Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies
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Volume 3: Issue 1, 2026
ARTICLE Archives and Repertoire in the Analysis of the Visual Dimension of the Contemporary Mexican Folk Cult of the Saint Death (Santa Muerte) Karolina I. Kaleta Jagiellonian University Abstract The article provides a historiographical overview of the cult of Santa Muerte and is the result of field research conducted in Mexico between 2022 and 2025. Its objective is to analyze the latest trends within the cult of Santa Muerte in Mexico, employing the analytical tools proposed by Diana Taylor in her performance theory, which is based on the concepts of the archive and the repertoire. Both terms prove highly functional in describing contemporary and hybrid religious phenomena, which draw from diverse sources and are in constant flux. Their application enables the identification of the origins of these transformations as well as their religious and cultural contexts. This approach makes it possible to demonstrate how seemingly unrelated archives are translated into the repertoire of practices associated with the cult of Santa Muerte, which extends beyond strictly religious rituals to encompass a wide range of habitual activities – performances of everyday life – for which Santa Muerte serves as a context, background, or point of reference. Since many papers analyzing the cult of Santa Muerte focus primarily on the cases of Mexico City, the State of Mexico, and the Mexican diaspora in the US, this article aims to fill the gap by presenting examples from other regions of Mexico, such as the states of Veracruz, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Puebla, and Chiapas. Keywords: Santa Muerte, Mexico, performance, folk Catholicism, figures | ||