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Creative continuity

Santería ritual adaptations in Australia

Carlos A. Ramos Garcia

August 2025

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Arts & Social Sciences

The Australian National University

iii

Declaration

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree

or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material

previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the

text.

Carlos A. Ramos Garcia

April 2025

Acknowledgments

This dissertation embodies the collective efforts, support, and contributions of many individuals

to whom I remain deeply grateful.

I extend my deepest gratitude to the community of Santería practitioners in Australia, who

generously shared their knowledge, experiences, and insights with me. Their stories and

openness are the heart and foundation of this research. I feel deeply honoured by their trust

and friendship, which has made this academic journey so enriching. Special thanks also to

those who devoted their time to reading drafts and offering perspectives, helping me refine my

ideas and arguments.

My sincere thanks to my chair supervisor, Emeritus Professor Francesca Merlan, whose

unwavering support and invaluable guidance have profoundly shaped the course of this

research. Her mentorship has been indispensable, and I am immensely grateful for her wisdom

and generosity.

I wish to express heartfelt appreciation to my panel advisers, Associate Professor Matt

Tomlinson and Dr Kathleen Openshaw. Their expertise, thoughtful critiques, and generous

mentorship have greatly enhanced this dissertation. Their insightful feedback and dedication

have significantly contributed to the depth and clarity of this work.

I also thank my wife, Merisa, for her painstaking work in proofreading the final draft of this

dissertation, which would not have been possible without her support. She and our son Kailen

have provided me with daily inspiration and motivation. Your smiles remain my most cherished

reward. We did it!

Thank you all for being part of this journey.

This research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP)

Scholarship.

vii

Abstract

Santería, an African-inspired religion rooted in Cuba, is rapidly expanding worldwide,

demonstrating a remarkable capacity to adapt to diverse social contexts and geographies. Its

recent emergence in Australia offers a distinctive opportunity to examine how practitioners

navigate contextual challenges—such as substituting ritual ingredients and negotiating local

taboos—in a setting far removed from the religion’s traditional strongholds. While carefully

scripted rituals are modified and prescribed ingredients replaced, Australian practitioners

maintain that these adaptations remain fully consistent with Santería’s tradition.

This thesis argues that Santería’s creativity, appeal, and adaptability stem from a relational

ontology at the core of its practice—one that privileges the coherence of relationships and

embodied participation over rigid adherence to belief. This orientation enables significant

flexibility in responding to new contexts. I introduce the term creative continuity to describe

how practitioners safeguard the continuity of Santería’s sacred ontology across time and

space, while creatively activating it to navigate and resolve life’s challenges. Creative continuity

encapsulates the pragmatic ethos of resolver (Sp. to solve life problems) that is deeply

embedded in Santería, pursued without faltar el respeto (disrespect) to the orishas and

ancestral roots.

I analyse ritual adaptations in Australia through the topological notion of homeomorphism,

which describes transformations that preserve relational properties or invariants. The study

examines two primary dimensions of Santería ritual assemblages: their relational structures

and the transformations that occur within them. Findings show that key topological invariants

persist in both dimensions despite adaptations, confirming the homeomorphic continuity of

Santería assemblages across transnational geographies.

This thesis advances the theorisation of religious transnationalisation by foregrounding the

ontology and historical consciousness intrinsic to Santeria. In doing so, it moves beyond

frameworks of transnationalisation shaped by eschatologies and ontologies that privilege

transcendence, offering a novel conceptualisation of immanent forms of religious

transnationalisation.

viii

List of Abbreviations

Sp.: Spanish

ix 
Table of Contents 
Declaration ................................................................................................................................ iii 
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... v 
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... vii 
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................viii 
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... ix 
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. xiii 
List of Figures............................................................................................................................ xiv 
Introduction................................................................................................................................ 1 
An overview of Santería ......................................................................................................... 3 
Aché and the “stuff that makes things happen” ................................................................ 5 
Ritual adaptations in Australia ............................................................................................... 6 
We ask Orula .......................................................................................................................... 9 
Research questions .............................................................................................................. 12 
Epistemological commitment to practitioner perspectives................................................. 13 
Why “ontology”? .............................................................................................................. 15 
A topology of immanent transnationalisation ..................................................................... 16 
Dynamic assemblages and topology ................................................................................ 18 
Data collection and analysis ................................................................................................. 20 
Thesis organisation ............................................................................................................... 24 
Chapter 1  Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santería in Australia .......................................... 27 
1.1  A personal account: my own ajiaco ......................................................................... 28 
1.2  Tradition and change................................................................................................ 33 
1.3  Santería in Australia. Heterogeneity and adaptations ............................................. 36 
1.3.1  Who are the santeros in Australia? .................................................................. 38 
1.4  The roles of migration, media and mobility ............................................................. 42 
1.4.1  Migration .......................................................................................................... 43 
1.4.2  Media: The orishas come dancing.................................................................... 45 
1.4.3  More than migration: The central role of mobility .......................................... 47 
1.5  Summary of the chapter .......................................................................................... 48 
Chapter 2  Theorising immanent transnationalisation ...................................................... 49 
2.1  Ethnographic context: The ikines of Orula ............................................................... 50 
2.1.1  Immanent transnationalisation: How the orishas travel ................................. 51 
2.2  Immanent transnationalisation ................................................................................ 56 
2.2.1  Theorising immanent transnationalisation ...................................................... 57 

x 
3  Aché ontology and ritual technologies..................................................................... 59 
3.1  The processual and relational ontology of aché .............................................. 61 
3.2  Ritual technologies of aché .............................................................................. 63 
3.3  Aché and the ethos of resolver......................................................................... 64 
4  Topological approach ............................................................................................... 67 
4.1  Homeomorphism and transnational continuity .............................................. 68 
4.2  Topological invariants ...................................................................................... 73 
5  Summary of the chapter .......................................................................................... 77 
Chapter 3  I am aché: Creativity, connection and the Self ................................................ 78 
1  Creativity: aché as inspiration .................................................................................. 79 
1.1  Inspirations as actualisation of already existing potentials ............................. 81 
1.2  An illustration from the field: Everything already is in Ifá ............................... 84 
2  It is all about connection. ......................................................................................... 86 
2.1  The yearning for connection ............................................................................ 87 
2.2  Connection and metapersons as cross-cultural elements ............................... 89 
2.3  Human connections ......................................................................................... 91 
3  Self: I am aché .......................................................................................................... 92 
4  Aché anew: a manifesto ........................................................................................... 94 
5  Summary of the chapter .......................................................................................... 98 
Chapter 4  Relations: Assembling aché ............................................................................ 100 
1  Lineages of aché: Mano de Orula initiation. .......................................................... 103 
1.1  Energy works: the birth of the warriors ......................................................... 104 
1.2  The birth of the practitioner .......................................................................... 105 
2  Relations with the spirits of the dead. ................................................................... 107 
3  The body as an assemblage.................................................................................... 109 
Chapter 5  Becoming ........................................................................................................ 114 
1  Becoming Shango ................................................................................................... 115 
1.1 He is Shango ................................................................................................... 116 
2  Becoming the dead ................................................................................................ 118 
3  Becoming colours ................................................................................................... 119 
4  Double becoming ................................................................................................... 120 
5  Participation ........................................................................................................... 121 
5.1  More than thoughts: A topology of participation .......................................... 122 
6  Summary: relations and becomings ....................................................................... 123 
Chapter 6  Osain in Australia............................................................................................ 125 

Introduction 
 
xi 
1  Preparing the omiero ............................................................................................. 125 
2  Osain: Collecting plants in the forest ..................................................................... 127 
3  Plant substitution ................................................................................................... 129 
3.1  The signatures of plants ................................................................................. 130 
3.2  Signatures versus the authority of the orisha ................................................ 131 
4  Topological homeomorphism in ritual plant substitutions .................................... 132 
4.1  Topological invariants in the relations ........................................................... 135 
4.2  Topological invariants of becoming ............................................................... 140 
Chapter 7  Something happened: Becoming a practitioner in Australia ......................... 145 
1  Telling moments ..................................................................................................... 146 
1.1  Christina: Something happened. .................................................................... 147 
1.2  Adrian: connections ....................................................................................... 149 
1.3  Julie: hope ...................................................................................................... 151 
2  My intimate world of Others.................................................................................. 154 
2.1  I-positions and the worlds of inner Others .................................................... 155 
2.2  From explicit vulnerability to implicated empowerment .............................. 156 
2.3  The Other as the expression of a possible world ........................................... 158 
2.4  The telling and the making of the world ........................................................ 160 
3  Change and continuity in Santería encounters ...................................................... 162 
Chapter 8  The orisha understand Santería adaptation ................................................... 165 
1  The orisha understands .......................................................................................... 166 
2  The “inter” in intersubjectivity ............................................................................... 168 
2.1  Assemblages of the Self ................................................................................. 171 
3  The priority of relations for adaptations ................................................................ 173 
Chapter 9  Living at the crossroads .................................................................................. 174 
1  Living between worlds ........................................................................................... 178 
1.1  Eleguá at the ontological crossroads ............................................................. 179 
1.2  Art and religion in hybrid spaces .................................................................... 180 
1.3  Compartmentalising intentions: the principe de coupure ............................. 182 
2  Juxtaposed ontological perspectives ..................................................................... 183 
3  Respect ................................................................................................................... 185 
4  When the line blurs ................................................................................................ 187 
5  It works ................................................................................................................... 188 
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 190 

xii 
Synthesis of findings ........................................................................................................... 190 
Broader Implications .......................................................................................................... 193 
Limitations and further research ....................................................................................... 194 
Deleuze and the anthropology of immanence .................................................................. 195 
Towards a closer encounter of Anthropology with Deleuze ......................................... 196 
Closing words ..................................................................................................................... 199 
Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 202 
Appendix 1.............................................................................................................................. 207 
Coconut (Obí) Divination ........................................................................................................ 207 
Preparation and procedure ................................................................................................ 207 
Interpretation of Obí configurations .................................................................................. 207 
Nuances of the Configurations ........................................................................................... 208 
Uses of Obí divination ........................................................................................................ 208 
Pataki of Obi ....................................................................................................................... 209 
Bibliography............................................................................................................................ 210 
 
 
 
 
 

xiii

List of Tables

Table 1, Chapter 7: I-Others relation ..................................................................................... 156

Table 2, Appendix: Responses of Obí divination .................................................................... 207

xiv

List of Figures

Figure 1, Introduction: Homeomorphism ................................................................................ 17

Figure 2, Chapter 2: Yemaya. Screen captures from the film I am Ashé (Hearn, 2019) .......... 54

Figure 3, Chapter 2: A topology of ritual assemblages ............................................................ 74

Figure 5, Chapter 6: Invariants in relations and becomings .................................................. 144

Introduction

It was early summer at Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The heat was already rising, and through

the trees, we could hear the distant rhythm of waves folding onto the shore. At the back of

Michel's suburban home, behind the glimmering pool, we gathered quietly. The neighbourhood

was still. It was early Friday morning—the first day of the Mano de Orula initiations—and we

were about to begin the ritual of “darle de comer al muerto”, or “feeding the dead”. This is a

ritual that must precede any initiation in Santería.

It was my first time participating in a Santería ceremony in Australia, and I was extremely

curious. I had arrived in Sydney the night before, and Michel—the babalawo who would soon

become my godfather—picked me up from the airport and drove me to his suburban home,

where the Mano de Orula initiation would take place. As soon as I stepped into the garage, I

noticed cages of chickens and bunches of ritual plants tucked in corners and hanging from

rafters. Some plants were familiar, but others were local species—Australian natives

substituted for the Cuban herbs I had known since childhood. A few I could not identify at all.

I found myself wondering how these practitioners explained such substitutions. Moreover, how

did they navigate the cultural and ethical sensitivities around animal sacrifice in this new

context?

The group of participants was an unlikely assembly: seven initiates and six priests, spanning

continents, accents, and lifeworlds. Among the initiates, a Black Australian woman traced her

roots to Africa; a four-year-old boy stood beside his father, an initiated priest, while his mother,

a veterinarian and animal caretaker, waited in the house, struggling with the idea of animal

sacrifices. The group comprised people of all ages and included dancers and musicians from

Afro-Cuban traditions, scholars, migrants from Latin America and/or their children born in

Australia, as well as Australians with no prior experience of Afro-Cuban culture. I was the only

Cuban among the initiates. The babalawos included three Black Cubans, a white Uruguayan,

and an Australian musician deeply versed in orisha songs and rhythms. Alexis, a seasoned

babalawo fluent in Lucumí—the ritual language of Santería—and a ritual expert, led the

ceremony.

That morning, all the initiates were dressed entirely in white, from head to toe- white trousers,

long skirts, head wraps, shirts, and shawls. In Santería, white represents ritual purity, humility,

and symbolic rebirth —a blank canvas ready to be inscribed by the spirits.

Introduction

We moved in silence behind Alexis toward a shaded patch of earth beneath a palm tree—

Shango’s tree, fittingly, as Shango was Michel’s guardian orisha. Alexis began the moyuba, a

long invocation honouring ancestors and calling the spirits into presence, weaving lines of

lineage across space and time. Lucumí chants softly rose with the morning, like mist from the

soil. At the altar’s centre lay la teja del muerto –a weathered clay roof tile, half-embedded in

the earth, marking the threshold between the living and the dead.

Alexis crouched to arrange the offerings: bread, mixed nuts, honey, cane rum, and milk in

small skull-shaped glasses. A lit cigarette smouldered beside a calabash bowl filled with water

–a jícara, likely brought from Cuba. Cigars are expensive in Australia, but cigarettes are more

affordable and readily available. Glass cups shaped like skulls surrounded the altar and five

coconut rinds rested, white side up, in front of it. These would be used for obi divination, to ask

the dead whether they consented to the initiations about to unfold. Every gesture was

deliberate. Alexis turned slightly, shielding his movements from the Australian viewers, and

with a swift motion, broke the neck of a white dove. The act was almost imperceptible, so

discreet that some of the novices might not have noticed. He offered the blood to the earth

among the assembled gifts of food, light, and scent.

The altar became a dense assemblage of matter and meaning through which the dead were

not only honoured but also engaged as active participants in what was to come. The scent of

damp soil mixed with the sweetness of rum and melting wax. The silence grew thicker around

us as Alexis asked the spirits of dead ancestors for their blessing and permission. He then cast

the coconut rinds to seek the answer. The spirits of the dead confirmed and blessed the

ceremonies. No initiation can proceed without their approval. The phrase "Ikú lobi ocha”

translates from Lucumí as "the dead gave birth to the saint." And indeed, with the new initiates,

instances of the orishas were "born" that day in Australia.

The use of the term “birth” indicates that a new life emerges through ancestral relations, not in

abstraction but through tangible ritual acts. Similarly, practitioners themselves are ritually

“born” into new relations through initiation, becoming part of a religious kinship. For

practitioners, the birth of the orishas is not metaphorical or symbolic; they are physical,

embodied, and enacted through offerings, divination, and sacrifice. In the context of diaspora,

this logic of ancestral precedence requires continuity across wide-ranging cultural and

ecological changes.

The introduction of Santería to Australia is more than the geographical relocation of a religious

tradition; it represents the transplantation of a dynamic, living practice. This practice

Introduction

continuously evolves, adapting to and engaging with novel cultural and ecological contexts. As

Santería relies on materiality for its rituals, practitioners must navigate cultural and ecological

challenges to adapt their practices to new geographies. Santería's resilience and vibrancy rest

on the creativity of its practitioners, facilitated by a relational ontology that enables innovation

while safeguarding its foundational principles, thereby ensuring the continuity of its rich

traditions.

Santería practitioners engage material expressions of the divine to address human challenges

through alliances with the orishas—the spirits who guide practitioners in various aspects of

life. In this thesis, I use the term "immanent" not to suggest a metaphysical distinction opposed

to "transcendent" but rather to refer to the locus of Santería rituals and everyday religious

engagements with the divine in the material world. It means that, as several Santería scholars

have shown (see, for example, Espiritu Santo, 2013, 2019; Palmié, 2018; and Wirtz, 2014),

the influence of spirits and their responsiveness to human actions are revealed through the

material world. Spirits manifest their agency through material forms, while humans engage

with their power by skilfully interacting with and manipulating these material elements.

The reliance on specific ritual materials and the influence of cultural differences requires the

adaptation of Santería practices to new ecological and sociocultural contexts. In countries like

Australia, certain essential ritual elements—such as specific plants and animals — are

unavailable. Moreover, practices such as animal sacrifice are heavily regulated and often

regarded as cultural taboos. Practitioners substitute inaccessible ingredients and modify

practices that may conflict with prevailing social norms or legal constraints. However,

practitioners understand such modifications as consistent with Santería ontologies, thereby

preserving the tradition's continuity.

This thesis examines these processes of adaptation, exploring how practitioners perceive

change as a form of continuity. The sense of continuity that practitioners experience is primarily

ontological rather than based on the reproduction of unchanged beliefs and rules for practices.

The thesis introduces the concept of creative continuity to highlight how Santería’s

fundamental relational and ontological properties are preserved, as practitioners adapt them

creatively to suit new social and environmental conditions.

An overview of Santería

Santería is an Afro-Cuban religious tradition. Practitioners trace their origins to the Yoruba

people of West Africa, who, as captives, carried their religious practices to Cuba with the

transatlantic slave trade. They assert that in the face of brutal oppression and forced

Introduction

conversion to Catholicism, enslaved Africans preserved their spiritual heritage by adapting or

disguising their traditional beliefs with elements of Catholicism and other influences, leading to

the development of Santería. The term Santería, derived from the Spanish word “Santo”

(saint), was initially used in a pejorative sense to describe the religion’s focus on the veneration

of orishas, which practitioners identified as saints in a Catholic sense. Over time, however, the

term has been widely adopted by practitioners and is now commonly used, including in

academic literature.

In the 20th century, as Cuba's social and political landscape evolved, Santería gained

increased visibility. Over time, with the emigration waves following the Cuban Revolution and

then after the island opened to tourists, Santería spread across the Americas and Europe. It

is practised widely across the globe, including in Asia and Australia.

In Cuba, the religion is often referred to as Regla de Ocha, meaning “the rule of the orishas”.

Another name, Lucumí, is derived from African dialects merged in Cuba by the African

ancestors. Lucumí is now used as a ritual lexicon in sacred songs, prayers, and divination, but

it is not a language of everyday communication.

In Australia, Santería is often integrated with the Ifá divination system and, therefore, is also

known as Regla de Ocha-Ifá. Ifá is a complex divination practice led by high-ranking priests

known as babalawos, who serve the orisha Orula, the deity of wisdom and divination. Ifá and

Santería share many common elements. Some practitioners in Cuba and the United States

see them as distinct traditions with different rituals and priesthood hierarchies. However, this

distinction does not arise in every context or region. This is the case in Australia; therefore,

when I use the term Santería in this thesis, it encompasses both Ifá and Santería.

Other terms, such as Yoruba or African matrix (Sp. matriz africana), reflect Santería’s African

roots, highlighting the religion’s deep connections to African spirituality. Some practitioners use

the term Ifá Criollo (“Creole Ifá”) to underscore the unique Cuban adaptations made to the

traditional Ifá system, an indication of the cultural blending that has occurred throughout the

religion’s evolution.

The wide variety of names and interpretations within Santería also reflects its malleability and

the diversity of interpretations among different practitioners. More than interpretations and

dogmatic belief systems, what remains central to this religion are the ritual practices whose

primary goal is to solve the practitioner's life problems and to channel aché, Santería’s power

to make things happen.

Introduction

Aché and the “stuff that makes things happen”

Kent Windress, an ethnomusicologist and the first Australian to be fully initiated as a babalawo,

is one of my key field collaborators. With a beer in hand and his characteristic laid-back

Queenslander tone, he once told me: "Aché is how everything flows and works… the orishas

and the humans and everyone else are manifestations of that… who knows, the breath of god

[…] that’s what I think about aché.” His words, relaxed yet reflective, capture both the

metaphysical mystery and the lived immediacy through which aché is sensed and articulated.

Palmié (2018) refers to aché as the “stuff that makes things happen” in Santería. It is the vital

force that powers the effectiveness of rituals and ensures the connection between the human

and spiritual realms. Aché has been described as “the blood of cosmic life” (Murphy, 1988, p.

8). Everything that exists, its ontology, is aché. However, aché is not uniformly distributed

across all beings in the universe; it is concentrated in specific entities, such as plants, stones,

animals, and especially the orishas, who are the most potent embodiments of aché as the first-

born creations of Olodumare, the supreme Creator. The aché concentrated in all these

instances also has different qualities and can be harnessed for different specific purposes.

Aché is also passed down from one generation to the next through initiatory practices. Every

generation “owes its being to the one before it. Each provides the conditions for the generation

to follow” (Murphy, 1988, p. 8). The most frequently recited prayer, the Moyuba, begins with

invoking the names of these ancestral lineages, asking for their aché to be granted. The ways

in which the complex rituals must be performed are also passed on through generations of

practitioners. Without the ancestors, nothing can be done.

Continuity is not solely a matter of reproducing traditions; it also involves adapting to new

circumstances. Still, the continuity of the aché is passed down through initiations within

lineages, together with the knowledge of how to harness it through ritual practices. This

continuity is not merely symbolic; it is ontological in nature. More than belief systems and

dogmas, what constitutes the core of the tradition is this continuity of aché.

