérez. The first author's depicts "Two men, a Palestinian (left) and an Orthodox Jew (right), show peace signs next to the White House in Washington D. C., USA, during a national demonstration" (June 8, 2024, Washington). The second photograph presents how the global action of solidarity with Palestine is articulated with the feminist demands that took place in the already named Plaza de la Resistencia in San Cristóbal de las Casas during the march of March 8, 2024, in the framework of International Women's Day.
Each of the four winning photographs documents a different face of the demonstrations, but, when seen together, they allow us to recognize that the shared symbols give a single voice to people of different nationalities who may not speak the same language. At the same time, they help us to recognize how their installation in different places deploys multiple enunciations, making photography a resource of metaphoricity as a productive matrix to redefine the social (Bhabha, 2011) from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and against the war actions in the Gaza Strip.
The idea behind the photographic contests organized by Encartes seeks to assemble the images in order to generate a meta-narrative. Each image captures a different local scenario that, when put in relation, allows the narration of different realities articulated by a global aesthetic. These are articulated because they occur in the simultaneity of a historical time even though they are replicated in multiple distant places. At the same time, the singularity of each shot accounts for the multiplicity of actors, scenarios and symbolic expressions that are manifested there. The exercise allows us to circumvent the paradox of political homogeneity and heterogeneity of identity belonging.
The pro-Palestine movement is undoubtedly a transnational mobilization that has produced its own slogans and symbolism. These aesthetic marks and emblems are the lingua franca that articulates a global communitas of an imagined moral community that shares values, although they will never meet or interact face to face (Anderson, 1993); that has in common a sense of grievance and at the same time a sense of commitment. Different pro-Palestinian committees exist in different countries, cities and towns. The slogans of denunciation and symbols are shared representations and build a single voice in simultaneous time throughout the world. For example, kite flying is already an act of empathy with the children of the Palestinian people; the use or representation of the kufiya covering head and neck is already a distinctive element of the Middle East and wearing it places the enunciation of an activist body. The watermelons, whose colors match the Palestinian flag, go hand in hand with the choruses and banners of free Palestine, as do the Palestinian flags.
The interesting thing about representation is that these symbols do not appear in a vacuum: they dress bodies, they are installed in key scenarios to intervene places. The symbols have acquired a powerful metaphoricity with dissident force. For example, the kite reaches its flight in the emblematic building of the National Autonomous University of Mexico or flying over the concrete slab of Mexico City's zocalo (photo by Dzilam Méndez Villagrán). The flag is placed on the sand of a beach, metaphorically restoring the slogan "From the river to the sea" (photo by Pilar Aranda). The flag is intervened with the phrase "Nunca más, nunca nadie" and "ni un@ más" by a Jewish population that places the slogan of opposition to the holocaust on the Palestinian flag, to generate a hybrid of opposition to the war and to dissociate itself from Zionism (photos by Charlie Eherman).
The flag is used to conquer territories. Its placement constitutes representativeness in a regime of unrepresentability (Rancière, 2009). In the different photos selected, the flag generates a regime of visibility of solidarity for Palestine that, when placed in iconic places such as monuments, acquires a metaphorical enunciative power: In front of the Angel of Independence on Reforma Avenue in Mexico City (photo by Elizabeth Sauna), in front of the Glorieta de la Minerva (symbol of justice) in Guadalajara (photo by Christophe Alberto Palomera Lamas), placed on the border wall that divides Mexico and the United States today in what used to be the same territory inhabited by families that were divided by the wall (photo by Marco Vinicio Morales Muñoz). It even extends the enunciation of genocide to other realities, as is the case with the placement of the sign "Stop genocide" on the wall that divides Mexico from the United States (photo by Priscilla Alexa Macías Mojica), extending the clamor to the tightening of immigration policies. Symbols also move to occupy spaces and change their vocation, such as the emblematic Central Station in New York, taken over by demonstrators from the Jewish community (photo by Charlie Eherman); or their presence in the plaza of San Cristobal de las Casas (photo by Jose Manuel Martin Perez) with a wooden cross in the background, representing the indigenous Catholicism of the area.
The flag transgresses territorialities that also leave their territories traced by the States to configure mini-domains in other countries. This is the case of embassies. The photographs of a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy reproduce scenarios and experiences of violent confrontation (photo by Gerardo Vieyra). We see homemade bombs, police fences, fire, fallen bodies. This did not happen in Gaza, but in Mexico, in the territory of the Israeli embassy; but also in the center of Mexico City, in front of the Guardiola building, which houses the Bank of Mexico (photo by Ana Rodríguez). Territories are made by practicing them and the doors of the Guadalajara International Book Fair during the last month of November acquire the notoriety of an international forum and, therefore, of visibility beyond the local (photo by Pilar Aranda).
