From Charlatans to Saviors: Espiritistas, Curanderos, and Brujos Inscribed in Discourses of Progress and Heritage
Title:
From Charlatans to Saviors: Espiritistas, Curanderos, and Brujos Inscribed in Discourses of Progress and Heritage
Author:
Raquel Romberg
Appeared in:
Centro journal
Paging:
Volume XV (2003) nr. 2 pages -146-173
Year:
2003
Contents:
Amajor shift in the public representation of curanderos, espiritistas, and brujos took place in Puerto Rico in a period of less than fifty years, from the end of the 1940s to the 1980s. Within this relatively short time popular healers have been invoked for broad political purposes: first as charlatans, quacks, and impostors, in contrast to genuine medical doctors; and then as bearers of autochthonous folkloric traditions, popular wisdom, and popular medicine. A close examination of these images in historical context¿first inscribed in discourses of progress and then in those of heritage¿ reveals the impact of state- and nation-building agendas on the ways in which popular healers have either been vilified or exoticized in the public sphere. Currently, by highlighting their Taíno and African roots, the media and the medical establishment have categorized Puerto Rican popular healers in an environmentalist and naturalist space that places them¿like the noble savage¿in an imagined haven of endangered traditions that unrealistically estranges them from mainstream culture
Journal description