As Santería gains ground in Australia, practitioners face significant cultural and ecological

hurdles. The flora and fauna of Australia differ significantly from that of Cuba. The limited

availability of or restrictions on traditional ritual materials specifically, force practitioners to find

local substitutes capable of carrying the same vital energy. Australia's strict biosecurity laws

prevent the importation of certain plants and animals typically used in Cuban rituals.

Additionally, some practices may be culturally sensitive or even illegal in Australia.

Introduction

The question then arises: How do practitioners adapt their rituals to the Australian context

while maintaining continuity with Santería's foundational elements and preserving the flow of

ancestral aché? Despite the religion's flexibility in matters of belief and cosmological

interpretation, correct ritual adherence is fundamental; the potency of aché, and therefore the

ritual’s effectiveness, depends on precise adherence to scripted practices. Moreover,

maintaining these standards enhances the reputation of priests and their authority within the

community. As Palmié observes, Santería is “a tradition that tends to police its practices in line

with a vision that strongly privileges replication, branding as anathema anything that can

successfully be denounced as ‘invention’” (Palmié, 2013, p. 210). Any deviation from

established practices is seen as a threat to Santería’s authenticity, but more importantly, it

undermines its effectiveness in channelling aché and disrespects the orishas. While there is

no central institution with enough power to enforce orthodoxy, practitioners are very vigilant

and often vocal about any unwarranted deviation from the tradition.

In this context, the word “adaptation” does not imply a loss of authenticity or a fundamental

change but rather highlights the flexibility and resilience inherent in the tradition, along with the

creativity that its relational ontology enables. I will argue that this sense of continuity is rooted

in the relational dynamics that connect material expressions of aché within ritual assemblages.

Ritual adaptations in Australia

Landing in Australia in 2008, I could not have envisioned that twelve years later, I would be

standing fully robed in white, in a room imbued with the scent of animal blood and Australian

flora, on the verge of becoming the first Cuban-born person to receive a Santería initiation in

this country. I arrived in Sydney for the initiation ceremony on a Thursday evening in February

2020, just after the sun had set over the bustling domestic airport. It was easy to spot Michel

in the rainy twilight—a towering, six-foot-tall Cuban babalawo and former Olympic athlete,

dressed in white and driving a car with the number plate SHANGO in bold red on white—the

colours of Shango, his orisha protector.

Michel’s enthusiasm for the upcoming ceremony filled the 40-minute drive to his house in one

of Sydney’s affluent coastal suburbs. He explained that this initiation would be only the second

one performed in the Ara Oko Ifá Okan Ilé, the name of his religious house or lineage (Ilé). A

group of Australians and Latinos had received this initiation a few months earlier, and seven

more, including me, would participate in the coming weekend-long ceremony. In the months

following my initiation, the number of new initiates in Michel’s home surpassed fifty.

Introduction

The rise of practitioners with the proper credentials and knowledge to perform initiations shows

the growth of Santería in Australia. In these rituals, the orishas are said to be “born,” a process

that, for practitioners, indicates the official arrival of the religion in a new land (Brown, 2003).

Initiations like the one I received in 2020, the Mano de Orula, mark a key moment in a

practitioner's religious journey as they receive their first orishas, known as the warriors. These

warriors are said to be “born” in the initiation. Ceremonies like this mark the arrival of the

religion in a country through the consecration of new orishas and the induction of new

practitioners. For practitioners, the birth of the orisha is not a symbolic one; literally, the orisha

is materially present in the form of a particular object and, in the case of higher initiations, in

the body of the practitioner. The newborn orishas are washed and fed. This event highlights

the significance of Santería’s material expressions of the divine, where the divine must be

physically present in the new country for the religion to be genuinely considered established.

The initiatory rites for Mano de Orula require the participation of at least three fully initiated

babalawos, one of whom must have undergone the kwanaldo, also known as the "knife" ritual,

which grants authority to perform sacrifices and initiate others. Mastery of certain intricate and

secretive rituals is essential to obtain such authority. In the entry-level initiation, Mano de Orula,

the orishas do not come to reside within the bodies of the initiates; instead, they are received

by the new practitioner in the form of material objects that can be taken home. These orishas

are ritually washed with omiero, a potent mix of water, plants, and other secret ingredients, fed

with the blood of animal sacrifices, and allowed to rest. As Palmié (2018, p. 790) describes it,

the orishas “live, eat, work, propagate, are born, and even die”. In higher initiations, such as

those into the priesthood, the initiates themselves are also treated as newborns, requiring care

and attention similar to that given to infants, including being fed and bathed.

When we arrived at Michel’s place, he directed me to the open garage at the back. The air was

thick with lively chatting and the aroma of tobacco and Havana Club rum. A few babalawos,

busy with ritual preparations, moved their hands effortlessly between bottles of rum and

coconut rinds they were carving for the next day’s divinations. As the bottles emptied, the

stories and laughs grew louder, prompting a neighbour to complain to Michel over the fence.

Nearby, an assortment of chickens and pigeons dozed in cages on top of a concrete mantel,

unfazed by the hubbub. Next to the cages, a pile of plants in various hues, shapes, and sizes,

including some Australian natives, sparked my curiosity, especially as. Other plants

traditionally prescribed for the ceremony appeared to be missing. Having grown up among

practitioners in Cuba, I had learned that the use of plants in Santería tended to be quite

Introduction

prescriptive and set according to long-held traditions, so I found myself wondering about this

new development.

Plants are called "ewé" and "acheses," the Spanish plural of "aché" (Cabrera, 2015). They are

essential to Santería rituals and serve multiple purposes –medicinal, ritual, and magical, similar

to witchcraft in some cases. The knowledge of plant use is passed down orally and is rooted

in origin myths that often depict plants as persons. Cabrera states: “Plants heal because they

are witches” (Cabrera, 2015, p. 24). Each plant has its own personality, preferences, taboos,

and specific ways of engaging, reflecting what Marshall Sahlins called “metapersons”—

nonhuman entities believed to possess consciousness (Sahlins, 2022).

My grandmother was a deeply devoted practitioner who saw more humanity in plants than

some people see in one another. She often referred to them as persons, describing them as

“sad," "happy,” or “thirsty.” She shared with me her knowledge about their origins, powers and

behaviours, often rooted in stories called pataki—Santería’s mythical origin stories that explain

why things are the way they are. For example, my grandmother told me about the patakí, which

explains why Escoba Amarga (Parthenium hysterophorus) and Atiponla (Boerhavia erecta)

should never be used together in any ritual:

In mythical times, the orishas Shango and Asowano fought over a beautiful palace.

Obatala, the mighty father of the Orishas, intervened and ordered them to share it

peacefully. Reluctantly, they agreed but resorted to witchcraft instead of open conflict.

Each recruited a powerful witch: Asowano enlisted Escoba Amarga, while Shango

recruited Atiponla. The two witches became sworn enemies, wreaking havoc with their

sorcery. Seeing the desolation they caused, Obatala decreed that Asowano must place

his throne in corners, Shango shall always wander, and the two plants shall never grow

together and must never be used together in a ritual.

In the oral tradition, this pataki is in the odú Okana Iroso. My grandmother explained that this

is why her altar for Asowano was placed next to my bed, in the corner of my bedroom. Atiponla

and Escoba Amarga grow only on separate plots, never together.

Atiponla, a perennial herb found in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, has been

traditionally used in various South American cultures for its diuretic, anti-inflammatory, and

analgesic properties. Escoba Amarga, an herbaceous plant native to the Americas, is known

for its rapid growth and allopathic capacity to hinder the growth of surrounding plants. Despite

Introduction

their common usage in the Americas, in Australia, both are considered invasive weeds and

are systematically eradicated.

Atiponla (Boerhavia diffusa) was first reported to government authorities in Darwin in 2017,

with promising prospects for eradication (Westaway et al., 2018). Conversely, Escoba Amarga

grows in pastures and costs the economy millions each year. It is a Category 3 restricted

invasive weed under the Biosecurity Act 2014 (Agriculture & Fisheries, 2023; Dhileepan &

McFadyen, 2012). Farmers and government authorities systematically deploy eradication

strategies to exterminate it. Many other plants commonly used in Santería are considered

invasive weeds in Australia or are simply unavailable. Australia’s strict biosecurity laws prevent

practitioners from importing these plants, and domestic cultivation is also not an option

because only wild-collected plants are suitable for the omiero - a potent mixture of plants and

other secret ingredients infused with the power of the orisha, the priests, and sacred recitations

in Lucumí.

The plants used for the omiero are ritually gathered in the forest, the home of Osain, the orisha

of the forest and master of the plants. Their collection follows strict rituals, including seeking

Osain's permission to take them. The plants are considered sentient beings; practitioners must

show them respect, ensure they survive after parts are taken, and often leave coins beside

them as a form of payment. Otherwise, the plants might refuse to give their aché. In earlier

times, impoverished practitioners in Cuba left grains of maize instead of coins. I grew up in a

family of practitioners in Cuba. We kept one-cent coins specifically for this purpose. As a child,

I often came across these coins during walks on the outskirts of my hometown in central Cuba.

No one ever dared to take them, as everyone knew why they were left there.

We ask Orula

Seizing the brief silence that followed Michel’s neighbour’s complaint about the noise, I asked

my question directly: “How do you know you’ve got the right plants?” The babalawo with the

highest initiatory rank in the group responded without hesitation, “We ask Orula!” At that first

encounter and every subsequent time I asked a similar question to a babalawo, the answer

remained consistent: They consult Orula—the orisha of divination and wisdom, whom

babalawos serve—through divination.

At one point, I wondered if they had coordinated this response, perhaps expecting my

questions, but even when I asked babalawos in other regions, the answer was always the

same. Anecdotal and ethnographic evidence suggests that similar practices are followed in

Introduction

other countries, including the United States, where Santería has long been established, and

the local flora is more similar to that of Cuba.

In Australia, a plant is deemed suitable for ritual use only if it gains approval from the orishas.

Even if a plant is native to Australia, its use still needs to be validated by the authority of the

orisha. This way, the tradition, which emphasises the relationship with the orisha, fosters

creativity in adapting to new circumstances. Divination allows communication with the orishas,

who can then authorise or legitimise the addition of a new plant to the assemblage formed by

the orisha, the practitioner, and the materials. As my field collaborators explain, these

adaptations mirror the actions of enslaved African practitioners who, upon arriving in Cuba,

faced challenges like those practitioners encounter in Australia.

One of the Cuban babalawos told me about these ritual adaptations in Australia, echoing a

well-known adage of the Ifá tradition: "Orula travelled all the lands of the Earth, made sacrifices

in all the lands, and saved himself" (Sp. “Orula viajó a todas las tierras, hizo sacrificio en todas,

y se salvó”). The babalawo then added that "all lands" include inhospitable and barren places,

such as Antarctica and the world's deserts. "Then, do you think a babalawo won’t be able to

work in Antarctica because everything is ice?” In this context, the word “work” (Lucumí ebbo

and Sp. trabajo) refers to rituals and sacrifices. His explanation highlights the general

resourcefulness of practitioners, captured in the Cuban colloquial term resolver—to solve life

problems with whatever is at hand, and in the case of Santería, with the help of the orishas. It

is what Orula himself did when he “travelled all the lands of the Earth”.

As diviners, babalawos serve Orula, the orisha of wisdom and divination. They affirm that “La

palabra de Orula no cae en el suelo” (Orula’s word does not fall to the ground), signifying the

infallibility of Ifá divination (see Holbraad, 2012). In Australia, the most common form of

divination used by babalawos is the opera (a divinatory chain), but they also use Obí divination,

which employs coconut rinds (see Appendix 1). The divination responses are simple “yes” or

“no”, leaving little room for subjective interpretation. Questions are framed to elicit these binary

answers. If the orisha says “no”, the practitioner must find another plant or negotiate

alternatives with the orisha through divinatory practices. If Orula says “yes”, it can only be true.

Michel once shared a story about a ritual he needed to perform for a practitioner in Sydney.

He went to the forest, gathered 40 different plants, and asked Orula, one by one, which could

be used for the ritual. Although the ritual required only 21 plants, Michel tested each one, and

Orula approved 27. Michel was unfamiliar with Australian flora and, therefore, did not know the

names or botanical classifications of any of the plants. However, Orula's approval was

Introduction

sufficient. Michel's godfather, his mentor in ritual knowledge, was in Cuba at the time. Through

the internet, he guided Michel step by step through the process. The guide provided to

practitioners from elders in Cuba also highlights the transnational character of the religion, as

well as its emphasis on passing down ritual knowledge within lines of religious lineages. This

is why practitioners often invoke the authority of their elders when explaining their practices,

frequently saying, “This is what my godfather in Cuba told me to do”.

Babalawos from different lineages in Australia often turn to their elders in Cuba for guidance

when faced with unusual situations or when navigating the challenges of practising Santería

in a culture so far from its Cuban and other diasporic strongholds. The advice from Cuba,

including from prominent members of the Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba, is invariably,

“You must adapt”. This endorsement is often supported by another rationale: “Our ancestors

had to do the same when they arrived from Africa”. Ethnographers found similar responses in

other countries (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 94).

During our field interview, Kent Windress explained that some plants, such as verdolaga

(Purslane) and albahaca (Sacred Basil), are relatively easy to find. However, he acknowledges

the need for adaptation and how elders in Cuba support it:

That’s been the key message from my godfather [in Cuba] … you know …

“You have to change… that’s what we had to do in Cuba …” My padrino

[godfather] is a descendant of Adeshina … Yeah, man, you just must change

it, and you just ask [Orula] … and you just go yes/no … it’s fairly simple [from

field interview]

The mention of Adeshina also invokes a significant figure in Santería’s history and is a

recurrent theme in my conversations with practitioners about adaptations.

Remigio Herrera Adeshina (1811/1816–1905) was a babalawo, known along with his mentor

Carlos Adé Ño Bí, as one of the main pillars of Ifá in Cuba and the New World. He is credited

as a key figure who, despite the oppression, helped to preserve cultural identities under siege

by the imposition of Catholicism. But even Adeshina and other pioneers had to “adapt” to

Cuba’s natural environment to preserve their traditions.

The substitution of plants is not the only ritual change I have observed in Australia. To

overcome constraints imposed by natural, cultural, and legal environments, practitioners

creatively adapt other practices. These adaptations include changes to animal sacrifice

practices and the way rituals are conducted in public places, such as substituting “foods” for

the orishas or navigating outsiders' perceptions of visible religious markers like sacred beaded

Introduction

necklaces or white clothing worn during specific initiatory processes. For example, in one of

our phone conversations, one practitioner explained that in Cuba, sacrifices for the orisha

Ogun traditionally involve a dog or a turtle but in Australia, this would be illegal and heavily

prosecuted. “Do you think that Ogun, my dad [Sp. mi papá], wants me to go to prison for giving

him a dog or a turtle? Of course not!” Instead, he brings the dog to the presence of the orisha,

plays with it by the altar, shows it to the orisha, and keeps it around for a while. That is all. "The

Saint understands," he says—a phrase I hear often, and which is the title of a chapter in this

thesis.

The relationship between practitioners and their personal orisha is an alliance for the

prosperity, health, and protection of the practitioner. The orishas are "born" in initiatory rituals

for this purpose, even if that means "disciplining" the human now and then. The personal orisha

is the one given to the practitioner, as prescribed by complex divinations, and is also referred

to as “guardian angel” and “mother” or “father”.

Research questions

In my research in Australia, I found that Santería practitioners present their actions as a

continuation of traditional practices and initiatory lineages, while adapting to new ecological

and cultural contexts, such as those in Australia. They legitimise these adaptations as both

effective carriers of aché and authentic within the transnational community by invoking the

guidance of the orishas, drawing on historical precedents of adaptation, and above all by

preserving the relational integrity of their practices.

This thesis explores the following question:

How do Santería practitioners frame their adaptations as the continuation of traditional

practices and initiatory lineages while adapting to new ecological and cultural contexts, such

as those found in Australia, and how do they legitimise these adaptations as both effective and

legitimate within the transnational community? How can I theorise these adaptations in a way

that is consistent with practitioners' notions of continuity? Perception and discourse about

historical continuity are often considered subjective, often dictated by personal and group

agendas. However, my goal here is not only to represent and report on how practitioners

elaborate discourses to legitimise the continuity of traditions within change, but also to verify

such continuity using robust theoretical constructs.

Introduction

The topological concept of homeomorphism—the preservation of internal relational structures

despite outward transformations—offers a valuable framework for theorising these adaptations

in a way that aligns with practitioners’ own understanding of continuity within change.

Homeomorphism offers a framework for understanding continuity and change as

interconnected processes, rather than oppositional forces. I will utilise this concept to test and

describe how the relationships within Santería assemblages remain intact despite external

transformations.

The topological analysis maps the relationships and transformations within Santería

assemblages, emphasising how practitioners maintain continuity through adaptive change.

This study focuses on these relational dynamics from a topological perspective, rather than

addressing broader issues such as gender, race, or power asymmetries, which have been

extensively explored in the existing literature.

The research concentrates on the experiences of initiated practitioners in Australia. While I

believe the same approach can be used in other relevant contexts, my assumptions about

Santería are not necessarily universal. My definitions of who is a practitioner, what constitutes

an adaptation, and what practitioners can or cannot do are based on the views of my

interlocutors in Australia. For example, I define “practitioners” as individuals who undergo or

are committed to initiation and maintain an active relationship with the orishas. Such initiations

involve ontological transformations in which an orisha becomes part of their bodies and/or their

homes. By contrast, the term “clients” refers to those who consult diviners occasionally but do

not have an ongoing religious engagement with Santería.

While I do not generalise my findings to all contexts, the theoretical insights offer a solid

foundation for further research on Santería’s transnational adaptations in other countries.

Epistemological commitment to practitioner perspectives

A central tenet of this inquiry is that it takes the experiences and reports of practitioners

seriously. “Taking seriously” means that “the theoretical aspirations of the anthropologist

should, in the best of scenarios, reflect directly and ‘symmetrically’ the ethnographic data”

(Espirito Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015, pp. 8-9). It involves taking seriously the "beings" and

"things" that inhabit practitioners' worlds rather than viewing them merely as different opinions,

representations, or versions of the world. This requires "shifting a focus away from a

structuralising classificatory gaze to one that allows us to glimpse the kinds of ontological

possibilities at stake in people's understandings of their invisible and visible worlds" (Espirito

Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 8). In this perspective, we see the experiences that

Introduction

practitioners report as rooted in notions of being (ontology) that shape their everyday lives

(Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. xiv). These notions of being and their influence on practitioners'

lives are what I refer to throughout this thesis as Santería ontologies.

Donna Haraway (2016, p. 66) emphasises that “it matters what thoughts think thoughts, what

descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds; what

worlds make stories”. The way we think, describe, and connect things is not neutral but actively

shapes the reality we experience. Our thoughts, descriptions, and narratives create and

reinforce specific perspectives and meanings, influencing how we perceive and engage with

the world. In turn, the world we experience also shapes the stories we tell about it, creating a

reciprocal relationship between narrative and reality.

Haraway’s perspective emphasises the importance of recognising how the narratives and

frameworks used by researchers can affect the lives and identities of those we study. When

anthropologists choose particular ways to describe, interpret, or connect aspects of a

community’s culture, they are not merely documenting an objective reality; they are actively

shaping how that community is represented and understood by outsiders, including

policymakers, other scholars, and the wider public. This can lead to significant outcomes, such

as reinforcing stereotypes, legitimising certain practices while marginalising others, or shaping

the community’s self-view. Therefore, anthropologists have a duty to recognise the power their

descriptions and narratives hold and to engage with the perspectives and voices of the

communities they study in ways that are respectful, accurate, and empowering. This

underscores the need to take seriously how participants perceive their own lives and practices.

It is common sense that, to understand how practitioners negotiate their daily lives, we must

accept their premises about what the world is and the beings that inhabit it.

To interpret these “things” and “entities” in terms of concepts more familiar to us, such as

mental representations or social structures, diminishes their creative potential and risks turning

them into analytical errors or misconceptions about our interlocutors' perspectives. Since these

are assertions about what exists—ontological claims or "truth" claims (sensu Holbraad, 2012)

- anthropology's role is to engage with them on their own terms. This is not to affirm their

universal validity but to avoid imposing our own frameworks on them (Espirito Santo &

Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 10).

The work I developed for mapping topological relations is a form of cartography. In social

sciences, cartography is a theoretically grounded, politically informed approach to

understanding how knowledge and subjectivity are produced (Braidotti, 1994, 2011, 2019).

Introduction

Such an approach acknowledges that any map or account is inherently selective and partial,

reflecting specific perspectives rather than an objective "view from nowhere". Even the official

map of Australia differs significantly from Aboriginal maps, with each reflecting distinct

worldviews and experiences of the same land. The view privileged in this thesis is that of the

practitioners.

Why “ontology”?

It is possible to question whether the concept of ontology is necessary at all for this thesis.