Symbols linked to different bodies also generate intersections between various activisms: they gain and expand the demands when they are linked to the feminist movement or when they are articulated with the demands for the recognition of transsexuals; or the resymbolization achieved by placing the already recognized mustache of Hitler, the exterminator of the Jews, on the portrait of Benjamin Netanyahu, current Prime Minister of Israel.
We invite you to sharpen your gaze to read the multiple realities generated by the aesthetic interventions in favor of Palestine captured by the lenses of photographic cameras and, at the same time, to allow yourself to enjoy the marvelous photos that make up this visual essay.
Renée de la Torre
March for Palestine 17 Dec 2023 CDMX
Elizabeth Sauno, Mexico City, December 17, 2023.
Mobilization in solidarity with Palestine, from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo, Mexico City.
Fences
Rodolfo Oliveros, Paseo de la Reforma, CDMX, September 5, 2024.
Two young men march through Palestine holding hands; the body is the territory encircled by the State of Israel.
One year of genocide, 76 years of occupation.
José Manuel Martín Pérez, Plaza de la Resistencia, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, March 8, 2024.
On March 8, in the framework of International Women's Day, the feminist movement in Chiapas joined the global action in solidarity with Palestine.
Symbols of peace in the capital.
Charlie Ehrman, Washington DC, June 8, 2024
Two men, a Palestinian (left) and an Orthodox Jew (right), display peace signs next to the White House in Washington DC, USA, during a national demonstration.
Pro-Palestinian Minerva
Christophe Alberto Palomera Lamas, Mobilization in solidarity with Palestine. Glorieta la Minerva, Guadalajara, Jalisco. Committee of Solidarity with Palestine GDL. November 12, 2023.
La Minerva, an emblematic symbol of Guadalajara, has been a meeting point to celebrate the identity of Guadalajara, but also to protest. Spectator of the search for justice and strength gives opening to the first mobilizations of the Committee of Solidarity with Palestine GDL. November 12, 2023.
Boy with kite in the Zócalo square
Dzilam Méndez Villagrán, Mexico City Zócalo, January 14, 2024.
A symbolic act to express support for the children of Gaza through the making of kites, held in the Zócalo square in Mexico City.
A light for Palestine
Sandra Suaste Avila, Mexico City, November 5, 2023.
A group of academics and activists demonstrate and offer cempasúchil flowers, candles, bread and the wish for an end to the violence in the Gaza Strip. Mexican women remember Palestinian women.
Stop genocide
Priscila Alexa Macías Mojica, Tijuana, Baja California, June 1, 2024.
Poster placed on the U.S.-Mexico border fence in a cross-border art and community activity.
Global action for Rafah in Mexico
Gerardo Vieyra, Mexico City, May 28, 2024.
On Tuesday, May 28, 2024, students from various universities and social organizations in support of Palestine, demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Mexico City, in rejection of the Israeli attacks that arrived that day to the center of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, the same day that Ireland, Spain and Norway recognized the State of Palestine and despite international condemnation for a bombing of a camp for displaced persons. According to data from human rights organizations, more than 46,000 people have died in Palestine and a large number of people have been wounded with serious health repercussions.
Looking down on the resistance from the 10th floor.
María Fernanda López López, UNAM Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, May 2024.
View of the encampment and monumental painting written on the esplanade of the central library of the UNAM, carried out by the members of the university student encampment in support of Palestine.
A break at Grand Central, no more war.
Charlie Ehrman, Manhattan, New York, October 27, 2023.
Hundreds of demonstrators from the Jewish Voice for Peace organization occupied the concourse of Grand Central Station in Manhattan, New York, to stop passenger traffic and demonstrate for a cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
March 8M CDMX
Elizabeth Sauno, Mexico City, March 8, 2024.
During the March 8 march in Mexico City, there were contingents in solidarity with Palestine, where sexual dissidents showed their support for the Palestinian cause.
Day of the Dead CDMX 30 Oct 2024.
Elizabeth Sauno, October 30, 2024, Mexico City.
As part of the Day of the Dead, journalists gathered at the Angel of Independence to make visible the journalists who have lost their lives in the coverage of Israel's military escalation against the Palestinian people.
Stop genocide, a collective cry.
Ana Ivonne Rodríguez Anchondo, Mexico City, May 15, 2024.
Youth in front of police blockade at the Guardiola building, during the demonstrations for the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, in Mexico City.
Handala in the corner of the world.
Marco Vinicio Morales Muñoz, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, February 13, 2025.
Handala, a symbol of the Palestinian people, is depicted on the Tijuana border wall along with other aesthetic elements and anti-war graphic designs that refer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Censorship in the media and shouting in the streets
Ilze Nava, Zócalo de la CDMX, February 17, 2024.
Demonstration for Free Palestine 2024.
Journalists at FIL
Pilar Aranda, Expo, Guadalajara (FIL), December 5, 2024.
On the occasion of the XX International Meeting of Journalists, a protest was held in the vicinity of the International Book Fair in Guadalajara, it is reported that in the "conflict" there are close to 200 journalists murdered.
