Santos y Misterios as Channels of Communication in the Diaspora: Afro-Dominican Religious Practices Abroad

Whereas most Afro-Caribbean Creole religious practices have been the focus of scholarly studies for some time, such practices in the Dominican Republic have received considerably less attention. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Dominican women in Madrid and the southwestern Dominican Republic, this article presents the saints of the Dominican Vodou pantheon as actual communication agents who enable transnational practitioners to maintain communication and to solve migration-related problems. These religious practices, including veladas, horas santas, pilgrimages, funeral rites, various healing practices, and spirit possession are strategically used to maintain a transnational community, producing the revitalization of Afro-Dominican religions in the diaspora. Three examples of connection via saints and spirits are analyzed: (1) the use of Vodou to solve visa problems; (2) horas santas to prepare travelers for trips; and (3) the role of saints in narrating migration as a mythologizing experience.