Indeed, one could describe Santería’s adaptations through terms like relational practice or

material engagement without invoking ontology. The notion of “event” is also appropriate in

the context of Deleuzean philosophy. However, I retain the term ontology for a specific heuristic

purpose: to foreground the claim—common among practitioners—that orishas are materially

and spiritually present, not as symbols or metaphors, but as active and responsive agents in

the world. As Beliso-De Jesús (2015) argues, such ontologies are not metaphysical

abstractions but “somatic experiences of walking with (copresence),” enacted through

embodied and material relations (p. 75). Similarly, Espirito Santo (2018) and Holbraad (2012)

show that terms like aché and orisha do not refer to ideas about things but to the very

conditions of presence and efficacy within ritual assemblages. My use of ontology is therefore

not doctrinal but pragmatic: it names the emic logics by which divine presence, efficacy, and

legitimacy are made manifest and negotiated.

I acknowledge that this thesis could well reach similar conclusions using alternative conceptual

frameworks. Nevertheless, in aligning with Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos’s (2015) call

to take ontological claims “seriously and symmetrically,” the term “ontology” becomes a tool

for staying close to practitioners’ own terms of engagement and for resisting analytic reductions

that might otherwise bracket the presence of the sacred. Following Espirito Santo and

Panagiotopoulos (2015), I seek to reflect these worlds symmetrically, not as distorted versions

of a presumed universal reality, but as coherent configurations of being that demand analytical

fidelity on their terms.

The word “ontology” here aims to highlight that Santería nonhuman beings are experienced

as copresent in the life of practitioners and aché is not an abstract spiritual idea or dogma. For

practitioners, it is embodied in the material world through specific plants, animals, humans,

spirits, sacred objects, and other ritual elements. Different materials are believed to carry

different types of aché, with plants and animals playing key roles in rituals designed to channel

this sacred force. Moreover, they are said to be aché, rather than having aché. The orishas

Introduction

are the original expressions or “modulations” of aché (Goldman, 2009). Santería ritual

practices focus on the ritual manipulation of acheses (the plural of aché), which is why some

Australian babalawos described themselves to me as “energy workers” during my fieldwork.

As Dominic Kirk, a young Australian babalawo, puts it

… we as babalawos are invoking and enlisting and in that sense,

manipulating and working … certain acheses, energies, divinities and forces,

so that we can channel from out in the universe into those warriors …

The emphasis on ontology is also a methodological commitment. It enables the analysis of

relations and transformations (two key aspects of my analysis) in line with how practitioners’

notions of beings shape them. For example, seeing non-human Others as sentient ascribes to

them a kind of agency that cannot be explained as a result of belief or even phenomena

experienced in ritual events. It is this ontology what enables such relations in the first place. It

is also, as I will show, a key topological property of Santeria rituals that ensures creative

adaptation and continuity.

A topology of immanent transnationalisation

Matory (2009) challenged us to consider the possibilities for theorising transnationalisation

from spirit-possession religions rather than only from Abrahamic and karmic religions. My goal

in this thesis is more specific but with the same vision: What would a theory of transnational

processes of continuity and change look like if we take Santería ontologies seriously?

Scholars recognise that Santería practitioners define the tradition’s continuity in terms that are

not necessarily what scholars would deem “historical” continuity. “The kind of creativity

observed in the Afro-Cuban religious context does not express itself as a radical break from a

past, but as enabled by it, as well as enabling of a particular kind of present and future” (Espirito

Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 9). The question of continuity and change in processes of

transnationalisation is understudied. Furthermore, the theorisation of Santería’s transnational

processes of continuity and change in a manner consistent with Santería’s internal premises

has been even less considered.

The continuity of Santería’s relational properties as they are adapted to new social and

environmental contexts can be studied using a topological framework. As Adkins explains,

while the name “topology” suggests spatiality (from the Greek word τόπος, “place, location”),

the primary issue in topology is the relationship between the parts (Adkins, 2015, p. 62). A

simple definition of topology is the study of the way in which constituent parts are interrelated

Introduction

or arranged. The focus of topology on relations makes it a helpful approach in the study of

social systems.

Gros and colleagues (Gros et al., 2019, p. 1) describe topology as “a branch of mathematics

that studies spaces that remain continuously invariant through distortion”. It theorises

invariance as a threshold of sameness within transformation. Topology has been productive

for anthropology, as it offers tools for studying social processes of identification, individuation,

classification, comparison, transformation, similarity, and difference. Anthropologists have

utilised topology to tackle methodological questions around comparison and generalisation

(Gros et al., 2019). This approach helps identify and clarify underlying patterns, internal

relationships, continuity, and transformation. Gros and colleagues (2019) mention, as an

example, how Leach (1961) encouraged the analysis of societies as assemblages of variables,

using an analogy with topology to describe the flexibility of networks of relations. Leví-Strauss’s

(1955) canonical formula to capture the morphodynamism of myth groups of transformation is

another example. Annemarie Mol and John Law (1994) used topology to understand the social

as a multiplicity and hybridity of spatial forms. Other researchers used topology to identify

contemporary conjunctures, social formations or material relations as intrinsically topological

(Lury et al., 2012).

The term homeomorphism describes how a system undergoing continuous transformation

preserves its fundamental relational structure. For example, homeomorphism describes how

the shape of the letter "A" can be bent or deformed to resemble an "R" without breaking its

internal structure. The A and the R are homeomorphic. On the other hand, an "A" and a "B"

lack such continuity, as we cannot make a B into an A without breaking it at the bottom, or an

A into a B without joining it. The A and the B are not homeomorphic.

Figure 1, Introduction: Homeomorphism

The topological approach enables us to focus on local contexts and relationships rather than

relying on rigid understandings of beliefs, cosmology, and tradition, which, in the case of

Introduction

Santería, is particularly challenging due to its flexibility and the fact that it is an oral tradition. A

topology of Santería assemblages emphasises the present and localised interactions between

practitioners and the sacred, which are enacted through rituals and material engagements.

This perspective also addresses the centrality of immanent forms of religious

transnationalisation, which continue to be understudied, at least from emic perspectives.

My use of the term “immanent” does not always mean what we usually describe as "material"—

the concrete or that which is not mental. Instead, it resonates with how Espirito Santo (2018)

uses the term “materiality”—not just to denote the “physical” but to highlight how it functions in

ritual practice. She observes that in contemporary Afro-Cuban religion, icons, artifacts, spirit

representations, sacrificial offerings and other ritual objects do not merely symbolise the

sacred; they generate complex cosmological and social relations that extend far beyond their

immediate use. Moreover, Santería scholars also emphasise the interdependence of

materiality and spiritual agency (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015; Espirito Santo, 2018; Palmié, 2018;

Wirtz, 2014). As Wirtz (2014, p. 100) notes,

The agency of spirits and their responsiveness to human action becomes

evident through material relations. Spirits act in the world through

materialisations, and humans seek to engage their power through intricate

manipulations of the material world.

Immanent, in my approach, does not refer to the metaphysical nature of the divine or ritual

materials as essences as much as it refers to how the sacred is experienced in ritual

assemblages through material (as defined by Espiritu Santo, 2018) expressions of the divine,

instead of reaching for something “outside” the world. In the words of Beliso-De Jesús (2015,

p. 75), the practice of Santería “is a somatic experience of walking with (copresence) rather

than solely a mind that is reaching toward the unobtainable (transcendence)”. Above all, it

refers to the agency they afford, or in emic terms, the aché that arises in Santería’s ritual

assemblages.

Dynamic assemblages and topology

The concept of “assemblages,” as developed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), offers a

powerful lens through which to view the dynamic interplay of elements that comprise Santería

in a diaspora setting. Assemblages are fluid networks of relationships between various

entities—human, spiritual, material and environmental. In Santería, these include practitioners,

orishas, ritual objects, plants, animals, and the physical spaces where rituals are performed,

as well as the mental aspects involved.

Introduction

Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p. 8) asserts that "Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of

assemblages allows us to focus on the tensions of distinction, fluidity, intensity, dispersal, and

temporal-spatial impermanence of categorisations that are mobilised in surprising and often

conflicting ways”. Beliso-De Jesús (2015) highlights the world-making effects of “currents” and

“connections”, producing assemblages of spiritual energies, physical sensations, media and

transnational networks of information and affect (p. 175). For her, the assemblage is the

primary unit of analysis of Santería ontologies.

Assemblages are an alternative to hierarchical structure, which suggests fixed origins and

linear growth. They suggest principles of connection and heterogeneity, emphasising the

fluidity, multiplicity and heterogeneity that enable constant reconfiguration and adaptation. The

concept of assemblages enables us to understand Santería not as a fixed set of practices, but

as a constantly evolving system where relationships can shift and reconfigure in response to

new conditions.

In anthropology, assemblages have often been perceived as conglomerates of contingent

materials (Bialecki, 2018). However, this view underplays their dynamic nature. Assemblages,

as Deleuze and Guattari envision them, lack fixed essences; they are defined by the relations

between their elements, which are better understood as events than static entities. As Nail

(2017) articulates, they are concerned with "how", "where", "when", and "from what viewpoint”,

questions of events, not essences. More than a collection of entities, they are better

understood as continuous processes.

In Deleuze’s framework, assemblage is “a topological concept” (Adkins, 2015, p. 62). Topology

enabled Deleuze and Guattari to describe heterogeneous systems, trace connections and

becomings, and provide an alternative to the structuralism predominant at the time in France,

as exemplified by Lévi-Strauss and Lacan. They argued that:

Society and the State need animal characteristics to classify people; natural

history and science need these characteristics to classify the animals

themselves. Serialism and structuralism either graduate characteristics

according to their resemblances or order them according to their differences.

Animal characteristics can be mythic or scientific. But we are not interested

in characteristics; what interests us are modes of expansion,

propagation, occupation, contagion, peopling (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987,

p. 296, my emphasis)

My approach in this thesis prioritises relations, contagion, and becomings over essences of

discrete objects, individuals, or their fixed characteristics. While Deleuzian concepts have been

productively employed in anthropology, their use has often lacked this consistency, limiting the

Introduction

potential for a deeper engagement between anthropology and Deleuze’s philosophy (Bialecki,

2018; Buchanan, 2021; Marcus & Saka, 2006).

I will argue that adaptations of Santería in Australia preserve the fundamental topological

properties of the relational ontologies expressed in Santería assemblages. I examine these

properties by analysing the ritual assemblages’ relations and becomings; what Deleuze and

Guattarí called the longitude and latitude of an assemblage:

We call the latitude of a body the affects of which it is capable at a given

degree of power, or rather within the limits of that degree. Latitude is made

up of intensive parts falling under a capacity, and longitude of extensive parts

falling under a relation (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 256–257).

The longitude refers to relations: it involves identifying who is involved, how they enter these

relations, what is considered “inside” or “outside” them, and how relations constitute the

assemblage. It is made of “extensive” parts. On the other hand, the latitude or “intensive”

aspect relates to becoming and focuses on changes in degrees of power. In my study, it is

about how these changes or intensities are experienced, and how they are generated and

shared within the assemblage. “Becoming” refers to the continuous process of transformation

and change where entities evolve in relation without fully transitioning into something else.

This highlights movement, potential, and contagion rather than fixed states.

Deleuze and Guattari themselves never provided a unified definition of becoming. Bialecki

(2018) explains becoming is about a process of continual transformation. In Santería

assemblages, these qualitative changes are sensed as “embodied sensations of spirits in

interaction with the living” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 7) as they “erupt as intensities or feelings

of spatial-temporalities” (p. 8); “sensed through chills, shivers, tingles, premonitions, and

possessions” (p. 7); akin to “spiritual electric currents” (p. 31) that “electrify bodies” (p. 30).

Practitioners describe these experiences as instances of the aché of the spirits present in the

rituals.

Data collection and analysis

From 2019 to 2024, I collected data through interviews, informal conversations, and participant

observation at rituals, talks and artistic performances offered by practitioners. Naturally

occurring conversations, whether face-to-face or by telephone, provided invaluable

opportunities to get to know practitioners, many of whom have become friends. Some stayed

in my home, and in other cases, I visited them in their homes. We also shared conversations

over a drink or while organising and promoting Afro-Cuban cultural events in Australia.

Introduction

I conducted unstructured interviews to gather information about practices and personal

histories. Rossbach de Olmos (2009, p. 483), who researched Afro-Cuban religions in

Germany, where these traditions have only recently arrived, suggests that using biographic

data is particularly effective “because it opens dimensions of clarity and vividness that could

never be reached through the presentation of mere facts”. She recommends this approach in

contexts like Germany, where, like in Australia, practitioners cannot be represented as a

homogeneous group. Her work summarised the history of Afro-Cuban Santería in Germany

through the biographies of five practitioners. Using individual biographies inverts traditional

sociological discourses that typically begin with the collective (Rossbach de Olmos, 2009, p.

493).

Most of the people from whom I collected biographical data are well-informed practitioners

responsible for ongoing projects in Australia. They are artists, teachers and priests who

actively engage with practitioners in their networks. As active and well-connected practitioners,

they are central to debates on how Santería should be practised in Australia. Frenk et al. (2011,

p. 78) argue that such “key informants” provide “the most valid assessments when asked about

directly observable group characteristics”. To get a more representative view of the local

religious scene, I also engaged with other less active practitioners.

Several interviews were conducted online due to the geographical spread of practitioners

across Australia and the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic during part of my

fieldwork. Recording several of these interviews in video provided the extra advantage of

capturing non-verbal cues that might otherwise have been missed.

I also participated in online meetings and interacted with social media networks. As Murchison

and Coats (2015, p. 988) note, “[a]ttempts to understand contemporary religious practice, and

its associated communities and identities, must take into account the way that these

phenomena exist in both virtual and physical spaces, as well as the way that, in some cases,

religion bridges or erases this dichotomy”. Engaging with social media and searching for

practitioners’ online information offered additional insights into their lives. Many practitioners

are professional artists, and it is easy to find websites with details about them; several even

provide video footage of their rituals.

For analysing the interviews and verbal interactions, I employed dialogical analysis, a

methodology developed for studying intersubjective relations as expressed in language.

Gillespie and Cornish (2010) conceptualise intersubjectivity as the variety of relations between

the perspectives of individuals, groups or traditions, which can manifest as both implicit (taken

Introduction

for granted) and explicit (reflected upon). Dialogical analysis enables the study of these

relations at multiple levels.

Gillespie and Cornish (2010) specifically, suggest that concepts such as multivoicedness and

addressivity offer avenues for considering situations not directly addressed in dialogue but that

extend beyond the immediate context. This is what they call "situation transcending

phenomena," which recognises that understanding dialogue involves taking into account

social, historical, and cultural contexts, as well as personal, subjective, and intra-psychological

processes. Gillespie and Cornish (2010) emphasise that dialogic analysis views

intersubjectivity as connected with wider cultural, institutional, and intersubjective settings.

This approach helps identify the different, sometimes conflicting worlds in which people

practice their religion. Furthermore, Aveling et al. (2015, p. 683) state that “[w]hile the method

is suited to research questions about the interactions of Self and Others, it is distinctive in that

it does not rely on data which records actual interactions between individuals or groups, nor

on asking people to self-report on their interactions with the perspectives of others”. Therefore,

dialogic analysis can be utilised for studying interviews where these Others and their

interactions can be recognised, either implicitly or explicitly.

Addressivity, a concept introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, renowned for his work on dialogism,

pertains to the inherently listener-focused nature of language. For Bakhtin, addressivity is a

crucial aspect of every utterance, emphasising the dialogic and audience-centred nature of

communication (Aveling et al., 2015; Bakhtin, 1981; Gillespie & Cornish, 2010).

An utterance is shaped by the speaker’s assumptions about the intended audience, even if the

addressee is not physically present (Aveling et al., 2015; Gillespie & Cornish, 2010; Marková,

2006). “Multivoicedness” and the “multivoiced Self”, concepts drawn from Bakhtin’s dialogism,

conceptualise the Self as composed of a dynamic multiplicity of interacting voices (Aveling et

al., 2015). This methodology involves acknowledging and examining the dialogues and

relationships between diverse internal voices or “I-positions” as well as “inner-Others” or actual

Others.

Researchers of multicultural identities have demonstrated the usefulness of these concepts

for analysing “hybridity”. For example, Bhatia (2002) showed how migrant and diasporic

communities invoke the voices of host and home communities to position themselves within

different social contexts, a theme relevant to my research. Luttrell (2010) illustrated how

participant photography and video recordings engage with, appropriate, and orient toward

multiple voices, both present and absent, in their daily lives as they form and claim identities.

Introduction

However useful the methodologies can be, they do not account for all facets of intersubjective

relations. Humans are “intersubjective” before language can be decoded according to

grammatical or lexical information (Duranti, 2010).

Proponents of embodied cognition highlight the role of the body in intersubjective relations.

Csordas, for example, sees semiotics as phenomenology’s “methodological twin” (Csordas,

1993) and proposes a move from "intersubjectivity as the copresence of alter egos to

intercorporeality" (Csordas, 2008, p. 111). He cites examples like the laying on of hands during

healings in Charismatic and Pentecostal faiths, the expectation in Brazilian culture that the

host reaches for the doorknob when guests are leaving the house, or a Navajo chanter's

argument that apprentices must learn the chants while being close enough to see the lips of

the master moving. As Weiss (1999, p. 5) argued, “the experience of being embodied is never

a private affair but is always already mediated by our continual interactions with other human

and nonhuman bodies”. Bodies are situated in relation to one another. Taking this approach,

Csordas argues, avoids thinking of intersubjectivity as an abstract relation between two

abstract mental entities. In this way, he addresses “the gulf between the objective and

subjective dimensions of culture, such that to consider meaning as subjective abstraction

renders it entirely mentalistic, and to consider interaction as objective, is to treat it as mere

behaviour” (Csordas, 2008, p. 111).

My interest does not lie in discrete subjectivities per se, but in relation to my enquiry and as a

complement to the topological method. I adopt a non-Cartesian stance that does not separate

the subject from the object. Instead of aiming to prove this (and there is a well-established

body of research dedicated to that already), my enquiry seeks to explore the theoretical

possibilities this approach offers in explaining issues of continuity and change for transnational

Santería.

In addressing these issues, I find Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of assemblages,

becomings, and the Other. In an assemblage, there is no subjective–objective division; the

"mental" and the "material" are not separate dimensions of reality, nor is the Self confined to

the skin. What matters are the relations between bodies and how they affect and are affected

by other bodies, where “bodies” are understood in a broad sense. As they argue, “We may

take the word ‘body’ in its broadest sense (there are mental bodies, souls are bodies, etc.)”

(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 80). Moreover, and I cannot emphasise this enough, while I use

these methodologies, my unit of analysis is not the individual but the assemblage. In other

words, what I aim to understand is how such relations and becomings persist or are

Introduction

transformed as practitioners adapt rituals in Australia. More precisely, I focus on the extensive

and intensive aspects of the assemblage, as explained above.

I also draw on my own experience as a Cuban born into a family of practitioners, living in Cuba

for the first 37 years of my life. This autoethnographic perspective allows me to access shared

experiences, enabling me to identify and compare similarities and differences between

Santería in Cuba and Australia. I believe that my position as a researcher is privileged and

unique as a Cuban who has experienced this religion in both countries and witnessed the

transformations it has undergone over the past 40 years.

Thesis organisation

Chapter 1 provides a brief general account of Santería in Australia, highlighting the roles of

mobility and media as key vectors of transnationalisation that enabled its development in this

country. It also describes the heterogeneity and dynamism of Santería.

Chapter 2 explores the theoretical ideas behind understanding innovation and creativity within

Santería. The concept of aché captures Santería’s relational worldview, as it is experienced in

assemblages of humans, spirits, plants, animals, and other material foundations of this power,

collectively referred to as assemblages of aché. This chapter takes the view that creativity is

not a departure from the past but the realisation of its existing potential. The idea of creative

continuity helps explain how continuity is preserved amidst change. It also elaborates on the

topological approach used in this thesis.

Chapter 3 presents an ethnographic perspective, drawing on the experiences and descriptions

of Australian practitioners regarding the concept of aché. It emphasises the role of aché as a

way of transcending the limits imposed by cultural discourses and social roles. Experiences of

aché are experiences of connections beyond the programmed Self, which appear to be a

primary motivation for many practitioners to remain committed to the religion. Here, I use the

term "Self" to describe "the locus of experience" (Harris, 1989).

The chapter also highlights the importance of Santería practices in facilitating a connection to

the divine for practitioners. As they say, "It is all about connections". The experience of aché

involves understanding the Self as interconnected with Santería spirits who, in turn, connect

practitioners to nature, community, ancestors and the sacred.

Introduction

The following two chapters examine the two topological facets of assemblages as described

earlier: the extensive aspect, which encompasses relations, and the intensive aspect, involving

"becomings" or changes in an assemblage's capacities.

Chapter 4 illustrates how initiations and ongoing practices shape the relational ontologies of

Santería. The Self is understood through the world-making effects of these relations. It

emphasises Santería selves as assemblages of relational ontologies—or what Espírito Santo

calls "Self-systems" (Espírito Santo, 2019).

Chapter 5 examines the intensities experienced during religious practices in both ritual and

social environments. It offers examples of how colours, music, possession, and ritual acts

influence the sense of Self and perceptions of empowerment, or, in emic terms, a sense of

aché. This analysis aligns with the concept of “participation,” as first outlined by Lévy-Bruhl

(1926) and later by others. Participation describes the dynamic interaction between individuals

and the collective in shaping one’s place and identity in the world (Keck, 2005, 2008; Pina-

Cabral, 2018). It includes Clark’s (2007) concept of the "soft self," a fluid and negotiable set of

resources that span the boundaries between biology and artifacts. I suggest a topological

perspective that deepens the understanding of participation by recognising transformations

beyond mere subjectivity. Participation is an affective and relational force that transforms

spirits, humans, and sensory elements into a new, integrated assemblage where Santería

personhood actively emerges.