Bibliography
Anderson, Benedict (1993). Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.. Mexico: FCE.
Bhabha, Homi K (2011). The place of culture. Buenos Aires: Spring.
Rancière, Jacques (2009). The distribution of the sensitive. Santiago de Chile: lom.
Photographing a Ritual Process: An Approach to the Agency of Xantolo Masks
Pablo Uriel Mancilla Reyna
The College of San Luis
is a doctoral candidate in the Anthropological Studies Program at El Colegio de San Luis. His research interests are ritual, visual anthropology, religious practices and the anthropology of art. She is part of the Visual Anthropology Laboratory of El Colegio de San Luis (LAVSAN).
Image 1. Chapulhuacanito: place of grasshoppers and masks.
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2022
During the days of the Xanto festival, the center of Chapulhuacanito is decorated for the attraction of the townspeople and visitors.
This year we hope that the delegation arranges it well, because the Xantolo is Chapulhuacanito's big party.
Participant of the costumed group of the San José neighborhood.
Image 2. Seed for St. John's day
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019
The cempasúchil flower that is placed on the domestic altars during Xantolo is left to dry and its seeds will be sprinkled on June 24 (St. John the Baptist's Day) of the following year. On that day they go out to their backyards and sprinkle the seeds that will give them that year's Xantolo flower.
Image 3. Tamales for the offering
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023
During the descent of masks and the days of Xantolo, the women organize themselves to make the tamales that they will offer and that will be the food for the participants of the costumed group, who will come to eat them when they finish dancing in the streets of the community.
Making tamales is one of the most important tasks and is the support of the Xantolo ritual process at the time of offering and exchanging food.
Image 4. Domestic altar
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November of 2019.
I'll be waiting for you for Xantolo so you can take a picture of me with the altar I'm going to put up here in the house," said don Barragan.
Excerpt from my field diary
In the houses a domestic altar is set up and dedicated to the deceased members of the family. Here food is placed and an offering is made, sometimes a mask is also placed, referring to their participation in a costumed group.
Image 5. Not saying thank you
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019
In the domestic offerings are placed the food that will be smoked and then eaten. In Chapulhuacanito, during the days of Xantolo, people eat what they put on the altar. When you are invited to ofrendar (consume the food on the altar), you do not have to say thank you because the food was prepared for the deceased and you are the only vehicle that consumes it in its material form.
Image 6. The descent of the devil
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2023.
In the first lowering of masks it is crucial to lower the devil masks with bent horns and standing horns. These are received by a past businessman who, upon taking them, blows copal from the sahumerio.
Image 7. The clown
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2022.
In addition to the traditional pink masks of the San José neighborhood, there are others that lead participants to create other types of characters.
This year they don't know what I'm going to dress up as, and I don't want to tell anyone because they'll copy it later.
Participant of the San José neighborhood group
Image 8. The photographer
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
We were at the businessman's house while everyone was preparing their costumes, when Toño arrived and told me: "You don't know what I'm going to dress up as, you're going to be surprised, Uriel".
Excerpt from my field diary
One of the qualities of the costume is that it can include elements of what they see or is happening at the time. In that case, one of the costumed decided to include my work as an anthropologist/photographer in the way I would appear during those days.
Image 9. Game of glances
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
After Toño's camera was destroyed, only the lens was preserved. The playful character of the Xantolo achieved a game of looks in which the look and the way of doing it were exposed.
Image 10. Music for the masks
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
The music of the Huapango trio is crucial in the descent of the masks of each of the costumed groups. When the trio arrives at the empresario's house, it begins to play "El canario" for the masks. In addition, he accompanies the masqueraders to their dance through the streets of the community during the four days of the festival.
Image 11. The devil in the mural
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. May 2023.
One of the most relevant masks in Chapulhuacanito is that of the devil. This is because the shape, figure and image of this mask is the way the devil appeared in this community. For this reason some murals have been dedicated to highlight the importance of this image.
Image 12. "We have to start playing cuetes". El Gordo, second businessman of the San José neighborhood.
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. March 2013.
In addition to the music, another fundamental sound aspect is the rocket or, as the people say: "echar cohete". Its thunder in the sky creates a festive atmosphere that serves to warn a large part of the community where they are preparing for the offerings, the lowering of masks or that the costumed are getting ready to go out into the streets of the community.
Image 13. "Touching the floor means that the past is already here among the living". Cecilio, a former businessman from the San José neighborhood.
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023.
During the first mask lowering, only seven main masks are lowered. In this case, the crouching horned devil, the standing horned devil, the older cole, the grandfather, the grandmother, the mask of the second businessman and the mask of the chiflador were lowered. After lowering them from the false ceiling of the house where they are kept, it is necessary that the masks touch the ground, which is a sign that the deceased are already on the earthly plane, where we, the living, live.
