Pentecostalism in Urban Oaxaca

Healing Patriarchy, Marriage, and Mexico

By Michelle Ramirez

University of Alabama Press

An ethnography focusing on a Pentecostal church community and their pursuit of healing marriages and prosperity

Pentecostalism in Urban Oaxaca is a timely feminist ethnography set in a Pentecostal church community in Oaxaca de Juarez. Based on extensive fieldwork, Ramirez skillfully melds medical anthropology with cultural analysis to reveal the Pentecostal movement’s dynamics in the contexts of faith healing, marital relations, and economic prosperity.

Ramirez takes stock of the problematic ways that Pentecostalism has played out for Mexican women today but also reminds readers of some of its successes. Within the context of Mexican patriarchy, some women parishioners in abusive relationships see the church as a way to improve their lot. Pentecostalism seeks to rupture with Mexico’s colonial heritage, and Ramirez provides novel ways for the reader to consider how Pentecostalism can provide healing for even the “endlessness of addiction.” One case study portrays a former abusive alcoholic womanizer who underwent a spiritual transformation as a result of his conversion. Through this example and more, Ramirez examines the complex relationship between gender, modernity, and Indigeneity in the context of marriage. The book also addresses the #MeToo movement as encountered in the Pentecostal church.

Finally, Ramirez investigates how Pentecostalism addresses the “curses” of illness and poverty, highlighting the paradoxical relationship between faith healing and curanderismo. The gospel of economic prosperity holds promise for a better life, breaking free from the “disease” of poverty. To this end, Ramirez profiles some parishioners’ involvement with Omnilife, a multilevel marketing company selling vitamins and natural health products that propounds ideals similar to those of Pentecostal Christianity.

Reviews
Author

Pentecostalism in Urban Oaxaca offers a window into the seldom-discussed world of Mexican Pentecostalism. With candor, sensitivity, and humor, Michelle Ramirez dives deep into a little understood community, offering new insights about gender, spirituality, and the nature of healing.’
—Beatriz Reyes-Foster, author of Psychiatric Encounters: Madness and Modernity in Yucatan, Mexico

‘Pentecostalism in Urban Oaxaca . . .is a beautifully rendered ethnography of an evangelical Christian congregation in Oaxaca, Mexico. Professor Ramirez’s writing is sensitive and compassionate, and her boundless generosity of spirit shine throughout, as in her own surprising ethnographic journey and in descriptions of the lives, for better and for worse, of its preachers and congregants.’
—Carole H. Browner, editor of the award-winning collection, Reproduction, Globalization, and the State: New Theoretical and Ethnographic Perspectives

Influenced by feminist scholarship, religious studies, and political economy theory, Ramirez examines how Oaxacans negotiate Pentacostalism amidst ever-changing global neoliberal economic trends and state and local political powers. An exceptional ethnography, the author presents a careful and compassionate examination of healing narratives in a world dominated by crisis, uncertainty, and instability. The result is a nuanced and complex description of how power is contested and reimagined amidst a backdrop of modernity.’
—Jennifer Wies, professor of anthropology and associate provost at Eastern Kentucky University and president of the Society for Applied Anthropology

Michelle Ramirez is professor of anthropology at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

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