Chapter 6 applies the concept of topological homeomorphism to the anthropological study of

plant substitution in rituals. This chapter illuminates this under-explored process using a

topological approach to analyse how plants are gathered and prepared for ritual use, especially

in the ritual known as Osain. Building on previous chapters, it outlines the topological

invariances (both intensive and extensive) that ensure these adaptations remain

homeomorphically continuous with traditional rituals in Cuba.

Chapter 7 explores practitioners' stories of conversion using discourse analysis methods

inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin. The analysis reveals practitioners' ongoing transition from a state

of disconnection and vulnerability to one of connection and empowerment (aché). The chapter

presents an innovative approach to understanding how the new and the familiar interact in

encounters that trigger what anthropologists typically refer to as religious conversion. The

proposed topological approach goes beyond traditional frameworks that focus either on social

reproduction or individual agency, instead emphasising the relational creation of subjectivity in

religious experiences and the influence of the (different, new, alluring) Other in shaping these.

Introduction

Chapters 8 and 9 examine how practitioners in Australia navigate their daily lives while

maintaining their Santería practices. They focus on the contrast between sacred and non-

sacred relationships and how practitioners manage them. The chapters examine how

practitioners simultaneously monitor how they are perceived by spirits on one hand and by

other humans—work colleagues, casual bystanders, family members, and fellow

practitioners—on the other. The phrase "the Saints understand" highlights the importance of

relational interactions with the sacred over rules. Chapter 9 goes further into the "double vision"

that practitioners employ to navigate these overlapping ontologies and relationships. The

Conclusion summarises the ethnographic and theoretical claims of this thesis and outlines

implications for anthropology of religious transnationalisation and the study of Santería

processes of continuity and change.

Chapter 1 Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santería in Australia

The first time I cooked ajiaco in Australia, it was pretty different to what I knew in Cuba. There

was no malanga, no ñame, and the corn was the wrong kind. I used sweet potato, pumpkin,

and — at my wife's suggestion — a piece of butternut squash. As the broth simmered, a familiar

smell began to rise…not exact, but close enough to make me pause and try to remember how

it was in Cuba. I stirred the pot slowly and thought, “Not the same, but close enough.”

Something had changed, but without a doubt, something essential remained.

That “something” was more than flavour, idealised by my nostalgia. It was a way of doing; a

way of cooking, yes, but also of living and practising that began with what was at hand,

however heterogeneous or unexpected.

In his influential work, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (Cuban Counterpoint of

Tobacco and Sugar, 1940), the pioneering Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz famously

described Cuban culture as an ajiaco. This traditional Cuban stew combines a variety of

vegetables, starchy roots, and meats into a rich, flavourful potage. For Ortiz, this dish

epitomised Cuba’s dynamic cultural fusion—an ever-evolving blend in which diverse elements

merge into a complex, heterogeneous whole, yet remain identifiable by their distinctive flavour.

He saw this blend as reflective of “Afro-Cuban” religions too, which, like Cuban culture itself,

draw from diverse “ingredients” to create traditions that are both distinctive and adaptable

(Ortiz, 1995; Palmié, 2013). This cultural fusion is not a fixed recipe but rather an inventive

“cooking” with whatever is at hand.

This chapter examines the introduction of Santería into Australia as a heterogeneous and

dynamic religious tradition. First, I provide a personal account of my experience growing up

among practitioners, which introduces my own background as a researcher and the ways this

shapes my inquiry. Much of my effort to demonstrate how creativity constitutes continuity

reflects what I instinctively understand from personal experience within Santería. The greatest

challenge has been finding an academic discourse that reflects what, for practitioners, is

instinctual.

Next, I describe the practitioners I met in Australia, emphasising the diversity of their

backgrounds and experiences. This leads to a discussion that highlights a distinctive finding:

unlike the common migration-driven patterns of religious transnationalisation in this country,

Santería's expansion relies significantly on the two-way mobility between Cuba and Australia.

This unique dynamic becomes particularly evident when considering the central role of

immanent forms of transnationalisation in Santería, where embodied practices, materiality, and

Chapter 1

the relational presence of the orishas are essential to its transnational flow and adaptation. In

other words, not only do practitioners physically travel between the two countries, but the

orishas must also travel this way.

1.1 A personal account: my own ajiaco

Throughout my life, I have witnessed how recipes and how we talk about them have adapted

to changing economic and political conditions. When I was a child, chicken was the main

ingredient. My father, who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party in our town,

often likened ajiaco to a party assembly, with the chicken representing the president. However,

during the hardship of the post-Soviet era, the “president” had to be replaced by a more

affordable option. The government began distributing a pig’s head to each neighbourhood,

allowing communities to prepare ajiaco for political celebrations, maintaining the tradition in

challenging times.

Ortiz’s metaphor of the ajiaco emphasised fluidity, dynamism and creativity. "Cubanness" for

him is "a condition of the soul" rather than something determined by birth, race, blood or

residence (Ortiz, 1995, p. 9, originally published in 1940). It embodies “a complex of

sentiments, ideas, and attitudes” shaped by an ongoing, unfinished process. Santería, too, fits

this model, as it continually adapts “with new ingredients and seasonings added over time to

produce novel and unexpected effects” (Holbraad, 2016, p. 1016). Palmié (2013) employs the

cooking metaphor in his book, The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion,

to describe how practitioners of Santería continually innovate to meet changing circumstances.

Just as ajiaco exemplifies, Santería’s transmission to Australia follows a similar trajectory of

adaptation and reconfiguration. This historical evolution sets the stage for the unique ways

Santería is practised in Australia today.

My perspective as an ethnographer is shaped by a multiplicity of lived experiences that were

interwoven into my life in Cuba. Growing up, my home was filled with religious images, and if

you take my grandparents’ beliefs seriously, there were spirits and deities present as well.

Eleguá guarded the door, Asowano lived by my bedside, a Buddha figurine watched over the

living room, and the walls were covered with portraits of Jesus, Our Lady of Charity was there,

and the father God depicted as an old man on clouds. My grandmother, deeply devoted to her

orishas, would often assert that she was “Catholic, Apostolic and Roman”—in her own words.

My grandfather practised Scientific Spiritism (Espiritismo Científico) and only needed a candle

and a glass of water to communicate with the spirits. My best childhood friend was a Jehovah's

Witness, and one of my teenage mentors was a seasoned Rosicrucian with a room full of pre-

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

Revolution books on occultism, Buddhism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism. Another mentor

was an experienced Santería practitioner.

I owe much of my religious imagination to the generations that preceded me, influences that,

throughout my childhood, turned to spirits for resolving everyday problems as readily as one

trusts gravity when riding a bicycle. This foundation nurtured in me both the inclination and

ability to draw from an eclectic mix of ideas, curiosity and spiritual pursuits. My approach to

religion resembles Huizinga's Homo Ludens (Huizinga, 1949), a playful seeker rather than a

rationalistic “Homo Sapiens” of the Enlightenment. My spiritual practices include sitting in

zazen at dawn, lighting candles for the orishas, exploring transpersonal psychology in the

forest, wearing sacred adornments, reading the discourses of Eihei Dogen, or quietly uttering

mantras.

Sometimes, I consider myself a "religious platypus". When European scholars first

encountered the Australian platypus, they dismissed it as a hoax. With its beaver-like tail, otter-

like body, fine fur, and duck-like bill, this egg-laying, milk-secreting mammal resembled a

hybrid, like the fabled Fijian mermaid. However, the platypus swims, nests and lays eggs

uniquely, neither as a duck nor an otter but as only a platypus can. Likewise, I do not view

myself as a “hybrid,” an “insider,” or an “outsider”; nor do others within the Australian

community of practitioners.

While most practitioners are also very eclectic, Santería devotees view their connection to

African traditions not merely as a historical link but as a living, ongoing lineage passed down

through initiations in a long ancestral tradition. They often emphasise that aché—the sacred

energy central to their practice—and their capacity to access it is inherited through direct ritual

transmission and maintained through embodied practices that preserve ancestral wisdom

brought from Africa by enslaved people. This perspective reflects a commitment to continuity

with African roots, where rituals and orishas are seen as vital connections—even ontological

connections—to their heritage rather than symbols of a distant past. They are carriers of the

same aché, even when they need to adapt to different historical circumstances and

geographies. “Adapting” to changing circumstances is what their ancestors had to do, as they

do now, while maintaining spiritual power in continuity with the core foundations of the tradition.

I am in a unique position to undertake this research. Born and raised in Cuba, where I spent

the first 37 years of my life, I also have a sense of how Australians might feel or think when

encountering Santería. Having lived in Australia for over 15 years, I am no longer an outsider

to Australian culture. I am another Australian citizen who votes in elections, has a mortgage

Chapter 1

and raises kids. I am not a traditional anthropologist who travels to distant places, learns the

native languages and cultures of the communities they study by living among them, and then

returns to share their findings. In my Australian family, only my wife speaks Spanish (as a

second language), and much less frequently now that my English has improved. Today, I

speak, think, write, work, pray and even dream in English or Spanglish. In my dreams, the

language I use depends on the setting—whether Cuba or Australia. Like in my dreams, my

position in the field also shifts dialogically and dynamically, depending on who my interlocutor

is.

Sometimes, I am seen as a native Cuban, especially when Australians practise their Cuban

slang with me or ask about my experiences growing up in Santería's native setting. At other

times, I am regarded as an Australian who, like many others, has navigated immigration, taxes,

voting, housing and office politics. When I turn on my recorder during an interview, I am

addressed as a researcher who, at the same time, is assumed to understand emic terms and

have insider knowledge. Conversations often flow between Spanish, English and phrases in

Lucumi, the ritual language of Santería practitioners, complicating my transcription work. Two

of my field collaborators are Afro-Cuban scholars who, after the formal interviews, share their

own ethnographic experiences with me.

Born in Cuba in 1971, I witnessed Santería rituals emerge from the modest, discrete confines

of practitioners' backyards into more elaborate, public displays of ritual paraphernalia,

particularly as the government opened the doors to tourism in the 1990s. In my childhood,

practitioners kept their colourful bead necklaces hidden, tucked under shirts and in pockets.

Today, they walk openly through Havana in conspicuous religious garments that signify not

only religious affiliation but also economic status. Where once they were secretive, many now

"especular”—“show off” through overspending (Holbraad, 2005). This visibility reflects their

ability to afford expensive initiations, asserting both economic achievement and divine

protection from the orishas.

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, on which the Cuban economy depended following the

1959 Revolution, and the ensuing economic crisis of the 1990s led the Cuban government to

open the island to tourism, including religious tourism. Santería, formerly censored or

disregarded, was now promoted in government tourism packages. Practitioners from the

United States began travelling to Cuba to reconnect with their religious lineages and receive

initiations in the place the religion originated. Many Cubans, however, could not compete with

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

the hard currency visitors brought with them, and initiations became unaffordable for many

devoted practitioners.

I, however, recall a very different era. I remember the dimly lit deck at the back of my childhood

home, where Padrino (godfather) would sit, his dark skin almost blending with the patch of

night filtering through the trees. His presence evoked an African past—his shirtless torso,

leathery bare feet, and short white pants made from flour bags. His quiet dignity and spirituality

resonated in the deference paid to him by everyone. There was a certain quality in him, a rare

spirituality increasingly hard to find in subsequent times of religious commodification.

He was a direct descendant of 19th-century Africans enslaved at a nearby ingenio (colonial

sugar mill), which was burned down (along with 24 others around my hometown) during the

first war for Cuba’s independence in 1868. The area and the descendants of those enslaved

workers still bear the surname of the Spanish enslavers—Fusté. Enslaved Africans were often

given a Catholic first name (e.g., Maria, Jesus, Jose) and the surname of their owners, an act

meant to enforce what Orlando Patterson (1982) calls a “social death”—the condition of people

not accepted as fully human by the wider society. Under such oppression, the rich religious

culture of these Africans and their descendants became a way to resist, protect and reconstruct

a sense of identity. David Brown (Brown, 2003, p. 118) argues that Santería emerged as

people crafted identities from a “heterogeneous pool of cultural resources that are selectively

deployed”.

Long after Padrino’s death, the Fusté family received the Tesoro Humano Vivo (Living Human

Treasure) award for preserving religious practices for over 170 years. As part of the award, a

filmmaker produced a short video on the Fusté family’s celebration of La Cruz de Mayo (The

Cross of May), a nine-day celebration that was among the preserved practices. Following a

warning about “potentially offensive material”, the opening scene of the video shows a despojo

(cleansing ritual), in which practitioners are ritually cleansed head to toe with a chicken that is

then sacrificed. The video captures family members carrying crosses to the river, singing

Congolese songs, chanting traditional Hail Marys, and drumming before an altar adorned with

Catholic images, red roses, and garments. One of the altar’s nine crosses was brought from

the Canary Islands. Family members wear red or black shirts emblazoned with “Fusté Family.”

After midnight, the ritual transitions into Palo ceremonies, marked by intense spirit possession.

I remember this celebration from my childhood but, as a child, I was not allowed to attend this

last part; children were given cake and drinks and sent home. Still, I always stayed awake,

sneaking to the backyard, captivated by the drumming and chanting. Watching someone

Chapter 1

dance barefoot on embers or lift a table with their teeth was rare, even in Cuba. Nostalgia

swept over me when I caught a glimpse of a black-and-white photo of Padrino in the film.

Beyond autoethnography, I seek to express the complexity, diversity and creativity that define

Afro-Cuban religions. Although Santería is often depicted as a distinct entity within the Afro-

Cuban spiritual framework, in practice, it is one of many spiritual resources that draw on a mix

of historical elements, which practitioners selectively adapt to their needs. The Fusté family,

for instance, worship the orishas, the Virgin Mary, and Zimbe, whom they call a “Saint of

Lombanfula”, a rare Bantu tradition observed by only a few families in my hometown of

Camajuaní and two nearby towns.

I am committed to a specific perspective in my research: to honour the experiences of my field

collaborators to the best of my ability. This commitment is driven not only by gratitude for what

I have learned from them but also by the immense value I see in the illuminating ways they

engage with the world, which are deeply relevant to our challenging times.

I cannot imagine telling the old man from my childhood, with his African ancestry and inherited

slave name, that his religion was a Cuban invention. It is not only that I feared his curses or

his walking stick, but also because history, as a discipline that explains "what happened", is

one of humanity's most powerful inventions and often wielded to favour those who control the

narrative. As Wirtz (2016) suggests if history is the domain of claims about "what is past", then

what we understand of the past is necessarily perspectival. Anthropology, with its emphasis

on ethnography, holds a privileged position in the social sciences, offering alternative

perspectives and validating them as ways people construct identities that empower them. To

actually learn from such divergent perspectives, instead of validating our pre-existing and well-

regarded theories, is the most valuable contribution ethnographers can offer. As Sherry Ortner

notes:

The attempt to view other systems from ground level is the basis, perhaps

the only basis, of anthropology’s distinctive contribution to the human

sciences. It is in our capacity, largely developed in fieldwork, to take the

perspective of the folks [whose lives we study] that allows us to learn

anything at all—even in our own culture—beyond what we already know

(Ortner, 1984, p. 143).

The creative energy driving Santería adaptations is essential to understanding its origins and

its modern forms. Reconstructing identity implies continuity with an African past, and perhaps,

more than what is drawn, it is this very act of drawing from that past that forges the sense of

continuity. It is a creative continuity.

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

1.2 Tradition and change

The interplay between tradition and innovation has long been a topic of interest to scholars of

Santería, particularly in the debate over its origins. This discussion often divides academics

and practitioners (and practitioners who are also academics) into two main camps: Those who

argue for Santería's African roots and those who contend it is a Cuban creation from an

imagined African past.

In his work, Palmié (2013) recounts how pioneering scholars, such as Melville J. Herskovits,

William Bascom, and Pierre Verger, alongside Cuban ethnographic giants like Fernando Ortiz

and his disciple Lydia Cabrera, heavily influenced the early academic study of Afro-Cuban

religions. These scholars took Santería’s African origins as a given, portraying it as a

continuation of the Yoruba religion in the New World. Their work not only relied on practitioners’

accounts of African heritage but also created a feedback loop, where practitioners later

circulated these scholarly works to further reinforce discourses about their connection to an

African past.

Building on these foundations, subsequent scholars, such as Joseph Murphy (1988),

confidently asserted Santería’s African origins. Similarly, George Brandon (1993, p. 1) argued

that “Santería belongs to the transatlantic tradition of Yoruba religion, a religious tradition with

millions of adherents in Africa and the Americas and should be seen as a variant of that

tradition, just as there are regional and doctrinal variants within the Christian, Buddhist, and

Islamic traditions”.

Later scholarship challenged these assumptions, emphasising the innovative and dynamic

aspects of Santería. This new wave of research encompasses two conflicting perspectives:

one emphasising African cultural continuity despite necessary changes, and the other focusing

on the novel cultural forms that emerged within the specific social conditions of colonial Cuba.

As Palmié (2013, p. 223) puts it: “one [still] places prime emphasis on African cultural

continuities … while the other emphasises the concrete conditions under which heterogeneous

cultural forms came to integrate essentially novel collectivities”.

Mary Ann Clark (2007), a practitioner and scholar, argues that Afro-Cuban religious practices

are rooted in African antecedents rather than solely in Cuban innovations. Asante and Mazama

(2009, p. 589) similarly describe Santería as “a trans-Atlantic extension of Yoruba religion into

the African diaspora”, underscoring African origins: “The history of Santería effectively begins

in West Africa, where the Yoruba had evolved their own religious and social traditions" (p.

589). Even Palmié himself adopted this perspective at the beginning of his research work in

Chapter 1

the 1980s (Palmié, 2013, p. 34). Several online dictionaries, such as Oxford and Merriam-

Webster, describe Santería as a pantheistic Afro-Cuban folk religion that developed from the

beliefs and customs of the Yoruba people, incorporating elements of Catholicism. However,

an article in the Britannica online encyclopedia describes it as a “religious tradition of African

origin that was developed in Cuba and then spread throughout Latin America and the United

States” (Murphy, 2025). The article was written by Joseph Murphy, who also wrote in his widely

cited 1988 book that “[t]he story of the spirit begins in Africa, among a nation of people called

the Yoruba in what is now known as Nigeria” (1988, p. 7).

Brown also argues that Santería emerged as practitioners in Cuba creatively fashioned new

identities from a "heterogeneous pool of cultural 'resources' that are selectively deployed"

(Brown, 2003, p. 118). For Brown, this creative adaptability is essential to understanding both

the origins and contemporary expressions of Santería. However, for practitioners, the African

past is much more than a question of historical origin. It is a question of ontology. Aché is the

sacred power that can be accessed in nature but is also passed down through lineages of

practitioners. Adaptation is then a way of securing the continuity of both a sacred legacy and

the power that comes with it.

Santería’s ontology presents what Palmié (2013) calls a “condition of impossibility” for standard

historiography, which attempts to structure the past into verifiable events. Scholars have noted

that the continuity of tradition in Santería differs significantly from the historical notions that are

verifiable by historians (Herskovits, 1956, p. 165). Contemporary scholars of Santería in new

countries support this view. Pérez Amores notes that the analytical frameworks scholars use

to explain issues of continuity and change often differ from those employed by Santería

practitioners themselves (Pérez Amores, 2015).

Linguistic anthropologist Kristina Wirtz also emphasises how Santería traditions affirm their

African roots, especially during spirit possessions. Practitioners’ rituals and linguistic registers

create “chronotopes”—configurations of time and space that are constructed through language

and discourse. For example, the elderly priest who assisted my family dressed in garments

reminiscent of his enslaved ancestors and often spoke in Bozal, “a Cuban speech style that

robustly indexes the historical persona of the African slave” (Wirtz, 2013, p. 833). For

practitioners, indeed, the “story of the spirit begins in Africa” (Murphy, 1988, p. 7), and the

development of Santería in Cuba (Murphy, 2025) represents a continuation of this journey.

Wirtz's scholarly work delves into the intricate interplay between language, memory, and

identity within Afro-Cuban religious practices, particularly Santería. It emphasises how

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

linguistic practices (such as Lucumí) are not merely about reclaiming a lost past but are active

processes of cultural production, where the imagined African roots serve contemporary social

and spiritual purposes (Wirtz, 2007c). Ritual speech serves as a repository of collective

memory and a means of constructing Afro-Cuban historicity. Wirtz demonstrates how

practitioners invoke and perform a sense of historical continuity with an African past, thereby

reinforcing communal bonds and cultural identity (Wirtz, 2007a). Mastering this ritual language

is not merely a linguistic endeavour but a form of embodied memory work that connects

individuals to the collective history and spiritual lineage of the Afro-Cuban diaspora (Wirtz,

2007b). Wirtz also traces the historical trajectory of the “Bozal” trope from its origins in

nineteenth-century Cuban blackface theatre to its manifestations in contemporary spirit

possession practices. She explores how this discourse has been recontextualised and

reinterpreted over time, shedding light on the enduring legacies of racial stereotyping and the

complex dynamics of cultural memory in Afro-Cuban religious expressions. Collectively,

Wirtz’s articles offer a nuanced understanding of how language functions as a vital medium for

the transmission of memory, the construction of identity, and the negotiation of historical

consciousness within Afro-Cuban religious communities.