Image 14. "In the first descent it is something intimate with few people, and in the second descent it is big". El Gordo, second businessman of the San José neighborhood.
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023.
For the second descent of masks, the group of costumed people from the San José neighborhood organizes and sets up chairs to wait for about 50 people, sometimes there are more. All the people are offered tamales, coffee, chocolate and soft drinks.
Image 15. Transmissions
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2023.
The second descent of masks can be such a big event, that businessmen manage the transmission of the ritual. Sometimes it is only given through social networks and other times they take the community radio so that it can broadcast.
Image 16. Mask heights
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023.
The altars where the masks are placed are usually larger than the domestic altars. This leads to a greater elaboration of the arch and cempasúchil flower necklaces. Making a bow for the lowering of masks carries a signifier of prestige and pride.
Image 17. Have your costume ready to go out.
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
The participants of the costumed group meet at the businessman's house where they take their mask and prepare their costume. In some occasions they take clothes that are already in the place of the masks and that are used year after year, in others they wear their own clothes. In addition to disguising themselves with masks, some men also dress up as women to make couples when dancing.
Image 18. The new generations
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
If you notice, this group brings a lot of children, many of them are attracted by it and come here, and that's good because they are the new generations. I used to walk like them since I was little, behind the costumes.
El Gordo
Image 19. Small mask
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
I have already made my son a small mask, which fits him well and can be used for the Xantolo.
Chilo, community masquerader
Image 20. Sweat
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2019.
Imagine all that a mask has gone through inside, it has the sweat and energy of many people who have worn it.
Óscar, disguised as the neighborhood of San José
Image 21. The descent from the school
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023.
Each of the masks that is lowered has to be smoked before being placed on the floor and given aguardiente to drink.
Image 22. Passing the drink
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. October 2023.
Deliver and receive: these are words used in the lowering of masks and consist of a dialogue between present and past businessmen, in which sharing a drink (aguardiente) is fundamental during the ritual, to strengthen the process in which they welcome the deceased.
Image 23. Sahumar not to go crazy
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. September 2018.
During the lowering of masks, it is necessary that all the people attending the ritual pass by to smoke them. This will prevent them from going crazy, which consists in not falling asleep and listening to the disguised people. In case of going crazy, the entrepreneur has to carve a mask and give to drink the powder that comes out with aguardiente.
Image 24. Óscar's unveiling
Chapulhuacanito, Tamazunchale, S.L.P. Mexico. November 2019.
In the unveiling, when one takes off the mask, I feel sad that I will not return until next year.
Oscar
Of Zamorano insomnia. What is not talked about, but what the night allows to be shown
Laura Roush
El Colegio de Michoacán
likes to walk at night and during the pandemic began documenting aspects of the night in Zamora, Michoacán, where she lives. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the New School for Social Research and teaches at El Colegio de Michoacán.
Image 1. Zamorano's insomnia. What is not talked about, but what the night allows to show.
Entrance hall in Jardines de Catedral, Zamora, Michoacan. Mural by Marcos Quintana, 2019
Image 2. Pandemic novena
Colonia El Duero, Zamora, December 2000
Image 3. "When the Merza closes at eleven o'clock, I want you back here".
Parish of St. Peter and St. Paul, Infonavit Arboledas. 22 hours and 55 minutes. January 2020.
Image 4. Chiras pelas. At night the streets and sidewalks cool down and you can play more fun. Some neighborhoods in the city offer the conditions for children to enjoy nightlife all year round.
Cathedral Gardens, Zamora, 2018.
Image 5. On Christmas and a few other holidays, the schedule rules are suspended.
Cathedral Gardens, December 24, 2020, almost midnight.
Picture 6
Cathedral Gardens, Zamora, New Year, 2021.
When the Douro River was diverted, segments of its former course became curved streets, sometimes narrow and with few connections to other streets.
La Lima, July 2023.
The narrow and curved streets of the old course of the Duero allow the continuation of the custom of street altars because they protect them from traffic. However, they say, because of the violence and disrespect, many now prefer to set them up inside the houses and publicly visible altars are scarce.
Day of the Dead, 2020, La Lima.
Image 9. Traffic goes down, kids go in and cats come out.
Colonia El Duero, September 2023.
Image 10. Already locked up
Jacinto López, January 2021.
Image 11. Day of the Dead Altar
Infonavit Arboledas, 2021
Image 12. A multi-family altar housing memories of an entire street
Arboledas Third Section, Day of the Dead, 2021
Image 13. "What hurts is the fucking killing".
Day of the Dead, 2021, La Lima
Image 14. Two fallen from the same family. Suddenly, the third one was killed
The Douro, July 2021
Image 15. "It's just that he was in it".
The Douro, July 2021
Image 16. "No one understands. But if you isolate yourself, you can go crazy."
Zamora, October 2022 (photo); conversation about the purpose of these photos, October 2023.
