Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion

Santería is an African-inspired, Cuban diaspora religion that is rapidly winning adherents across the world. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús introduces the term "copresence" to capture the transnational experience of Santería, in which racialized and gendered spirits, deities, priests, and religious travelers remake local, national, and political boundaries and reconfigure notions of technology and transnationalism. Conducting research in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, and in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, Beliso-De Jesús maps the emergence of copresence in transnational places and historical moments, exploring assemblages of race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, and diaspora. Emphasizing Santería's dynamic circulations, this book advances a nontranscendental understanding of religious transnationalisms.

Drawing on eight years of ethnographic research, Beliso-De Jesús traces the phenomenon of copresence in the lives of Santería practitioners