Wirtz (2016) argues that academic approaches to describing history, or “scholarly historicity,”

often aim to create an objective, “purified” narrative by removing the personal, emotional, and

contextual elements that give lived traditions, such as Santería, their meaning. In this process,

scholars tend to strip away the intimate connections that make the past feel alive and present

in their daily lives. Wirtz suggests that “scholarly historicity is a praxis of purification, in which

the enchantments of immanence and hauntings of personal recollection undergo purging by

severing their affective and indexical ties to the particularities of place and subjectivity that

allow cross-temporal immanence to emerge” (Wirtz, 2016, p. 365). Thus, for Wirtz, Santería

“exists most tangibly as it is continually reinvented in the dialogical interactions among the

discourses and other practices that frame it” (Wirtz, 2007c, p. 26).

If practitioners’ sense of continuity cannot align with conventional historical analysis, how can

we articulate a theory that symmetrically reflects their understanding? One that acknowledges

the “affective and indexical ties to the particularities of place and subjectivity that allow cross-

temporal immanence to emerge” (Wirtz, 2016, p. 365) rather than purifying data to fit

theoretical frameworks. For anthropologists, as Goldman (2009) posits, it is crucial to develop

theories rooted in the epistemologies of those they study. This, after all, is how anthropology

can add unique value (Ortner, 1984).

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Aisha Beliso-De Jesús (2015) discusses how the crafting of African ontologies by practitioners

reaffirms diasporic continuity: “These ontological inspirations bring racial formations into the

everyday practice of understanding self in African diaspora practices. Ingenuity is legitimised

only through connections to an authentically experienced past” (p. 3). She then suggests that

practitioners experience the past not only as a constructed discourse but as a living ontology

distinct from scholarly interpretations of adaptation and innovation.

1.3 Santería in Australia. Heterogeneity and adaptations

The metaphor of the ajiaco also applies to the diversity of Santería practitioners in Australia

and globally. Unlike religions often associated with specific migrant groups or ethnic identities,

Santería in Australia attracts practitioners from a wide array of backgrounds. Grecy Pérez

Amores, an ethnographer studying Santería in Tenerife, Spain, recounts a moment when a

conference attendee questioned her research, asking, “Where is the Black element in this text?

There is nothing about this piece of research that sounds Black to me …” The question

assumed a racial component as fundamental to Santería. However, as Pérez Amores notes,

Santería “is no longer the religion of an ethnic group or a race. It is practised by people born

in diverse contexts, of different ages, nationalities, and religious backgrounds as varied as

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Catholics” (Pérez Amores, 2015, p. 204). This inclusive, multifaceted

practice particularly characterises Santería in Australia (though racial dynamics may differ

significantly among practitioners in other regions, such as the United States).

When I prepare ajiaco for my Australian friends, I use the ingredients available to me,

substituting roots, spices, and herbs based on taste, smell, and imagination, aiming for a

version close to the original Cuban recipe. It is an exercise in creativity that, much like Santería,

connects to tradition while also adapting to available resources. I even make a version without

meat for family members who are vegetarians.

This approach reflects how Santería has evolved among Australian practitioners, with some

opting out of animal sacrifices due to cultural differences. This change differs from Cuba, where

meat, although limited, is highly valued. While some Cuban migrants in Australia oppose what

they call “vegetarian Santería,” other practitioners, including some Cubans, are embracing this

adaptation, a phenomenon not unique to Australia.

Pons-Raga (2024) describes the evolution of what she called Neo-Santería in Barcelona as a

contemporary adaptation of Afro-Cuban religious practices that notably reject animal sacrifice.

Her findings offer insight into the "adaptive and creative nature" of Afro-Cuban religious

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

traditions, emphasising how their fluidity contributes to the diversification and increasing

complexity of the European spiritual landscape—another context in which Afro-Cuban

practices are being continuously reshaped. “This spirituality embraces health in holistic terms,

where the aché may provide emotional and spiritual well-being that resonates more with

modern European sensibilities than with traditional medicine” (Pons-Raga, 2024, pp. 12-13).

Cultural reasons are not the only cause of this, considering the legal challenges around animal

sacrifice that practitioners face in several countries (Boaz, 2021).

As with ajiaco, many materials (such as rare animals like the jutía or particular wild plants) that

are traditionally used in Santería rituals are native to Cuba. Likewise, practitioners substitute

ingredients based on what is available. As a babalawo explained to me, Australia’s plant

diversity allows for similar ritual effectiveness, as all animals and plants carry aché, the power

of Santería rituals.

The creativity displayed in African-inspired religions does not arise out of rules, beliefs, or

traditions that cannot be changed. Writing about Candomblé, Santería’s Brazilian cousin,

Herskovits (1956, p 165) notes that “There is no rule that does not have its exception; in all

instances, situations alter cases … This tradition is basic in Candomblé psychology”. Goldman

(2019) interprets Herskovits’s insights as demonstrating how each situation is unique, but

practitioner creativity remains aligned with tradition. Like in Candomblé, tradition in Santería is

an integral part of its psychological makeup, rather than a strict historical sequence.

This process of adaptation continues in current Santería diasporas. In Australia and elsewhere,

practitioners have adapted to their environments. Grecy Pérez Amores (2015) observed in the

Canary Islands that practitioners view continuity and creativity as mutually reinforcing. Beliso-

De Jesús (2015) similarly argues that innovation in Santería continues to be articulated as “an

extension of an authentic tradition” sustained through “connections to an authentically

experienced past” (p. 3). Todd Ochoa (2010) introduced the term “African-inspired” to

emphasise both African roots and Cuban invention in Santería, favouring “inspiration” over

“origin”. He explains:

Inspiration, as I use it here, functions as a hinge between the past and the

future … linking past forms with objects, powers, and rules born anew.

Inspiration implies a playful attitude toward past and future … It is a force of

the moment that arrives unannounced (p. 8).

Ochoa's "African-inspired" framework has gained traction among scholars, emphasising that

Santería's traditions are dynamic, adaptive and inventive, yet deeply rooted in continuity. In

Chapter 1

Chapter 3, I will discuss my understanding of Santería's "inspiration", which is one of the ways

Australian practitioners describe aché.

1.3.1 Who are the santeros in Australia?

In Australia, as elsewhere, Santería practitioners (santeros) represent a diverse spectrum of

ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Many Australian-born practitioners are white, hailing from

various European backgrounds, while others are of African and Cuban descent. There is at

least one practitioner of Indian heritage who discovered Santería through her Australian

partner and whose Cuban dance teacher is a babalawo. The religion often spreads through

social networks, with personal connections driving its growth more than ethnic or cultural

affiliation.

The Australian ajiaco of Santería is vividly reflected in the demographic composition of its

practitioners. Lynley, a fitness instructor and yoga teacher based in South Australia, is also an

Afro-Cuban style dancer and a daughter of the orisha Obatalá. Raised Catholic, she finds in

Santería a sense of sacred intimacy she lacked in her earlier religious experiences. Andrew,

a British-born IT professional with no prior religious formation, underwent a profound

transformation after what he describes as an intense encounter with Obatalá in his Sydney

home. For his partner, an Indian immigrant with spiritual roots in the polytheisms of her

homeland, the transition into Santería was more intuitive. Cuban-born Adrian Medina, once a

model and professional dancer, now coaches Australia’s national youth Baseball5 team.

Similarly, Cuban-born Michel, a former Olympian, trains young Australian athletes for Olympic

competition. In Sydney, Alexis works as a builder and is also the country's highest-ranking

babalawo. Dominic, raised among Sydney's Latin immigrant community, became a master

drummer and the youngest Australian-born babalawo. Kent, an ethnomusicologist who

completed his PhD fieldwork in Cuba, was the first Australian to be fully initiated into Santería.

Some practitioners in Australia are second or third-generation descendants of European

immigrants, who often identify themselves by their parents' nationalities—such as Irish,

Maltese, or British. Some, regardless of skin colour, trace their ancestry to Africa. Others are

Australians of Latin American descent and with roots in countries such as Chile, Uruguay,

Mexico, Venezuela, and Peru. Many initially became involved with Santería through music and

dance, while others sought out the religion during personal crises, hoping to find healing or

resolve problems through spiritual intervention. For those from Latin American backgrounds,

stories of miraculous healings or problem-solving through Santería may already be familiar, so

seeking a Santería priest when facing difficulties in Australia is not entirely new to them.

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

Cubans comprise a significant proportion of Australian practitioners with advanced initiatory

credentials and ritual expertise, and several of those I interviewed are black. However, they

are a minority among the total number of practitioners, especially when considering those with

varying degrees of involvement. Higher initiations are generally performed only in Cuba due to

the complexity and expertise required, often involving more than 20 people with specialised

roles, from cooks and musicians to ritual experts, including an Oba Oriate. Apart from

babalawos, Oba Oriates must possess advanced ritual knowledge and initiations. In Australia,

the logistical and financial challenges of assembling such a team make local priest initiations

unaffordable for most people. Therefore, those who seek advanced initiation and knowledge

often travel to Cuba.

In any case, most Cubans and some Australians prefer to undergo initiation in Cuba, seen as

the “chronotope” of sacred power and the “root” (Sp. raíz) of Santería. A chronotope is a

concept that describes how specific configurations of time and space evoke historical or

cultural meanings in narratives or practices. When I asked a babalawo what is special about

Cuba, he explained that the sheer number of orishas already “born” there, as well as the

powerful practitioners and rituals performed in Cuba, strengthens the aché.

Some of my field collaborators also practise Zen, yoga and metaphysics, while others remain

active Catholics or engage in New Age-style healing practices. None see these practices as

conflicting with Santería, which they also consider a “religion”. Australians who have

experienced rigid dogmatism in Christianity (often Catholicism) appreciate Santería’s flexibility

and the intimate connection to the sacred that ritual experiences offer. These are forms of

engagement that they see as more practical and personal. Julie, an Australian woman of

Maltese descent and a committed Catholic, became a priestess of the orisha Oshun. During

her initiation in Cuba, the divination ritual advised her to continue her Catholic practice.

Many Australian practitioners engage in practices commonly associated with the New Age,

such as Reiki, yoga and alternative healing techniques. This eclectic approach is not unfamiliar

to Santería; scholars have long documented its ongoing processes of assimilation and

hybridisation, even within Cuba itself. The internet’s arrival in Cuba and increased tourism also

introduced New Age literature, which some practitioners incorporate into their practice. “New

Age Santeros” point out that Santería has long employed chromotherapy and music therapy

through its vibrant use of colours, chanting and drumming.

The Afro-Cuban religious "complex" has itself complexified in recent years.

An account, or a collection of accounts, on creativity within these practice

domains should acknowledge that the very permeability that engenders the

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possibility for transit, multiplicity and complementarity also enables

associations and juxtapositions to other knowledge "traditions". Such is the

case with forms of self-conceptualisation and health-management some

refer to as "New Age" (Espirito Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 20).

There are other practitioners in Australia who had little religious inclination before encountering

Santería, and what unites them is not their backgrounds but their shared needs and the

solutions they seek in the religion. Santería’s permeability to external influences has led to its

own internal complexity. As Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos (2015) observe, any account

of Afro-Cuban religious creativity must acknowledge that the same permeability enabling

Santería’s multiplicity also fosters associations with other knowledge systems, such as New

Age practices.

To this must be added the affinities practitioners find between Santería and Australian

Aboriginal cultures. I once heard a practitioner speculate that the rock art at Burrungkuy

(Nourlangie) in Kakadu National Park, which depicts Namarrkon—an ancestral figure

responsible for lightning storms—might suggest a mythical visit by Shango, the orisha of

thunder and lightning. In Aboriginal tradition, Namarrkon is represented with axes on his head,

elbows, and feet, which he uses to generate thunder and lightning. Similarly, in both Cuban

and Yoruba traditions, Shango is often depicted with a double-edged axe, called the oshé,

atop his head. This is not specific to the Australian context. For practitioners, these

incorporations are not deviations but continuations of the tradition. For example, Argyriadis

and Huet (2008) found that in Mexico, there are intersections and convergences of Santería

with various traditions rooted in pre-Hispanic and colonial history, popular Catholic practices,

spiritism, Trinitarian Marian spiritualism, and the recent boom in a wide range of neo-esoteric

practices. Spiritism, linked to the peculiarity of the Cuban identity of Veracruz, clearly functions

as a “cognitive bridge” and a matrix of legitimacy and mutual recognition within the relational

space or fundamental network that constitutes the Santería religious family.

The lack of robust institutions makes it impossible to keep centralised statistics and

demographic records in Santería, even in Cuba, let alone in Australia. Efforts to institutionalise

Santería in Cuba and other countries (Argyriadis & Huet, 2008) are often hindered by the lack

of a centralised institution, disagreements, factionalism, and the rise of dissident groups

lacking legal recognition. This fragmented, informal structure makes it nearly impossible to

obtain accurate demographic data, even in Cuba. There is no central record of Santería

practitioners in Australia. However, some babalawos keep detailed lists of those they initiate

and share these records with the Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba (Yoruba Cultural

Association of Cuba), the only Afro-Cuban religious organisation officially recognised by the

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

Cuban government. While the Association interacts with state, cultural, academic and touristic

entities, it has faced criticism for collaborating closely with the government and directing

religious tourism towards its members (Rauhut, 2015).

These developments mark a departure from earlier, more autonomous structures and reflect

a broader trend of increasing state oversight over religious practices. Such institutionalisation

not only impacts religious authority within Cuba but also influences the global perception and

adaptation of Santería in new contexts (Rauhut, 2011b). However, as in other countries,

connections to the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba serve as a form of legitimation for

some practitioners in Australia, who register new initiates and also in the Association's records

in Cuba. Rauhut (2011b) identifies three primary transnational network structures:

- Diasporic Religious Communities: Practitioners outside Cuba who remain connected

to Cuban casas templos (religious houses or lineages) and maintain ritual ties through

frequent travel and initiations.

- State-Backed Religious Institutions: Organisations like the Asociación Yoruba de Cuba

collaborate with academic and governmental institutions to control religious tourism

and define theological orthodoxy.

- Orthodox Religious Networks: Groups aligned with Nigeria’s Global Yoruba Movement,

which seek to “re-Africanise” Santería and remove syncretic elements.

The first form is predominant in Australia. However, some practitioners seek connections to

the Yoruba Heritage and Cultural Association of Victoria and meet online with one of their

teachers to learn the Yoruba language and their culture. Others also assert their links to the

Asociación Yoruba de Cuba.

In Australia, any data about numbers and demographics is limited to anecdotal insights from

well-connected key informants. However, research by Frenk et al. (2011) showed that key

informants, while less reliable in matters of numbers and statistics, provide an accurate

assessment when asked about observable group characteristics. In the absence of formal

congregations in Australia, individuals with extensive connections, such as Sydney’s babalawo

Michel Jones, offer only conservative estimates.

Sydney babalawo Michel is well-connected within the Santeria community and estimates there

are at least twelve active babalawos in Australia, along with many more initiated santeros.

After a visit to the Yoruba Association in Cuba, he suggested that over thirty Australian-based

Chapter 1

santeros were registered with the Association. However, he said he personally only knew a

few of them. Many initiates avoid formal registration or involvement in ongoing religious

projects in Australia, leading Michel to believe the actual number of initiated priests is higher

than any one person can confirm. No one knows precisely how many practitioners there are

in Australia or for how long. For example, Christina, who became a priestess during a 1998

trip to Cuba, and one of my field collaborators who has been a practitioner for longer than

most, met an Australian priestess in Melbourne who had been initiated nearly a decade earlier.

The socioeconomic diversity of Australian practitioners complicates any generalisations. While

it might be tempting to focus on Cubans, Latinos, or middle-class Australians disillusioned with

Christianity, such an approach overlooks the breadth of individuals involved. While many

practitioners are well-educated, middle-class professionals with access to alternative spiritual

practices, this does not account for everyone, nor does it explain why some, and not others,

from similar backgrounds become practitioners. The cost of Santería rituals and initiations

likely influences who participates. Travelling to Cuba for priest initiation can cost over 5,000

AUD, excluding travel and lodging, as initiations require many specialists over several days.

In Australia, the costs would be higher due to the need to hire these specialists locally. Routine

divination can also be expensive, with consultations ranging from 60 to 80 AUD or even more

in some cases. For those unfamiliar with Santería or on limited budgets, these costs can be

prohibitive. Ultimately, babalawos and other priests cannot rely on these services for a primary

income in Australia, as is often the case in Cuba. High living costs and a limited practitioner

base mean that most priests have day jobs and offer Santería services on weekends, or they

may only perform divination for close friends and family.

1.4 The roles of migration, media and mobility

Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, waves of migration have spread Santería to every

continent. Initially, a religion practised by people on the margins of society, some scholars now

argue it is emerging as a “world religion” (Canizares, 1994). Practitioners are connected

through complex transnational networks that link them to Cuba and Africa through religious

kinship and embodied practices (Argyriadis & Capone, 2011; Beliso-De Jesús, 2014, 2015;

Juarez Huet, 2014; Otero, 2018; Rauhut, 2011a)

Thomas Csordas (2009, pp. 5–6) identifies four vectors of religious transnationalisation:

migration, mobility, mediatisation and missionisation. I will use three vectors — migration,

media, and mobility — as a framework to describe how Santería has reached Australia, with a

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

particular emphasis on the role of cross-border mobility as the primary vector in its

development within the country.

Unlike religions such as Christianity or Islam, Santería is not traditionally “missionary”. Many

practitioners do not openly discuss their beliefs, and there is no expectation or encouragement

to “spread the word”. Secrecy has been a central tenet throughout most of Santería’s history.

As attempts to institutionalise the religion in Cuba and other countries are relatively recent and

often contentious, Santería lacks a strong institutional drive to expand its follower base or

actively recruit new adherents.

However, numbers hold importance for those who lead religious houses, as having numerous

godchildren brings blessings, community, and, in many cases, financial support. Some highly

initiated practitioners may proactively discuss the religion’s benefits with potential godchildren.

Nevertheless, most practitioners prioritise how the religion enhances their well-being and

grants them aché (spiritual energy) to address daily challenges. In Australia, where the

Santería community remains small and dispersed, there are limited opportunities for material

gain or social capital from leading a religious house. Therefore, missionisation has minimal

impact in this context. Migration, media and mobility (the capacity to travel to and from Cuba)

have been especially influential in enabling Santería’s presence in Australian cities.

1.4.1 Migration

Since the 1960s, three significant waves of Cuban migration have spread Santería globally.

Below, I briefly describe them in connection with Australia.

1.4.1.1 First wave:

Although Santería had already spread to the United States in the 1940s through musicians

and migrant workers before expanding to Puerto Rico (Brandon, 1993; Brown, 2001, p. 104),

the influx of Cuban immigrants after the 1959 Revolution accelerated its growth in the United

States, spurred on by political, religious and economic factors. Some of these later moved to

Australia, many arriving via Spain or the United States (Cardona, 2004, 2009). This group,

primarily of Spanish descent, kept a low profile in Australia, partly because they were viewed

as politically active and potentially inclined to challenge the Cuban government.

The White Australia policy in place during this first-wave period likely limited the entry of Black

Cubans. However, Afro-Cuban religious practices included both white and black practitioners

from the start. While this policy did not eliminate the possibility of practitioners arriving in

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Australia, it does complicate efforts to document any early Afro-Cuban religious presence in

Australia.

1.4.1.2 Second wave:

During the Mariel boatlift of 1980, over 120,000 Cubans fled to the United States between April

and October, with Venezuela, Argentina and Australia accepting smaller numbers of refugees

(Garcia, 1996). In Australia, these immigrants were often portrayed in the media as

“delinquents, black people, and individuals with no intention to stay in Australia” (Cardona,

2004, p. 42). The majority were men selected according to Australia’s immigration department

criteria, and many avoided public attention. Numerous practitioners among this wave

established enduring Santería communities in the US, and it is plausible, though challenging

to verify, that some of those who arrived in Australia were also practitioners.

1.4.1.3 Third wave:

The third wave began in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The rising

number of Cuban migrants to the US turned Miami into a Santería hub, and from there, the

religion spread to other parts of Latin America. All the Cuban practitioners I encountered in

Australia arrived during this period or later.

Many migrants risked their lives to escape Cuba’s deteriorating economic and political

landscape, facing the perilous Caribbean Sea in makeshift rafts. Under the US “wet feet, dry

feet” policy of 1995, Cubans who reached US soil could pursue residency a year later, while

those intercepted at sea were returned to Cuba. Tragically, countless Cubans, including two

of my neighbours, presumably lost their lives attempting this journey, and their bodies were

never recovered.

For those able to avoid the perilous journey, safer pathways included marrying a foreigner or

receiving a travel invitation from a friend or institution. Family reunification visas are among

the most common means by which Cubans have entered Australia, either directly or via other

countries. Some Australian Santería practitioners I interviewed had entered relationships with

Cuban practitioners they met while travelling in Cuba.