She wanted to remain anonymous, but she also wanted her children to be seen, for one might be alive somewhere.
Image 17. Altar to Saint Jude Thaddeus
Same place as in the previous image, Zamora, October 2022.
The situation of women who had to take on these tasks due to the kidnapping-disappearance, imprisonment or clandestinity of their partners is intrinsically different....
The situation of terror in which they lived required various forms of concealment, even of personal pain. It included trying to get the children to go about their daily activities as if nothing had happened in order to avoid suspicion. Fear and silence were constantly present, with a very high emotional cost.
Elizabeth Jelin, anthropologist, on the Dirty War in Argentina (2001:105)
If I die today, and God gives me the opportunity to be born again, I would ask only one thing, that you, Rossy, be my mother again. I love you, little one. Thank you for being my mommy."
Avenida Virrey de Mendoza, January 2021.
Picture 19
Arboledas Second Section, October 2023
There is a great stigma attached to missing persons. In Zamora, the population has internalized the phrase "he was up to something" to justify any crime against humanity. I believe that this is a reflection of the fact that we have lost the ability to empathize with the pain of others, we think that violence is a reasonable means to punish or resolve conflicts, and it also gives us a false sense of security, since it will not happen to me, only to the other, to the one who is "up to something".
This symbolic violence exercised by the population has had various repercussions on the victims of forced disappearance and murder, and their relatives, in the search for truth and justice. It would seem that, if the victim had any link with illicit activities, to search for them, to demand justice or their appearance alive, would be illegitimate in the eyes of society, but also of their relatives, who out of shame or "lacking moral authority", are forced to live in fear and silence.
Itzayana Tarelo, anthropologist, personal communication, Zamora, October 2023.
Picture 20
Guadalupano Shrine, Zamora Centro, July 2023
What level of violent deaths is socially acceptable? If we aspire to a death rate of 9.7 intentional homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants, registered at the beginning of Felipe Calderón's government, or 17.9 when his administration ended, the 39 murders in Zamora and 15 in Jacona, in April alone, are a lot.
But if we compare with the 196.63 (per hundred thousand) publicized by the national press, according to the report of the Citizens' Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (March 11, 2022), then "we are doing well", since 39 murders per month would result in 468 per year, slightly above the 401 that result from an annual rate of 196.63%. Ah, but if we compare with the 57 intentional homicides in Zamora and the 21 in Jacona noted in December 2021, April is going down!"
José Luis Seefoo (2022)
Image 21. Asphalt up to the very trunk
Avenida del Arbol, May 2023.
A saleswoman from hot dogs she told me how two murderers waited for their victims among the trees. Although the ones she mentioned were just rickety ficus trees; to her, they added to the darkness of the scene. She went on to relate other murders in the area, including one on the next street. Drug addicts hung out there, she said, until several large trees were cut down. When I insisted, he acknowledged that the military rounds began around that time. However, she stuck to the fact that the trees were the main factor. For this lady, the trees were metonymically linked to danger and crime.
For an ex-taxi driver, these were thugs themselves. He told me of a dead tree that fell on top of a car, killing the parents and orphaning the children riding in the back seat. "No tree bigger than a person should be allowed!" he insisted. We also talked about the homicides that day, but he saved his indignation for the trees. When those responsible cannot be named for fear of reprisal, even trees can be a focus for articulating anxiety.
Rihan Yeh (2022) The Border as War in Three Ecological Images
(The border as war in three ecological images)
Image 22.
Avenida del Arbol, June 2023.
Picture 23
Day of the Dead, 2020, Colonia El Duero
The homicides, stated as 'confrontations', are in reality forms of manhunts of marginalized youths. Both victims and direct killers do not occupy high positions on the social ladder.
Thus, as long as the pain of loss and the smell of incense invade the homes of popular neighborhoods, intentional homicides will not drop sufficiently. If wakes and funerals were to take place in "residential" spaces, we should expect important changes...
Anonymous (textual)
Picture 24
Colonia El Duero, January 2022
Image 25. The food stalls with their lights summon from afar to live with neighbors or strangers, a nocturnal sociability that does not give up.
El Duero, January 2022
Image 26. Just called "The Metataxis": it gathers information from all cab drivers.
The Douro, February 2021
His hamburger stand is the one that closes most nights. He has the gift of getting watchmen, watchmen, policemen, hospital staff, taqueros who have already set up their stalls and who have also heard something, and a whole range of people who can't sleep for some reason.
Cab driver committed to the night shift and occasional diner at the hamburger stand.
Colonia El Duero, October 2022
After midnight, the conversation often becomes more philosophical. Bits of news that will never make it into a newspaper are gathered.
Image 28. Another member of the night owls' gathering. Topic: What is the fault of the night if you are killed during the day?
Colonia El Duero, 2022
Image 29
Zamora Centro, March 2023.