These Australians, initially drawn to Cuba through increased mobility and favourable media

portrayals, discovered a profound appreciation for the island’s culture even before meeting

Cuban partners. Mobility and media—two key transnational vectors—have thus significantly

shaped both the perception of Cuba and the global dissemination of Santería.

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

1.4.2 Media: The orishas come dancing

Cardona (2004) reported that most Cubans in Australia maintain a low profile concerning

outward expressions of Cuban identity, but this appears to be shifting. While the Cuban

community in Australia remains small, a growing number of Cuban artists, along with

Australian collaborators from diverse backgrounds, have become enthusiastic public

promoters of Cuban culture. This development may reflect a shift in media representation, with

less hostility and increasingly positive perceptions of Cubans in Australia.

Santería, like other Afro-American religions, is part of a broad process of transnationalisation

facilitated by communication technologies, cultural industries, and the physical mobility

(migration and tourism) of many of its adherents and believers (Argyriadis & Huet, 2008).

Australia ranks among the world’s top consumers of communication and information

technologies (Holmes, 2015, p. 329). The media’s portrayal of Havana as a “city frozen in time”

has drawn many Australian tourists. Images of vintage American cars, posters of beautiful

women, friendly locals, and the worldwide explosion of Cuban music and dance attract

Australians to Cuba. Many were inspired to visit after watching Wim Wenders’ 1999

documentary, Buena Vista Social Club, while others described a desire to experience Cuba’s

unique culture “before it changed” into what one might see as the “dull capitalism” of modern

cities.

Instructors of Cuban music and dance, who are often initiated practitioners of Santería,

introduce their students not only to musical techniques but also to the Afro-Cuban spiritual

traditions embedded in these art forms. To teach a dance dedicated to the orisha Oshun

involves not only the steps but embodying her essence—her love and sensuality, her joyful

laughter—and enacting patakies. These parable-like stories illustrate her character and

religious teachings. Similarly, to dance in honour of Oyá is to channel the power of the wind

and hurricanes. In Australia, this cultural education continues in a similar manner to that in

Cuba.

As Cuban dancer and practitioner Greydis Montero Liranza explains in the short film “Who Is

Nature?”, (Hearn, 2020) “Oyá represents the wind and the storm, and nature has a very

important place for us as dancers to be able to feel, represent, and share the meaning of this

beautiful dance”. She encourages students to visualise themselves “in the middle of the forest”

with the power to “contain and move the wind, how we shift the wind, how we create the

storms”. She recounts that “sometimes you get students come up to you with goosebumps …

you can say something’s happening in my body that I can’t explain”, a sensation that Montero

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attributes to “not only the energy that we create, but it’s also nature that is helping you to

empower and to understand the movements … because it’s not just a move, it’s also history,

it’s energy, and it’s nature that is moving from within and out in the dance world”.

Orishas are often depicted as “forces of nature” with whom one can connect. This resonates

strongly with Australian audiences who are concerned with climate change and the rift between

humans and nature (see Chapter 3). As Juárez Huet and Rinaudo (2017) found in Mexico, the

alignment of practitioner discourses with local cultural traits contributes to legitimising the

religion. The case of Santería in Mexico is paradigmatic in this sense, as its re-localisation has

allowed it to transition from being seen as a clandestine practice to a religious system that is

increasingly recognised, with international connections and processes of social legitimisation.

In this process, culture becomes a resource that is mobilised across different contexts to

generate legitimacy while also affecting the religious practices of devotees.

Not surprisingly, music and dance have become powerful entry points for Australians

discovering Santería, both in Cuban dance classes at home and on visits to Cuba. Much like

in the 1940s, when Santería spread across the United States and Puerto Rico, musicians and

dancers act as key conduits for the religion. Tour packages to Cuba often include classes in

dance and Afro-Cuban percussion, reinforcing these cultural exchanges. Ethnomusicologists,

musicians, dancers and anthropologists have also seized opportunities to visit the island for

learning and research.

Ethnomusicologist Kent Windress (Windress, 2010, 2016, 2017), one of my field collaborators,

documented his own journey to becoming a consecrated batá drummer. Melbourne University

professor Adrian Hearn followed a similar call to study batá in Cuba and do his PhD research.

Windress highlights that despite Cuba’s formal regulation of Santería tourism, or santurismo,

“unofficial transnational networks” largely support the cultural exchanges between practitioners

in Cuba and Australia. He describes one individual in Australia who regularly organises

percussion tours to Cuba, leveraging contacts built on past visits to the island, effectively

serving as a “cultural broker”. Similarly, babalawo and expert drummer Dom Kirk were

introduced to a religious house in Havana by a Cuban friend now residing in Sydney. However,

not everyone who joins a Cuban dance class or cultural tour becomes a practitioner of

Santería. Taking the first step requires an open mind, but deepening one’s commitment

involves a personal journey beyond the introductory experience of dance and music.

Ajiaco: change, tradition and Santeria in Australia

1.4.3 More than migration: The central role of mobility

While migration plays a role, people’s mobility has proven to be far more significant in the

spread of Santería to Australia. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the ability of Australians

and Cubans to travel to Cuba has had a greater impact than the initial migration of Cubans to

Australia. Several reasons underscore this dynamic.

Firstly, many Australian practitioners encounter Santería for the first time as tourists in Cuba

or must travel there to receive initiations. Secondly, some Cubans return to Cuba not only for

their initial initiations but also to undergo advanced initiations and continue learning from their

elders. Prompted by the need to solve personal problems with the help of the orishas, or by

the desire for advanced initiations they can now afford. Advanced initiations also equip

devotees with the knowledge and authority to perform certain initiations in Australia. Thirdly,

mobility has enabled practitioners to bring the orishas themselves to this country, something

only possible through returning and then bringing them as consecrated items or as part of their

bodies. Mobility, therefore, has been central because it has allowed the orishas to travel.

In recent years, higher initiations—including initiation as a sacred drummer—have taken place,

made possible by the presence of a batá de fundamento (consecrated drum) owned by

Dominic Kirk. These drums are essential to such rites and are considered living beings, with

names, personalities, and strict ceremonial protocols. Tracing their lineage through

generations in Cuba, they must be handled with deep reverence: hands must be washed

before touching them, and during rituals, practitioners bow in respect—“all heads must bow to

Añá,” as the saying goes. An initiated drummer, known as an Omó Añá (child of Añá), receives

the aché (spiritual power) to “bring down the orishas” (bajar el Santo) through ritual drumming.

Although Australia has other skilled Omó Añá, initiations cannot occur without consecrated

drums, nor can any initiation proceed without the presence of an orisha in physical form—

whether in a priest’s body or as sacred stones. These new orishas and practitioners are "born"

from the lineage of their initiators, who must possess the necessary consecrations, including

the aché of the orisha and the required ritual elements. From a religious perspective, these

initiations signify that Santería is officially established in a country. Such initiations are possible

because the orishas have arrived in Australia via the practitioners’ bodies and in sacred

objects. This genealogical transmission of the divine reflects an immanent form of religious

transnationalisation, often overlooked by scholars (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 218).

Santería’s case diverges from the general trend of religious arrival in Australia. Except for

Aboriginal spiritualities, most religious groups in Australia have arrived via immigration, as

Chapter 1

Bouma (2006) notes: “The shape of Australia’s religious profile is primarily a function of its

immigration history and only secondarily a function of conversion or change of religious

identification” (cited in Holmes, 2015, p. 288). However, many Australian practitioners

developed an interest in Cuban culture independently of direct contact with Cuba. Christina,

for instance, now leads various initiatives to promote Cuban culture in Australia—a journey

that began when she first encountered Cuban traditions while working in Switzerland. Like

many Australians, she began with Cuban dance classes—classes she now teaches herself,

continuing the cycle of cultural and religious transmission.

In the case of Santería, however, it would be more appropriate to speak of transnational

circulation, as Juárez Huet and Rinaudo (2017) have already argued. However, in any case,

what is clear is that Santería spreads as the spirits and the aché they carry move across

borders. The study of Santería transnationalisation must account for its immanent movements.

Theorising immanent transnationalisation is the theme of the next chapter.

1.5 Summary of the chapter

This chapter has explored the introduction of Santería into Australia, highlighting its dynamic

and heterogeneous nature as it adapts to a new sociocultural and ecological landscape. My

background among practitioners in Cuba informs my efforts to articulate, within academic

discourse, experiences that are deeply intuitive and embodied for practitioners of Santería.

Crucially, this chapter emphasised the role of immanent forms of transnationalisation, where

the materiality and relational presence of the orishas are indispensable. The orishas, along

with practitioners, must physically travel across borders, underscoring a distinctive mode of

religious transmission grounded in tangible, embodied practices and material embodiments of

aché. This is a significant distinction in how Santería has expanded in this country, primarily

through the two-way mobility between Cuba and Australia rather than through conventional

migration-driven patterns. These findings challenge dominant paradigms that prioritise

transcendent or purely subjective conceptions of religious transnationalisation. The findings

also set the stage for the next chapter, which focuses on theorising these modes of

transnationalisation.

Chapter 2 Theorising immanent transnationalisation

This chapter examines the foundations that justify a topological approach to analysing

processes of continuity and change in Santería's immanent forms of transnationalisation. I

contend that it is possible to map Santería’s relational assemblages of aché in a way that

accounts for both change and continuity. Arguably, this is the most complex chapter of this

thesis.

The argument proposed in this chapter is organised in the following order:

• Ethnographic context (section 2.1): Santería's transnationalisation depends on

immanent modes of the sacred, where the divine moves and is actualised through

materiality and practitioners' bodies. Aché must be carried through generations of

practitioners and across borders when practitioners travel. These immanent lines of the

sacred, rooted in materiality and relationality, must remain continuous. While

practitioners in Australia must substitute ritual materials and adapt to unfamiliar

conditions in a new environment, continuity remains and is maintained through…

• The problem (section 2.2): How can we theorise transnationalisation in a way that

takes seriously practitioners’ claims that the changes and substitutions they make do

not break the continuity of the ancestral flow of aché as they cross borders and adapt

their practices to novel conditions?

• My approach (section 2.2-3): I will argue that the locus of Santería’s transnational

continuity lies in the relationality and transformations afforded by Santería's ontologies,

rather than in the individual nature or essences of the entities that comprise the

assemblage. While ritual ingredients change, the relations are maintained. Santería

relational ontology is captured in the notion of aché. To support my argument, I discuss

three aspects of aché: relationality, pragmatics, and technologies.

• The topological method (section 2.4): Topology is concerned with relations. The

topological notion of homeomorphism describes the ability of a system to transform

without losing the relationships between parts. This notion enables us to assess

whether Santería assemblages of aché remain continuous through changes by

identifying and comparing topological properties known as invariants. Invariants are

properties that remain constant despite transformations.

Chapter 2

2.1 Ethnographic context: The ikines of Orula

In early 2020, under the Queensland summer sun, I found myself crouched in a local park,

brushing dry leaves aside in search of palm nuts, not just any nuts—ones with three tiny pores

that practitioners call ikines (plural for ikin).

In the previous months, more than thirty people had received the Mano de Orula initiation with

Alexis and his godson, Michel, in Sydney. They had used up all the ikines Alexis had brought

from Cuba, and more initiations were on the horizon. Michel, recalling the abundance of palm

trees near where I live on the Gold Coast, asked if I could find suitable replacements for them.

“Look for any nut with three eyes,” he said over the phone. “Take them home, drop them in

water. If they sink, send them to me.” His voice was calm, practical, and confident. I asked

whether the species mattered. “No,” he said, “Nor the size. What matters is the form—and that

they sink. The rest is up to Orula.” I followed his instructions. At home, I tested each nut in a

glass of water. Many floated, a few sank. I packed those that had sunk and sent them to Michel

to confirm their suitability with Orula. “If they don’t float,” he had said, “that’s a ninety-five per

cent win. . But Orula has the final say.” This means that only the divination he performed after

receiving the ikines, asking Orula for approval, could determine if they are suitable for the

initiations.

Orula, the orisha of wisdom and divination, resides in a pot in the form of a consecrated stone

(otán) and a handful of palm nuts (ikines). The ikines are not just representations of Orula;

they are considered Orula himself, and this ritually assembled collection of pot, ikines and

sacred stone is referred to as “an Orula” (Holbraad, 2012, p. 93). According to a mythical origin

story, Orula promised to “speak” through palm nuts when he left Earth, and, for a fully initiated

babalawo, the ikines act as the main instrument for divination. Divinations are considered “his

voice”, and as a highly prestigious form of divination, the ikines hold immense significance

(Holbraad, 2006, 2012). It is said that the word of Orula “no cae en el suelo” (Sp: does not fall

on the ground), meaning the results of these divinations are beyond doubt.

Upon initiation, each practitioner receives their own personal ikines, their Orula, which they are

expected to feed with palm oil and prayers regularly. This act of feeding the orishas is

understood literally and undertaken to strengthen and sustain them. The number of ikines and

their characteristics depend on the initiate’s gender and the type of consecration. The ikines

are prepared with both material and immaterial elements, including omiero, a potent mixture

of plants, water, and other ingredients. Before the initiation ceremony, the ikines are exposed

to the sun for several days to absorb the aché of Olorun (manifested as the sun). During this

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

period, the babalawo preparing them recites odús—divinities in their own right—over the ikines

(Holbraad, 2012, p. 268).

There are strict protocols for handling the ikines. For example, if a consecrated ikín falls to the

ground during divination or when being “fed”, the practitioner must pick it up with their mouth.

Additionally, the ikines must be spoken to while held in both hands, close to the mouth. Male

neophytes in the Mano de Orula ceremony receive a hand consisting of 21 palm nuts, while

babalawos receive a second hand during their initiation. Upon a babalawo’s death, one of

these hands is buried with the practitioner, and the other is typically passed on to their

successor.

The number of eyes or pores in palm nuts is directly linked to their role in divination, but the

specific reasons for this are kept secret. Many practitioners, including babalawos, might not

fully understand or agree on the reasons behind every practice, but “symbolism” is secondary

to usage.

2.1.1 Immanent transnationalisation: How the orishas travel

When I asked practitioners about ritual adaptations in Australia, a consistent response was

that their African ancestors did the same. Many babalawos mention Remigio Herrera Adeshina

as a pioneer who adapted divination rituals in Cuba. “Adeshina did the same.”

Adeshina, a 19th-century African-born babalawo, played a crucial role in establishing Ifá in the

New World. In Australia, his name is also invoked during the long prayer known as moyuba,

where babalawos pay homage to their ancestors. Furthermore, practitioners emphasise how,

once in Cuba, Adeshina exemplified the necessity to adapt to a vastly different cultural and

natural environment, guided by Orula, the orisha of wisdom and divination. Because

expressions of the divine in Santería require a physical and material presence to cross borders,

Adeshina had to ensure that Orula accompanied him from Africa.

Each new initiate, orisha and ritual instrument must be consecrated by a fully initiated priest,

using already consecrated instruments and with the material presence of an existing orisha.

Practitioners use the word born (Sp. “nacer”) for this process. For example, an Orula is born

from an existing one. This enables practitioners to affirm not only the continuation of a religious

lineage and practice but also, on an ontological level, a sacred power, tracing it back to African

roots. The reliance on materiality is pervasive not only in rituals and ritual objects but also in

practitioners’ interpretations of ritual cosmologies. I once asked a babalawo what it meant to

Chapter 2

“birth” an orisha. He paused for a moment, then replied with a familiar word among

practitioners: “bajar”—to bring down. “To birth an orisha”, he said, “is to bring them down”.

He did not wait for more questions. He continued his argument: “Obatalá, the first and oldest

orisha, was the first to come down to Earth—he descended via a chain”. He glanced sideways

and smiled. “And what is that chain?” he asked. Then, answering himself without hesitation:

“Our DNA.” No metaphor separated the body from the spirit. The chain was not just mythical

or spiritual, but molecular in nature. Descent was not across different realms but into the earth

and flesh. In these practitioner interpretations—whether speculative, poetic and personal—

there is no division between the spiritual and the physical. The point is that even in

practitioners’ interpretations, as speculative as they can be, there is no gap between the

spiritual and the physical. This contrasts with the religious notion implied in the term

transcendence, from Latin origins meaning “to climb beyond” or “to go beyond”, and reflecting

the idea of surpassing ordinary limits, often in a spiritual or metaphysical sense.

A set of ikines must also be “born” from an existing set, maintaining a genealogical line, so it

is accepted that. Adeshina must have brought ikines with him. According to oral tradition,

Adeshina swallowed the ikines of Orula before his voyage to Cuba as an enslaved person,

then repeatedly swallowed and defecated them during his months at sea. This explains how

Adeshina brought the orisha with him from Africa and was then able, with the ikines, to obtain

the divine guidance necessary to perform ritual substitutions using local ingredients in a new

environment.

This narrative highlights the way in which the orisha travelled from Africa to Cuba with

Adeshina. The “word of Orula,” expressed via divination, is a source of undeniable truth and

authority. Practitioners claim that Orula’s guidance enabled Adeshina to adapt ritual practices

and find in Cuba suitable substitutes for traditional ritual ingredients. This is why when I ask

them how they know they get the right plant for a ritual, they respond: “We ask Orula,”…

“Adeshina did the same”

Practitioners tell similar stories about how other orishas physically travelled from Africa to

Cuba. Oral tradition tells that Yemayá, as the orisha of the sea, faced no hurdles during her

ocean voyage and that Shango, the orisha of thunder, travelled riding a storm. For Oshun, the

orisha of fresh waters, however, the journey was harrowing, and she had to rely on help from

both the maternal Yemayá and her lover, Shango. Some say that during the storm, Oshun’s

hair became straight, her skin lightened, and by the time she reached Cuba, she had become

a mulatta.

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

The question of continuity from Africa to the New World exceeds the scope of this thesis, as

my focus is on Australian practitioners. However, these stories illustrate how fundamental

Santería’s immanent transnationalisation is for practitioners. The core issue in these

narratives is not whether they historically occurred, but that practitioners need to account for

the (immanent) continuity of the sacred across borders, a principle that remains relevant today.

The guidance of Orula allowed for the sourcing of new material and a great deal of innovations

in ritual matters, but only because he was able to bring the orisha with him.

Both the “adaptations” performed by the legendary Adeshina and the continuous flow of aché

from Africa to the New World are understood in terms of this ontological, rather than merely

historical, reproduction of the tradition in Cuba. The continuity concerns how Orula physically

arrived in Cuba, more than how a set of beliefs and practices was introduced to the island.

This also applies to current adaptations in Australia.

Christina Monneron, an Australian priestess of Yemayá and organiser of the Afrekete festival,

brought her Eleguá, a small compact head, with her from Cuba. In Santería, objects like this

are not just vessels, symbols, or metaphors; they are the orishas and travel in and through the

material world, as the practitioners who carry them do. Each of these orishas is “given” to the

practitioner as an ally for protection and prosperity. When Christina says “my Eleguá”, she is

naming a singular, material instantiation of the orisha's aché. In Santería, Eleguá governs the

crossroads. He is the opener of all paths, the trickster who ensures nothing begins—or ends—

without his consent. He is revered not as an abstract force, but as a tangible and often volatile

presence.

Christina’s Eleguá is made of cement, with cowry shells for eyes and mouth, and a sharp metal

blade rising from the crown. Upon her return to Australia, a customs officer flagged the unusual

figure for inspection. The blade protruding from the top of the head, he said, might be

considered a prohibited item. Christina warned him that the item was more than just a thing; it

was a deity, and he would handle it at his own risk. She subtly implied, with a serious tone,

that Eleguá had a mischievous and vengeful side. The officer proceeded anyway. As Christina

tells it, her eyes sparkling with amusement: “He cut himself on the blade! I told him so”.

Christina successfully transported her Eleguá through the airports on her return trip to

Australia, but some practitioners have faced more challenges.. A Cuban practitioner living in

South Australia told me he could not bring in his Ogún, the orisha of metals and technology

and patron of blacksmiths, butchers, doctors, and barbers. His Ogún is a large clay vessel

filled with metal tools that weighs over 40 kilograms. Transporting it to Australia would be

Chapter 2

expensive, and there is no guarantee that airport authorities would allow him to enter the

country. When I met him, he was still searching for a way of bringing his orisha to Australia.

A few years before I started this research, I worked for the federal government in international

trade and migration policy. Often, when colleagues found out I was from Cuba, they shared

their experiences of travellers from there being stopped at borders because of the items they

carried. While seeing blood-stained objects and plant residues in a passenger’s luggage would

probably raise concerns for even the most lenient customs officer, Australian border protection

is known for its strict biosecurity measures. Despite this, I was told that, as these incidents

became more common, border officers were less surprised to find things like a blood-splattered

stone in a traveller’s luggage when their passport showed they had been to Cuba.

Figure 2, Chapter 2: Yemaya. Screen captures from the film I am Ashé (Hearn, 2019)

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

Christina also has her orisha Yemaya, received in Cuba during her initiation as a priestess of

the powerful orisha of the sea. The image above shows Christina paying her respects to the

orisha in a ceremony performed by the beach in the 2021 edition of Afrekete. Christina’s

Yemaya is the non-anthropomorphic blue tureen. At the left of the frame, a small cement head

is an Eleguá. Babalawo Adrian Medina is next to Christina, ready to “lift” her from the floor.