On March 5 we went out to march in Zamora for 8M. I was accompanying the contingent of women searchers and we were gluing, with paste, the cards of the missing persons. A few days later I passed by those streets again and I saw that they had tried to tear them up.
A friend of mine told me that in Queretaro the public cleaning people were instructed to remove all kinds of propaganda or posters and that is why they tore off the missing persons' cards. I suppose they do the same thing here, although sometimes the advertisement of an event lasts longer on a wall than the face of a missing person.
Anonymous, Zamora, October 2023
Image 30
Zamora Centro, August 2023.
To the perpetrators of the violence, the searching mothers have said "We don't want the guilty ones, we only want our children". With the celebration of masses and vigils in which prayers are said and candles are lit with the photo of their family member, the mothers seek God to soften the hearts of those who took their sons and daughters, not to abandon them in their search and to protect their family member wherever he or she may be.
Anonymous, Zamora (textual), October 2023
Image 31
Zamora, April 2023
We accompany ourselves with Our Lady's sorrow today, in the hope that she will be moved with us.
Anonymous, ending the Women's March of Silence
The March of Silence in the Catholic world is typically a procession of men commemorating the death of Christ on Good Friday. The Women's March of Silence has grown in parts of Latin America in recent years. In some, as in Zamora, it provides a language for some of the mothers of missing or dead young people.
Image 32. Panther
Colonia El Duero, October 2020
These pains have no words. One keeps silent more out of modesty than fear. Crying screams and one hides the tears. All loss does not want to show itself impudently.
One closes oneself and keeps silent while one's heart burns, either for love or for absence. Impotence hurts and one knows that there is no return or solution. Poetics can only murmur. The anthropologist sometimes errs on the side of exhibitionism and fills with theoretical frameworks what hurts to mention.
The Douro Panther (textual), October 2023
Image 33. Anonymous. She made this figure representing her husband after he was killed.
Zamora, November 2023
Image 34
Bank of the Douro river course
Four months ago (May 30, 2023) a teenager was killed in my neighborhood when he was going to pick up his girlfriend at CBTIS. Rumors said it was for stealing his cell phone. Some guys on a motorcycle chased him and shot him many times, until he fell dead on the corner of a vacant lot, where people throw garbage.
A few days after he was murdered, his family put up a small metal cross, some plastic flowers and a candle, but someone came by and tore the cross down and people threw garbage there again.
My mother told me that she felt bad that the boy didn't have a cross, so she made him another one with some pieces of wood she found in the yard. She put it up and, days later, she found it lying in the vacant lot, as if someone had thrown it. We think that this could only have been done by the person or persons who killed him, that the cause of his death was personal and not a robbery, as it was said.
We feel that it was a matter of hatred, of a lot of anger against the boy, because they did not respect the place where he died, nor the crosses. I feel that there was a desire to erase him, to erase his memory.
Anonymous (verbatim), October 2023
Image 35
March 29, 2024
The Women's March of Silence grew exponentially; the municipal government estimated that 15,000 people participated.
Silence was strictly maintained, punctuated only by drums with a slow, synchronized rhythm between contingents. Likewise, other signs were discarded and only those that reminded to remain silent were kept.
Image 36
Guadalupana Shrine of Zamora, March 29, 2024
They were received by their rector, Father Raúl Ventura, who congratulated them because "Zamora is consolidating its position as a leader in religious tourism.
Image 37
Avenida Virrey de Mendoza, January 2022
Where language must be imprecise, a flame in the night communicates, even if it is difficult to know who put it there or to whom it is addressed. To the dead man himself, of course; to God.
Image 38. During the day they are not even seen. At night they acquire convening power
Hidalgo Market, September 2022.
Image 39. It hurts. See it
Jacinto López, October 2022.
The author would like to publicly acknowledge the support and patience of her colleagues at the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos, Colmich; the collaborations of Itzayana Tarelo and Reynaldo Rico Ávila to think the narrative arc from a hundred photos or more; the enthusiasm of Renée de la Torre, Paul Liffman, Melissa Biggs and Gabriela Zamorano, as well as the complicity of Ramona Llamas Ayala.
Dedicated to the memory of Julio César Segura Gasca, alias the FUA (1967-2024), poet of the Zamorano night.
Bibliography
Citizen's Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (2022). "Ranking 2021 of the 50 most violent cities in the world." https://geoenlace.net/seguridadjusticiaypaz/webpage/archivos Accessed: August 2023.
Jelin, Elizabeth (2001). The work of memoryMadrid: Siglo xxi.