Ritual protocol dictates that a practitioner cannot stand up by themselves after prostrating

before the orisha. A practitioner of higher initiatory rank or a religious elder must “lift them”

when they finish. This is often a simple gesture of tapping their shoulder. It is a screen capture

of the film I am aché, which I analyse in more depth in the next chapter.

The point I illustrate here is that the orisha given to an initiate is not an immaterial deity

detached from time and space, but an entity in its own right that relies on materiality and

humans to have agency in the world. Santería, spirits and deities need material grounding and,

without them, they become what Palmié (2018) calls “dead gods”. As Espirito Santo (2010, p.

65) explains:

In Cuba, matter matters, not because it is symbolic or expressive of (and

thus, subordinate to) a transcendent spiritual world, but because for many

religious people it is vital for the achievement and manipulation of the spirit

world’s presence in the physical world.

Blood, plants, special powders, places in nature or urban settings, honey, water, alcoholic

beverages and herramientas (tools) are just some of these materials needed for performing

rituals.

Here, “materiality” does not merely describe the physical or tangible but refers to how the

material operates in the conscious making and unmaking of the spiritual. Practitioners relate

to the sacred through somatic experiences and embodied, material practices, where the Self

is produced as a multiplicity of embodied relations. Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p. 75) notes: “It is

a somatic experience of walking with (copresence) rather than solely a mind that is reaching

toward an unobtainable (transcendence).”

This grounded, material transmission is what makes Santería’s transnational spread

dependent on the immanent sacred. “Transcendent” refers to that which surpasses or goes

beyond ordinary physical existence, boundaries, or limitations, often associated with the

metaphysical, spiritual, or divine realms beyond human experience or comprehension.

Santería’s reliance on materiality and the need for continuity of its sacred ontologies create

challenges for practitioners expected to source and transport sacred materials.

Chapter 2

2.2 Immanent transnationalisation

Anthropologists often emphasise transcendence in the study of religious transnationalisation,

but scholars of Santería show this focus on transcendence is not universal. Aisha Beliso-De

Jesús (2015) argues that many studies of transnational religion overemphasise transcendence

while neglecting “immanent transnationalisation”, as seen in Santería (pp. 38, 215–222). She

cites Robbins (2009, p. 69) as an example, who suggests that marginalised communities

recognise a “world beyond”, challenging their isolation and extending beyond the Self.

According to this view, the “trans” in transnational is akin to the “trans” in transcendental, where

the disavowed Self is in “the here” and the transcendental Otherworld becomes “the global”.

Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p.218) challenges Robbins (2009), asserting that the “trans” in

transnationalism does not always imply “transcendent”, and noting that “For Santería, the

trans- in transnationalism might come closer to the ‘trance’ of copresences”. She contrasts

Santería’s immanent forms of transnationalisation with theories that overly rely on theologies

of transcendence and the dualisms these frameworks generate: sacred/profane,

public/private, local/global (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, pp. 72–75). In Santería, stones, rivers,

smells, videos, spirits, nations, diasporas and even body parts are animated in immanent ways

that do not collapse the subject.

Beliso-De Jesús introduces the concept of copresence within the context of Santería

ontologies and transnationalisation. Copresences form intricate assemblages that include

spirits, orishas, priests, technology, and religious travellers (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 14).

These copresences constitute dynamic configurations that redefine the phenomenology of

transnationalism. Their ontological nature is immanent, and because of this, Beliso-De Jesús

argues, copresences necessitate a different approach to studying religious

transnationalisation.

Palmié similarly asserts that what Fenella Cannell (2005) called the “Christianity of

anthropology”—a view of “the religious” shaped by Christian ideas of immanence and

transcendence, body and spirit, the phenomenal and the numinous—is “just about the worst

perspective from which to approach Afro-Cuban ritual formations since the orishas, though

immensely powerful, are decidedly not transcendent” (Palmié, 2018, p. 796). Santería’s

material transnationalisation requires a critical re-evaluation beyond Cannell’s term.

Cannell’s 2005 article critiques how anthropological studies have historically been influenced

by notions of belief, morality, and individualism, which are traditionally linked to Christianity

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

and then applied to non-Christian cultures. As such, she claims they inadvertently shape their

analyses through a Western religious lens, a tendency that leads to biased interpretations of

diverse cultural practices. For example, she highlights how anthropologists often focus on the

concept of “belief” as the essence of religious identity, usually defined by adherence to

doctrinal truths. Cannell promotes more inclusive anthropological methods that better reflect

the complexities of various cultural and religious traditions like Santería. In contrast to

emphasis on belief and doctrinal truth, Santería emphasises ritual practices, community

participation, experiential relationships with the divine, and divinatory practices—all with a

strong pragmatic focus on solving life problems.

It is worth noting that this critique relates to the anthropological perspective of religion, not

Christianity itself. When discussing embodiment and immanence, the distinction between

transcendence and immanence should be approached with nuance and sensitivity.

Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian traditions foreground affective, embodied experiences

of the divine, and Robbins (2012) discusses the Pentecostal attempt to balance commitments

to both transcendence and immanence.

Nevertheless, distinctions such as spiritual-material, divine-mundane body-spirit, are deeply

embedded in our culture and language, operating as hidden biases and distorting perspectives

that foreground other ways of knowing being and doing. This thesis aims to challenge that

distortion by theorising transnationalism through the ontology, historical consciousness, and

geography intrinsic to Santería.

2.2.1 Theorising immanent transnationalisation

Australia is far from the strongholds of Santería in the Americas, with vastly different and

heavily regulated flora and fauna. In this context, immanent refers to how Santería is spread

not solely through abstract spiritual experiences but also through tangible, physical means.

Unlike religions that may propagate primarily through ideas, texts, or beliefs that transcend

physical boundaries, Santería relies heavily on the material presence of the orishas and sacred

objects (stones, drums, and ritual tools) as well as on the embodied practices of initiated

practitioners. It relies on embodied expressions of aché.

The episode of sourcing ikines in Australia exemplifies the creative process of ritual adaptation

in this country. Despite evident substitutions, practitioners claim such changes are not only

consistent with their traditions but also maintain the continuity of the ancestral flow of aché

from Cuba. Given that adaptations are necessary but the unbroken continuity of these

immanent modes of transnationalisation is crucial for the efficacy and legitimacy of the religion,

Chapter 2

how then can we theorise these changes in a way that takes seriously practitioners’ claims of

continuity?

I will argue that understanding ritual adaptations as a continuation—rather than a rupture—of

the ontology of aché, and therefore of the continuity of Santería, requires recognising that the

ikines of Orula, the plant, or any other substitute, are actualised as such through the relations

established within the ritual assemblage. Even if a different species of plant or palm seed is

used, once it is integrated into Santería assemblages through proper ritual protocols, it

participates in their sacred nature. This reflects what Beliso-De Jesús (2015) argues—that in

Santería, relations do not follow the entities within the assemblage; rather, the entities in the

assemblage emerge through the relations themselves.

Beliso-De Jesús applies a relational ontology to Santería assemblages composed of humans,

spirits, material objects, and technologies, which together form fluid and dynamic networks of

connection. These assemblages are animated through practices such as spirit possession,

ritual performance, and the circulation of videos and other media that render spiritual

presences both tangible and affectively experienced. Crucially, Beliso-De Jesús contends that

these relationships do not presuppose stable, pre-existing entities; rather, it is the relationships

themselves that constitute and continually reshape the participants within the assemblage.

I am less concerned here with the philosophical issue of whether the relation or the entities in

the assemblage are the primary element in the assemblage. My argument in this thesis is not

about causation, but about understanding how the relations shape the assemblage, and

specifically, how this facilitates adaptations and substitutions while maintaining continuity.

By taking the assemblage as the primary unit of analysis, it is possible to construct a theory of

immanent transnationalisation that explains continuity within change. For example, an Orula

body—formed with Australian palm nuts—is equivalent to any Orula body made in Cuba, not

because they are made of palm seeds of the same species, but because they are embedded

in the same relationships and processes of becoming. In other words, even if the palm species

differ, the relations between spirit, practitioner and objects remain unbroken.

Immanent transnationalisation describes the notion that orishas are not transcendent

metaphysical entities but depend on materiality and therefore, can only travel through the

physicality of objects, bodies, plants, gestures, physical experiences and relations. This

immanent logic grounds Santería practice in a world where the sacred is sensed through

connection, contingency, and agency.

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

Unlike the orishas, plants cannot be brought into Australia due to border regulations. Hence,

my initial curiosity about how entirely new and unfamiliar Australian plants can be ontologically

legitimised as carriers of ritual power? How can these plants be viewed as “deeply wedded to

perceptions, sensations, and feelings of historical consistency” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 3),

even when they diverge from cosmological elements like origin stories tied to ritual practices?

To answer these questions, I will argue that using a topological approach allows us to map the

relational assemblages of aché in a way that demonstrates a continuity of both relations and

becomings, despite evident changes.

I propose an approach to theorising Santería adaptations in Australia as a process of creative

continuity. By creative continuity, I mean a process where innovations are seen as continuous

with the ancestral roots and the ontology of aché. Creativity, in this sense, is the realisation of

existing potentials within the assemblages where solutions to problems are actualised (see

also the next chapter on this). The topological notion of homeomorphism can support this

understanding of continuity.

This chapter highlights the relevance of theorising immanent modes of transnationalisation in

Santería, emphasising the material and embodied practices that sustain the tradition across

borders. It outlines my approach to the ontology of aché, focusing on three main aspects: its

processual and relational nature as expressed through rituals (rather than defining “what is”

aché itself), the central role of ritual technologies in its realisation, and the pragmatic ethos that

underpins these ritual engagements. Along with the broader thesis, it also echoes Holbraad’s

argument that

… if the lesson of the story of mana-theory is that mana will always trump

the analytic axioms one throws at it, then its challenge is to make a virtue of

necessity, by giving the transgressive potential of mana full rein so as to

reach new analytical departures—thinking neither about it, nor just with it,

but through it (Henare et al., 2007, p. 200).

I am also echoing other scholars’ calls to theorise mana-like notions beyond the linguistic and

structural approaches that have hindered mana debates in the past (Tomlinson & Tengan,

2016).

2.3 Aché ontology and ritual technologies

Mauss (1990) demonstrated how the concept of hau challenges the notion of a separation

between people and things. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl observed that the seemingly contradictory

Chapter 2

nature of terms like mana reflects more on our (Western) systems of logic than on the

indigenous perspectives from which these concepts originate:

Are they realities which exist per se, or merely very general predicates? […]

It is the nature of logical thought to demand a reply to questions such as

these. It cannot admit at one and the same time of alternatives which seem

to be mutually exclusive. The nature of prelogical mentality, on the contrary,

is to ignore the necessity (Lévy-Bruhl, 1926, p. 135).

The notion of aché poses similar challenges. However, it is central to any discussion of divine

agency and materiality in Santería, particularly in understanding how practitioners adapt to

new environments and harness aché within them. Practitioners see aché as everything that

exists. Aché “binds all living things and manifests through them simultaneously” (Espirito Santo

& Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 21). What Goldman argues for Candomblé, a parallel religion to

Santería in Brazil, applies equally to Santería: what would classically be designated as

“cosmology” is better understood as an ontology of aché:

This ontology could perhaps be summarised as a kind of monism that

postulates the existence of a single force. This force is called axé [the

Portuguese spelling of aché] and resembles, of course, the well-known

notions of mana, orenda, and the like. Axé modulations—in a simultaneous

process of materialisation, diversification, and individualisation—constitute

everything that exists and can exist in the universe. The deities or orishas

themselves, in the first place. Each one of them is nothing more than the

incarnation of a specific axé modulation” (Goldman, 2005, p. 109, translated

from Portuguese).

The question of what aché is can be as complex as understanding mana in Polynesian

cultures. Mana has been described as a life force or spiritual energy that permeates all aspects

of the universe, attributed to individuals, spirits and objects. Like aché, mana is dynamic. Both

concepts are closely tied to one’s ability to exert influence or perform effectively in various

situations. Some practitioners and scholars have drawn comparisons between aché and

mana, as well as with other cultural concepts such as the Iroquois’ orenda, the Sioux’s wakan,

and qi in Chinese philosophy. Even modern popular culture has made analogous comparisons,

likening these forces to the Force in Star Wars.

Like mana, aché is ethnographically unavoidable (Holbraad, 2006). It matters because it is

central to the lives and practices of the practitioners. However, my engagement with aché is

not aimed at describing or explaining its metaphysical nature. I see the participatory and

pragmatic expressions of aché as an opportunity to theorise transnationalisation. In this sense,

as proposed by several scholars in Henare et al. (2007), I think through things. More

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

specifically, like Holbraad in the case of aché, I do not think about the notion of aché, but

through it.

In this section, I discuss three key aspects of my approach to thinking through aché:

1. its processual and relational ontology,

2. its actualisation through ritual technologies, and

3. its agency: the pragmatic application of these technologies to address everyday life

challenges (Sp. resolver).

2.3.1 The processual and relational ontology of aché

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, and reality. In

anthropology, it refers to understanding and engaging with the different ways people perceive

and experience the world. An increasing number of anthropologists endeavour to take

seriously the beliefs, religious practices, and cosmology of the people they study (Favret-

Saada, 1980; Glass-Coffin, 2010; Goulet & Miller, 2007; Koss-Chirino, 2010; Marton & Yves,

2002; McCarthy Brown, 2001; Rocha, 2017; Salamone, 2001; Young & Goulet, 1994). A more

radical group of scholars establishes a link between colonialism and anthropological

ontological assumptions (Carrithers et al., 2010; Henare et al., 2007; Holbraad, 2012; Holbraad

& Pedersen, 2017; Viveiros de Castro, 2004). For them, the question of taking seriously “what

is” –the ontology– underpinning people’s cosmologies is of great importance in current efforts

to decolonise anthropology. I share the goals of proponents of the ontological turn in

anthropology, particularly the commitment to taking seriously the worlds and realities of the

people we study. However, my use of the term ontology requires further clarification to

accurately convey the nuances of my approach and how it differs from other approaches that

focus on ontology. I am not concerned with defining what aché or the orishas are, what is the

nature of their being. Instead, I focus on how people interact with them as materially present

in ritual assemblages. In brief, I aim to understand how creativity and adaptation can be

explained through the continuity and flexibility of the ontology of aché. In practice, I am

concerned with the continuity of the material and ritual assemblages where aché is actualised.

Ontology generally concerns the types of entities that exist, their interrelationships, and the

properties they possess. Understanding practitioners’ ontologies is crucial for comprehending

their perspectives and the worlds they inhabit. Eco-philosopher Freya Mathews (2009, p. 3)

states: “Reality reveals its ultimate nature as much via the fact that its manifestations are tuned

Chapter 2

to the terms of reference of our invocations as via the particular content of its manifestations”.

This indicates that the ethnographic encounter is a meeting of what is present in the world,

how people expect to see it, and the ethnographer’s ontological assumptions.

This thesis does not focus on the metaphysical aspects of Santería ontologies. Most

practitioners are not concerned with metaphysics but with practical engagements with the

divine. Again, it is not about essences but about events. These events align with Deleuze and

Guattari’s conceptualisation of assemblages, which are not static conglomerates of elements

but active arrangements—they are processual and contingent (Buchanan, 2021). More than

something that is, assemblages are events: “things that happen”. The way I use the term

ontology here is aligned with Bialecki’s (2017, p. 222) perspective when he describes ontology

as “the effect or appearance of an expression of one assemblage into another assemblage”. I

focus on these effects, the happenings. And of course, this is only possible by taking seriously

practitioners’ ontologies—the beings that inhabit their worlds - but without needing to elucidate

their nature, something that can easily lead to over-interpretation.

My concern, therefore, lies not with describing what an orisha or aché is, but with relations, co-

functioning, how aché is produced, and what transformations occur in the assemblage. I am

interested in a processual and relational ontology, not an ontology of essences.

An example from jazz assemblages might illustrate this key principle. Hulk and Nesbitt (2010,

p. 159) explore jazz through the framework of assemblages, where human and non-human

actors collaborate to produce a musical experiment. Shifting the focus from spontaneous,

subject-centred creativity, this Deleuzian perspective emphasises an assemblage that

encompasses elements such as instruments, venues, musicians, solos, influences, practice,

time, and mood. Within this dynamic network, non-human factors—such as a responsive reed,

a malfunctioning valve, an electronic effect, or the venue acoustics –actively shape the musical

expression, working alongside human elements like imagination or even backstage tensions.

When the musicians are with their families, and the instruments are in their cases, and the

lights are turned off, the music does not go and hide in the scores. We can say that by

analysing each element involved, including the knowledge and training of the musicians, we

can hear the music, or even say that they are an assemblage. The assemblage and the music

happen in the moment of the execution.

A ritual performance embodies the concept of assemblages as events: it does not exist in

advance but emerges through the collective actions of musicians, ritual experts, dancers,

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

instruments, sacred objects and metapersons, all participating. The performance is realised

only in the moment when each element’s contributions interact and combine, creating an

integrated and unified whole. The ontology of a ritual assemblage, therefore, is primally

concerned with transformations and relations. This approach enables me to concentrate on

how practitioners navigate adaptations and maintain continuity, rather than engaging in

metaphysical speculations that they rarely prioritise. Rather than describing what things are,

devotees are more concerned with what they can do and how to use them: what I call here the

“technologies of aché”.

2.3.2 Ritual technologies of aché

A key aspect of assemblage theory is that the unity of an assemblage is defined not by the

inherent essence of its discrete elements but by their co-functioning and symbiosis. As Nail

(2017, pp. 21-37) succinctly puts it: “Deleuze and Guattari do not ask, ‘What is …?’ but rather,

how? where? when? from what viewpoint? and so on. These are not questions of essence,

but questions of events”. This approach aligns with my purpose to match the continuity of aché

in transnational Santería, not by describing what aché is, but by mapping the relations and

transformations that occur in the assemblages where aché is manifested, produced, and

channelled. This approach is also consistent with practitioners’ focus on how to use aché,

rather than speculating about what it is—even practitioners who are scholars prefer to see it

as a mystery. The scholar and Oba Oriate (a high initiation in Santería), Miguel Willie Ramos,

asserts that to speak of aché is to speak of the divine itself: “No definition is capable of

providing a satisfactory understanding of all that aché is and entails. By its very nature, aché

is something totally ineffable” (Ramos, 2011, p. 37).

Ramos also praises Pierre Verger’s description of aché as one of the best available in

academic literature.

…the Yorubas have never seen aché, nor do they pretend to personify it.

Nor can they define it with specific attributes or characteristics. It envelops

all mystery, all secret energy, all divinity. No enumeration can be exhaustive

enough in this infinitely complex idea. It is not a defined or definable power;

it is Power itself in the absolute sense, without epithet or determination of

any kind…it is the principle of everything that lives, is or moves. All life is

aché (Verger, 1964, p. 36).

While practitioners may not be very interested in questions of “what is” aché, it is possible to

observe how it affects their lives and how they harness it. Perhaps it is a poor comparison, but

we could relate this to how most of us use technology. Most of us are unaware of how a

smartphone, computer, GPS, or artificial intelligence works, yet we use them every day to meet

Chapter 2

our needs. When we buy a new electronic device, we are less interested in its essence than

in what it can do, how reliable it is, and how it solves our needs.

As Palmié ( 2018, pp. 73–104) notes, aché is the stuff that makes things happen, and it is a

substance that can be accumulated, transferred, dissipated, and so forth. For Palmié, aché is

Santería’s answer to the laws of thermodynamics. For many practitioners of Santería, “the

energy of spirits of the dead and orishas is electric” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 6). Santería

rituals can be seen, for the most part, as an assemblage of material and immaterial elements,

as well as the ritual technologies to produce aché. As Goldman (1994) argues for Candomblé,

Santería’s ritual manipulations rely more on “pragmatics” than logic. Bastide (1953, pp. 30-40)

describes Candomblé as a kind of pragmatism that operates on beings and their relationships

and is dedicated above all to codifying and manipulating these forces more than speculating

about their nature. These manipulations are carried out through what Espirito Santo and

Panagiotopoulos (2015) call “cosmic technologies”.

“Technology” here refers to the means by which people exert their capacity to bring into being

or achieve a particular goal, reality or effect, with the aid of material, human, ideological and

magical techniques. Different forms of divination used in Santería are examples of such

technologies. These technologies, in turn, produce specific bodies, subjectivities, objects and

entities. They are “widely available resources” that “generate the possibility of knowing, being,

and doing for both experts and followers” (Espirito Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015, p. 5). Like

Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos (2015, p.p. 4-5), I see Santería religiosity as rooted in the

role of “technologies” (ritual, conceptual, social and phenomenological) in “engendering

divergent, even personal, ontological configurations”. These configurations operate within

broad and spatiotemporal frameworks that are indeterminate and cannot be reduced to a

single “tradition.” “Tradition”, in this context, refers to a world of pre-existing metaphysical

entities, rituals, social norms and experiential pathways whose trajectories are defined and

confined under the label of “tradition”. However, this understanding of tradition cannot

encompass all the possibilities that these ritual technologies offer for practitioners' creativity in

addressing life issues, or, in emic terms, resolver. In a sense, the ritual technologies of aché

are “technologies for the enactment of desire” (Bennett, 2001).