Seefoo Luján, José Luis (2022). "Zamora va... muy bien?", Semanario. Guide. https://semanarioguia.com/2022/04/jose-luis-seefoo-lujan-zamora-va-muy-bien/
Yeh, Rihan (2022) "The Border as War in Three Ecological Images," in Editors' Forum: Ecologies of War, thematic issue, in. Cultural Anthropology. January. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/ecologies-of-war
Sweet saints: devotions to Cosmas and Damian in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Renata Menezes
is a professor in the Anthropology Department of the National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ufrj). D. (2004) and M.A. (1996) in Social Anthropology from the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology of the National Museum, ufrj (ppgas/mn/ufrj). Coordinator of the Laboratory of Anthropology of the Playful and the Sacred of the National Museum (Ludens). Researcher at the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico.cnpq and Faperj's "Cientista do Nosso Estado". renata.menezes@mn.ufrj.br
Morena Freitas
is an anthropologist at the Superintendence of the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage (Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico y Artístico Nacional (iphan) in Sergipe, Brazil. Researcher at the Laboratory of Anthropology of the Playful and the Sacred (Ludens/...).mn/ufrj). D. in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. morebmfreitas@gmail.com
Lucas Bártolo
D. student at the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ppgas/mn/ufrj), Brazil. Researcher at the Laboratory of Anthropology of the Playful and the Sacred (Ludens/...), Brazil.mn/ufrj). Master in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. bartolo.lucas@mn.ufrj.br
Virtual exhibition poster Sweet Saints: Devotions to Cosmas and Damian in Rio de Janeiro
Leear Martiniano, 2020
During the months of September and October, Cosme, Damien, Doum and the ibejadas circulate and are exhibited in religious stores.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Since the beginning of September, the shop windows announce the arrival of the season of saints' sweets. Until October 25, the day of Crispim and Crispiniano, passing through October 12, Children's Day, a festive-religious calendar is established in the city of Rio de Janeiro around the celebration of childhood. In the religious articles stores, the images of Ibejadas, Cosme, Damião and Doum are the most sought after in this period, when the terreiros and churches are used to celebrate children.
White candies, typical candies, sweet pots, traditional candies, industrialized candies, homemade candies... Welcome to the incredible world of candies! Coconut candy, sigh, paçocajujube, lollipop, milk candy, peanuts (pé de moleque) and pumpkin. Many of these sweets only appear on the shelves once a year, in September: they are the typical sweets of Cosme y Damián.
There are those who like to give more than just candy, mainly toys.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
In celebrations organized by a larger group of devotees - in the street or in neighborhood clubs - or by the community of a terreiroThe toys can be more special, such as bicycles and remote-controlled cars, and recreational activities and games are scheduled throughout the day. Distributions take on a charitable dimension when school supplies, food and clothing are also donated.
The assembly requires the development of a technique, without renouncing affection.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
The assembly technique is a family apprenticeship, in most cases through the maternal line.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015, Vaz Lobo.
At home, families usually organize themselves in an assembly line: candies are taken out of the packages and placed on the table, and each person is in charge of putting one or more types in a bag, which is passed from hand to hand until it reaches the person in charge of closing it with a stapler or a ribbon. Ideally, each bag should have the same amount and type of candy as the others, so that no child is harmed. And the saints are watching! But the bags can't be assembled too far in advance because the candy can melt. Once the bags are filled and closed, it's time to separate the ones that will go to the neighbor, the nephew, the work friend's daughter. There are people who have been giving for decades, there are those who are starting now, to greet the arrival of a baby, and there are those who continue practices inherited from their ancestors.
Far beyond the candy, Cosme y Damián's bags also contain promises, family traditions and childhood memories.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
The sachet with the effigy of the twin saints is considered the most traditional, whether it is made of paper or plastic.
Lucas Bártolo, 2016.
For many, the saints also participate in the celebration, eating the sweets. Cocadas, suspiros, pumpkin candies, etc. are also offered. Many Cosme y Damián altars contain candies and soft drinks as offerings.
As they are associated with the orixás twins, Cosmas and Damian also eat the food of the gods. In addition to sweets, the saints eat caruru, omolocum, acarajé and chicken. At home or in the terreiros.
Offerings to Cosmas, Damian and Doum in a religious articles store.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Offerings to the saints in the Roman Catholic Church
Renata Menezes, 2012.
Offerings to the saints e orixás in a terreiro
Lucas Bártolo, 2016, Cavalcanti.
The big day is approaching. Tickets and invitations are distributed to avoid crowds and alternate distribution in the neighborhood. Information about the houses that distribute the bags of candy circulates among the children, who begin to draw an affective (and sweet) map of the city.
In groups, led by the eldest or even by an adult, the children leave home early and spend the day roaming the streets, running after candy. The party draws an affective map of the city, delimited by strong or weak candy places, near or far from home, where there are good or bad bags. The bags are distributed at doorways, in squares, in churches and shrines, in schools, daycare centers and orphanages, on foot or by car. Families gather to drink and give sweets. Some like to celebrate the day as if it were the birthday of the twin saints, opening the house and arranging a table with cake, guarana, blancmange and sweets. In small bags or on the tables, the sweets are, on the 27th, food for the saints and the children. The day of Cosme and Damian is a playful experience of the city.
Running after candy: a playful experience of the city
Correio da Manhã/Arquivo Nacional, September 1971.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Early in the morning, the sound of the first sneakers crunching as they race through the streets heralds the start of another day on September 27. It is an extraordinary occasion when the children take on an autonomy that they will probably only really have when they are no longer children. In groups, led by the eldest or even by an adult, the children leave home early in the morning and spend the day running through the streets, or rather, running after candy.
In several neighborhoods of the city, we find patterns of grouping that can be compared to old photos, like the one we see below. There is a pattern that seems to repeat itself, in a movement of children through the streets of the city that sets adults and children in motion.
The party as a moment of anonymous and generous (and sweet) exchange with the unknown.
Isabela Pillar, 2013.
"I will give the candies at the door to the street children." This is how many devotees answer us when we ask them how they are going to make their feast. Cosme and Damien Day puts the focus on the relationship between the home and the street and puts its boundaries in suspense. It is a moment of anonymous and generous exchange with the unknown.
Among the various ways of giving sweets, the most widespread is the distribution through the door of houses and buildings. The devotees try to organize a queue, giving preference to lap children and pregnant women, but, in general, there is a small commotion in front of the houses. Another very popular modality is that of "throwing the candies forward", throwing them over the wall to the small crowd. Some donors stand out precisely for this practice, throwing not only candy, but also toys and money.
Recap of the day's achievements
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Lying about their age, not being recognized when they try to get two bags in the same house, knowing where the best bags are, asking for candy in the name of a supposed younger sibling... these are tricks that children use to get the most candy. It's part of the game to get the adults to bend, who warn: It's a bag for everyone! I only give candy to little kids! Anyone who goes out with anyone is no longer a child.
The festival is a playful and religious tradition that consists of a great game
Lucas Bártolo, 2014.
The smiles of the children are, for some, the great reward of the party..
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Isabela Pillar, 2013.
The smile of the children is, for some, the great reward of the party - if we wanted to talk about the possible interests of giving candy, it would certainly appear as the main desired retribution for the act of giving. But children are not just guests at the party: multiple, diverse, also make it. If with adults children learn to be grateful for the bags earned and also to distribute them, it is in the company of friends that they develop the tricks to take candies, especially to take them more than once in the same house.
Some people like to celebrate the day as if it were the birthday of the saints, opening the house and organizing a table with cake, guarana, manjar, sweets and many colorful balls. The delicacies can only be offered to the guests after singing happy birthday to Cosme and Damien and serving the seven children gathered around the cake. At these tables, the presence of twins is considered a blessing. From the sequence of photos, it can be seen that many families have been doing this practice for decades.
A domestic celebration to Cosme and Damian
Personal collection of Glória Amaral, 1990 (estimated date).
Novenas, masses, baptisms and processions mark the program of the churches of the different branches of Catholicism (Roman, Orthodox, Coptic) that receive thousands of devotees on September 27, who also distribute candies, toys and food to children and needy people. Many religious traditions have the practice of charity and help as fundamental values and on the day of Cosmas and Damian, the donations made in these spaces are a way of putting these values into practice.
Donation of toys and food at St. George, St. Cosmas and St. Damian's Orthodox Catholic Church
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Multiform characters, Cosimo and Damian can be presented as Catholic martyrs, physicians, twins, orixás African, child protectors or child entities, among other conceptions about them that also appear combined. They are present in many pantheons, assuming specificities in each of these contexts.
In Brazil, the devotion to the saints was associated with African traditions of twin worship, highlighting the hybridization with the Ibejis, orixás children protectors of twins in the Yoruba tradition. It is from the approach of Cosimo and Damian to Ibeji that their functions were redefined: from protectors of doctors and pharmacists to protectors of children, of double births and of the health of twins. In the Brazilian religious universe, saints were linked to childhood, hence the distribution of sweets to children as a way of celebrating them.
In Catholic churches, the saints may be young or adult, identical or different twins.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015.
Ana Ranna, 2013.
The saints are now three. Idowú, younger brother of the Yoruba twins Ibeji, here in Brazil is Doum, brother of Cosme and Damián.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015
Ibejis, the orixás ninõs of the Yoruba tradition, protectors of ninõs and twins.
Lucas Bártolo, 2015.
The saints are now three. Idowú, younger brother of the Yoruba twins Ibeji, here in Brazil is Doum, brother of Cosme and Damián.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015
The sacred sweetness of the Children
Morena Freitas, 2016.
The sacred sweetness of the saints, of the ibejadas and of the children is venerated with sighs, cocadas, candies, cakes and guaraná. This sweetness smells, sounds, colors, melts our hands, invades our noses and mouths; and to feel this sweetness is to feel the Children.
Devotion to the saints implies an intense communication that goes through looks, gestures, words and things and involves affection, emotions and desires. Devotion unfolds, therefore, far beyond the bags of candy..
Lucas Bártolo, 2019.
Thiago Oliveira, 2015
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