2.3.3 Aché and the ethos of resolver

Everyone who comes here comes with problems or looking for a way that

their ancestors, the spirits, the saints who are going to be given to that

person begin to pour out blessings … to be able to be in another status …

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

be it health, or economic, or marital, whatever it is, that is what we are

working on …

A babalawo from Sydney during an initiation ceremony

The creativity and pragmatic adaptations of Santería are consistent with a Cuban cultural trait:

resolver. Resolver is not specific to Santería but is core to it. Resolver, a Spanish verb that

translates as “to solve,” has been noticed by travellers, journalists, scholars of Afro-Cuban

religion, and even game designers as a very vital cultural trait.

When searching for a concise English definition of resolver, I found a suitable description on

Ubisoft's website, the developers of the successful game Far Cry (Rybicki, 2021).

In English, the word “resolve” has a few different meanings. As a verb, it can

mean to deal with something successfully, to work something out; as a noun,

it signifies determination or persistence. Which makes the Cuban concept of

“resolver” (pronounced “rreh-sohl-BEHR”) in Far Cry 6 particularly

interesting, because it is pretty much all of the above.

Resolver indicates both the pragmatic attitude and the actions to solve life problems with

whatever is at hand.

The game developers see it as “resourcefulness, improvisation, and

tenacity; a determined do-it-yourself mindset that makes the best of what’s at hand” (Rybicki,

2021). In Far Cry 6, players scavenge items to build “Resolver Weapons” that they use for

guerrilla warfare.

Resolver was part of my daily struggles in Cuba, a word so embedded in everyday survival

that, like every other Cuban, I relied on it constantly without noticing it, as unaware of it as a

fish is of the water it swims in. In Cuba, I had a good collection of the items that inspired the

game designers: a diesel-fuelled stove; a TV antenna made of aluminium food trays; a device

to recharge non-rechargeable batteries; a pre-1959 Singer sewing machine with a motor

rescued from a Soviet-era washing machine (used for my backyard guerrilla-style shoemaking

The Italian notion of arrangiarsi is a parallel example of this attitude of “making do” with what is at hand. It refers

to the cultural practice of improvisation and making do with available resources. It reflects a pragmatic approach to

overcoming challenges by creatively utilising whatever is at hand. This concept is deeply embedded in Italian

cultural identity and manifests in various aspects of daily life, including problem-solving and adaptability. It is a core

cultural trait among Italian immigrants adapting to new environments Perin, R., & Sturino, F. (1989). Arrangiarsi:

The Italian Immigration Experience in Canada. Guernica. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lccRAQAAIAAJ .

Chapter 2

business; and a home-made device to convert discarded oil-drilling cables into mattress

springs.

Resolver is no different for Santería practitioners in Australia. Priests demonstrate creativity

when solving problems, including finding ritual ingredients locally or modifying rituals to suit

cultural and legal constraints. As they often say, what matters is resolver, which frequently

refers to solving practical issues like health problems, workplace challenges, or achieving a

desired goal.

As diviners and consultants, babalawos have a broad view of people’s motivations and are

generally considered reliable as key informants (Frenk et al., 2011, p. 78). I asked Australian

babalawo Dominic Kirk about people’s motivations to seek the religion:

… because they know that it gives results … some people are born into it

and love it as a spirituality on a very deep, grateful, humble level [what he

calls “spiritual journey”]. Some people see it as a means to an end, to fix that

problem.

People become practitioners for various reasons—some see it as a path to deeper spiritual

fulfilment, while others view it as a means to resolve pressing life issues. Regardless of the

motivation, the underlying objective often revolves around solving life’s challenges, whether

material, psychological or spiritual.

In many cases, practitioners frame these problems as calls from the orishas to engage with

the religion. As Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos 2015, pp. 5-6) explain, “All Afro-Cuban

forms of devotion are thought to imply a religious calling, whether it is ‘born’ with the individual

or manifested through the pragmatics of livelihood or life-threatening circumstances”. This

observation holds in Australia, where the orisha “claims the head” of the practitioner,

communicating its call through divination, priestly visions, possession, or more dramatic means

such as sudden illness or hardship. Wirtz (2007) agrees, noting how life’s difficulties are often

seen as signs of a spiritual calling. Palmié (2018) describes similar cases in Cuba, mentioning

instances where people face illness, accidents, legal troubles, or other crises, phenomena

which practitioners interpret as signals the person needs to heed the orisha’s call. Whether

these challenges stem from personal relationships, legal issues, or failed attempts to emigrate,

they are not viewed as separate from the person’s spiritual life.

Interestingly, one aspect I have observed among family and friends, yet one that is not often

discussed in the literature, is what happens when problems are left unresolved. In many cases,

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

when practitioners’ issues persist despite religious intervention, they forsake the religion

entirely. For example, my cousin, who was initiated at the age of 13 and practised for over 40

years, left the religion after his mother became gravely ill. He had believed she would recover,

so when she passed away, he lost his trust in the religion and abandoned it.

Hagedorn insightfully recognises the power of resolver as part of aché, “the power to make

things happen,” noting that “[o]ne can look at all aspects of Cuban Santería through the lens

of resolver”; she found in “resolver through aché” the “essence of Cuban Santería” (Hagedorn,

2001, p. 212). The whole of Santería can be studied through the lens of aché:

… the primary focus of the religion is serving the orishas so that these divine

entities will respond to their adherents. In other words, these orishas-within-

stones are washed and fed so that the orishas will remain amenable to

resolving the problems of their children, so that their children will have the

aché to prevail. In fact, the power of resolver can be understood as part of

aché, or the power to make things happen. It is through aché that all life

occurs. Aché is neither good nor bad; rather, aché is motion. It is emotion,

demotion, commotion, locomotion—all that moves us in and through the

world. Aché is divine and is bestowed on humans by the orishas. It is through

aché that the Santero and the creyente [practitioner] find the power to

resolver (Hagedorn, 2001, p. 212).

The pragmatics of resolver are not only a distinct Cuban cultural trait embedded in Santería;

they are also central to its cosmology and practices, which are better understood as an

ontology of aché—a system shaped by pragmatic, relational engagements.

2.4 Topological approach

So far, I have discussed the role of immanent forms of transnationalisation in Santería and the

link between aché and the pragmatics of resolver. These material or immanent modes of

transnationalisation are best understood through the concept of aché. The orishas themselves

are aché; stones, blood, plants, and even humans are expressions of aché. As Hagedorn

(2001) observed, Santería is ultimately about using or channelling aché to solve life

problems.

The continuous, unbroken flow of these immanent expressions of aché enables practitioners

to find and cultivate aché in new countries. Simply knowing the rituals does not guarantee the

power to perform them. For aché to be realised in a new country, the practitioner must carry

the aché of the orisha through initiation and have material embodiments of aché, such as

divination instruments and other sacred items.

Chapter 2

Santería’s ontologies are fundamentally ontologies of aché. The “cosmic technologies” focus

on generating powerful blessings and creating new assemblages of humans, spirits and

materials by drawing from pre-existing aché. This aché is sourced from various elements,

including plants, animals, water, honey, powders, spirits, humans, and orishas, all of which are

used in ceremonies to manifest sacred power. The creation of new aché relies on the

continuous flow of existing aché, which has been inherited from ancestors, spirits and previous

generations of practitioners. Not only are the ritual techniques, or “technologies” of aché,

passed down through these lineages, so too is the aché itself—the spiritual power that enables

practitioners to wield these technologies effectively. The “birth” of an orisha, or the “birth” of a

practitioner during initiation, exemplifies this genealogical transmission of aché, emphasising

the importance of continuity in maintaining the efficacy and vitality of the practice across

generations. How do practitioners ensure that the aché remains intact and that these changes

do not disrupt the continuity and therefore the efficacy of the ritual or practice? How can

practitioners ensure the unbroken transmission of aché across different contexts and

geographical spaces?

The key to answering these questions lies in understanding that aché is not solely tied to

specific materials but to the relationships among materials, spirits, and practitioners. This view

aligns with the idea of relational ontology, which suggests that beings and objects do not have

fixed essences or exist independently but are instead characterised by their relationships and

interactions within an assemblage. In Santería, the effectiveness of a ritual depends not on the

inherent properties of the materials but on the aché flowing through the network of spirits,

practitioners, and objects.

Therefore, when new plants or materials are added to a ritual assemblage, what matters is

whether they can be integrated into this web of relationships, sustaining the flow of aché within

the assemblage. Even if specific plants or ritual elements differ from those traditionally used in

Cuba, the connection between the orishas, the practitioner, and the materials can remain

continuous. In topological terms, we could say that the ritual assemblages remain

homeomorphic—that is, they keep their structural equivalence, allowing the flow of aché to

continue across borders and adaptations.

2.4.1 Homeomorphism and transnational continuity

Beliso-De Jesús (2015) describes Santería ontologies as dynamic and heterogeneous

assemblages of copresences—spirits, orishas, priests, technology and religious travellers.

She argues:

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

Copresences are not always strategic or necessarily unifying. These

diasporic assemblages that reconfigure the phenomenology of

transnationalism through rhizomatic schemas, however, do not presuppose

unity, cohesion, resistance, subversion, or pristine origins. Copresences

transform the experience of transnationalism, diaspora, and media because

they are ontological (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 14).

Citing Csordas (1993, p. 138), she asserts these somatic modes encompass not only one’s

way of attending to and experiencing Self but also the “embodied presence of others”, the point

being that these others are experienced ontologically.

It is the relational nature of Santería ontologies that invites a topological analysis of ritual

assemblages. In this context, copresences—whether ontological, immanent, or symbolic—

become perceptible through the relationships they enact and the ways they are sensed. Since

topology is fundamentally concerned with relationality, a topological approach to Santería

maps the connections among the beings and forces that inhabit ritual assemblages, without

privileging the fixed essences of any single element. These human and nonhuman

copresences are understood as different modulations of aché. I use the term “assemblages of

aché” to emphasise that my unit of analysis is the assemblage itself, not specific entities or

their essences.

Anthropologists have benefited from the application of topological analysis. Edmund R. Leach

used topological concepts to describe the flexibility of social networks, suggesting societies

can be seen as “assemblages of variables” rather than rigid structures (Leach, 1961, p. 7).

Claude Lévi-Strauss applied topological reasoning in his work on mythology, using the

“canonical formula” to explore the morphodynamics of myths as transformative structures.

Leví-Strauss, 1955, pp. 428–444). Annemarie Mol and John Law used topology to understand

the social as a multiplicity of spatial forms, focusing on the hybrid and fluid nature of social

relations (Mol & Law, 1994, pp. 641–671). Marilyn Strathern (1988) and Bruno Latour (2005)

have also explored topological ideas, employing concepts such as fractals and networks to

examine relationality and the continuous transformation of social entities. Recent collaborative

work has explored how topology can be applied to the study of social processes, spatial

organisation and transformation across diverse contexts (Gros et al., 2019). Examples include

Beigi’s (2019) use of concept of limit, Billé’s (2019) application of homeomorphism; and further

explorations of topological concepts such as paths (Bonnin, 2019), surfaces and thresholds

(Kockelman, 2019), spatial relations (Green, 2019; Saraf, 2019), limits (Edwards & Ionescu,

2019), contiguity (Russell, 2019) and enclosure (Stafford, 2019).

Chapter 2

In his paper, In the Vicinity of the Human: From Anthropology to Topology, Malpas (2017)

argues for a philosophical topology in anthropology, examining how spatiality and place are

integral to human existence and social analysis. For Malpas, any genuine philosophical

anthropology must take the form of a philosophical topology.

Lury et al. (2012) explore the influence of topological ideas across the social sciences,

discussing how concepts from topology have transformed fields such as sociology,

anthropology, and geography—transformation evident in the growing importance of concepts

such as connectivity, continuous variation, and dynamic relationality within cultural practices

and theoretical frameworks. The authors suggest that this becoming topological reflects a shift

towards understanding cultural phenomena in ways that emphasise fluidity and the complex

interrelations of cultural elements. They explain that:

In this multiplication of relations, topological change is established as

constant, normal, and immanent, rather than being an exceptional form that

is externally produced; that is, forms of economic, political, and cultural life

are identified and made legible in terms of their capacities for continuous

change (Lury et al., 2012, p. 3).

Assemblage theory, as conceptualised by Gilles Deleuze, views the assemblage as a

“topological” concept. Topology provides a way of understanding assemblages of aché by

mapping the relations and transformations within them and the affects produced and shared

in the assemblage. Furthermore, topology provides a framework for understanding continuity

as grounded in these relations, in a world that is changing at an unprecedented pace and

scale.

Topology allows me to compare relations and assess whether they remain continuous through

changes (Gros et al., 2019). Invariants are properties that remain constant despite

transformations. These invariants are summarised at the end of this chapter and discussed in

further detail in Chapter 6.

In analysing Santería’s processes of transnational continuity, I employ the topological concept

of homeomorphism, which describes the ability to undergo transformations without losing the

relationships between parts. This I refer to as “creative continuity”.

Glowczewski’s (2019) comparison of Warlpiri kinship and cosmology offers a notable example

of how the concept of homeomorphism can be applied in anthropological analysis through

topological reasoning. She concludes that Aboriginal kinship neither creates nor is caused by

cosmology, but that both are expressions of a particular logic that can be explained through

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

topology. Glowczewski proposes that this method could serve as a way for cross-cultural

comparison.

Topology also provides an alternative to traditional categories for defining a “thing.” For

instance, instead of seeing a plant as part of a (transcendent) category like a genus or species,

topology allows me to understand it in terms of how it interacts within the assemblage in which

it is embedded.

In the introduction, I already explained the homeomorphism between the letters A and R, an

example used by Adkins (2015). Another common quip used to describe topology’s focus on

invariants in homeomorphism is this: “A topologist does not see the difference between a cup

of coffee and a doughnut.” This is because the surfaces of a doughnut and a coffee cup are

equivalent—they both have a single hole, and you can twist and reshape one into the other

without disrupting the internal relations between their parts. The point here is that if you rely

on abstract categories to classify these objects, such as the categories of “cups of coffee” and

“doughnuts”, you will perceive them as entirely different entities. However, a topologist

considers the object in a process of becoming, focusing on internal relations rather than

relations to other members of a category. In this case, the similarities that categorise objects

as “pastry” or “open-top containers used to hold liquids” are less relevant to their internal

relational properties.

Applying this view to my fieldwork, if I see plants as defined by membership of species, the

plants used in Cuba would be different entities from those in Australia. However, from a

topological perspective, they are not different. They are aché. For this, I consider the

assemblages in which they are (or become) actualised as aché as my central unit of analysis.

I will argue that a ritual assemblage where a plant is actualised as aché in Cuba is

homeomorphic to a plant-as-aché in Australia because they are both defined by the same

relations and display the same capacities (power to affect and be affected). That is, a plant

becomes part of a Santería assemblage by means of Santería’s “cosmological technologies”.

This is the case for all Santería assemblages in Australia, and this equivalence (different but

the same) is what I call Santería’s “creative continuity”. The phrase “creative continuity”

captures both the ontological and relational continuity of the tradition expressed in the rituals,

pragmatism, and innovative disposition, deeply embedded within Santería’s relational

ontologies. It is this creative continuity that enables practitioners to sustain and dynamically

reshape their religious practices across diverse and often unforeseen contexts. It ensures the

tradition’s ontological coherence and vitality over time and space, while simultaneously

Chapter 2

activating and channelling aché, the sacred force through which life challenges are effectively

navigated and resolved.

The crucial point for understanding these adaptations as continuation and not rupture of the

ontology of aché, and therefore the continuity of Santería, is that what makes the ikines of

Orula or a native Australian plant, or any other substitution, actualised as aché, is its capacity

to relationally participate in the assemblage of human and non-human agencies. Even if it is a

different species of plant or palm seeds, once it enters into composition with Santería sacred

ontologies, it participates in the flows of aché. This is the approach Beliso-De Jesús (2015)

applies to Santería, drawing on Karen Barad’s (2007) philosophy to argue that relations do not

follow entities in the assemblage; rather, the entities emerge through the relations.

Beliso-De Jesús applies Barad’s idea to Santería's practices by focusing on the assemblages

of humans, spirits, material objects, and technologies, which create fluid and dynamic networks

of connection. These assemblages are animated by practices such as spirit possession, ritual

performances, and the circulation of videos and media that render spiritual presences tangible

and affective. Beliso-De Jesús argues that these relationships do not presuppose stable

entities (e.g., individual practitioners or spirits), but instead, the relations themselves constitute

and continuously reshape the participants in the assemblage.

The ikines of Orula provide a paradigmatic instance of this relational ontology: they are not

defined by the palm’s material species but by their integration into assemblages that make

Orula present. As they are substituted in Australia using locally sourced palm nuts, what

matters is not the species of palm tree the nuts come from, but the relations into which it enters

through ritual practices.

The philosophical question of what comes first, whether the relation or the entities in the

assemblage, is beyond the scope of this thesis. What a relational ontology suggests is that

relations are the primary factor in defining the entities in the assemblage. For example, it is the

relations into which the palm nuts enter that determine them to be ikines and an Orula. Using

the notion of homeomorphism, it can be argued that this Orula body, formed with Australian

palm nuts, is equivalent to any Orula body made in Cuba. The reason is that they are

embedded in the same relational and transformational processes. In other words, even if the

palm species differs, the relationship between spirits, practitioners, and ikines remains

homeomorphic with those in Cuba.

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

2.4.2 Topological invariants

Finally, in this thesis, I employ the topological concept of invariance to demonstrate that ritual

assemblages in Australia are homeomorphic or continuous with traditional rituals in Cuba. In

topology, invariance refers to the properties of a system or relational structure that remain

unchanged despite continuous transformations. In other words, invariants are the properties

that determine homeomorphism. Applied to social or cultural systems, invariants are

relationships and core dynamics that persist through adaptation and change, ensuring the

system's fundamental structure remains intact.

I have identified invariances in both the relations and becomings within Santería

assemblages. These align with what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the “longitude” and

“latitude” of the assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 256–257). Chapter 6 explores

ethnographic data and analyses how substitutions in Santería conserve the topological

invariants of aché assemblages. Here, I will briefly outline these invariants to complete the

explanation of my theoretical approach.

I will argue that adaptations of Santería in Australia preserve the fundamental topological

properties of the relational ontologies expressed in Santería assemblages. I examine

these properties by analysing the ritual assemblages’ relations and becoming; what Deleuze

and Guattarí called the longitude and latitude of an assemblage:

We call the latitude of a body the affects of which it is capable at a given

degree of power, or rather within the limits of that degree. Latitude is made

up of intensive parts falling under a capacity, and longitude of extensive parts

falling under a relation (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 256–257).

The longitude refers to relations: who is involved, how they enter these relations, what is

considered “inside” or “outside” them, and how relationships constitute the assemblage. It is

made of “extensive” parts. On the other hand, the latitude or “intensive” aspect relates to

becoming and focuses on changes in degrees of power. In my study, it is about how these

changes or intensities are experienced, and how they are generated and shared within the

assemblage. “Becoming” refers to the continuous process of transformation and change where

entities evolve in relation without fully transitioning into something else, highlighting movement,

potential, and contagion rather than fixed states. By preserving these invariances, practitioners

ensure that transformations within Santería remain continuous with its foundational principles,

even as they creatively adapt to new ecological and cultural contexts.

Chapter 2

Figure 3, Chapter 2: A topology of ritual assemblages

2.4.2.1 Longitude: Invariants in Relations

In the relational dimension, I identified three key invariants. These are:

1. Boundary-making processes: Practitioners carefully guard thresholds when making

substitutions. For example, in the case of ikines, divination ultimately determines

whether a substitution is acceptable. While morphologic characteristics, such as the

three eyes of the ikines, and contextual features like the plant’s location, colour, and

other visible traits are considered. However, the “word” of the orisha is the determining

factor, and in cases, divination can override these factors in favour of an ingredient

lacking such characteristics (see Chapter 6). Thus, while boundaries are maintained,

the specific characteristics are not necessarily invariant. They determine who and what

is inside or outside the relations.

◼ In the case of the Ikines, their inclusion must be tested and confirmed

through divination, besides having the necessary characteristics, like the

pores and not sinking in water.

2. The constitutive nature of relations: Once a substitution is accepted into the

assemblage, its aché is actualised, or it is transformed into ritual aché. As explained

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

above, this actualisation establishes the relational participation of the substituted

element within the assemblage.

a. What determines palm nuts to be ikines of Orula is the ritual relations

established through divination and other practices. After being accepted, the

ikines undergo a few days of further preparations that include prayers,

recitations, and exposure to the sun (the deity Olorun). Finally, they are

consecrated with animal sacrifices during the initiation; they become Orula.

3. Hierarchy of participation: The structure of relational participation ensures that

assemblages remain homeomorphic with Cuban rituals, even when materials and

contexts differ. This hierarchy defines who is authorised to perform specific actions

within Santería and how to perform them. For instance, only a babalawo can substitute

ikines. In Australia, breaking this hierarchy during adaptations renders them

unjustifiable to practitioners and often delegitimises them.

◼ The ritual structures of participation remain intact. Only babalawos can

perform the rituals for the creation of the ikines. Only Orula (using

babalawos’ specific tools for divination) validates the use of ritual elements.

2.4.2.2 Latitude: Invariants in Becomings

The other coordinate of the assemblage is the becomings. Deleuze and Guattari themselves

never provided a unified definition of becoming. Bialecki (2018) explains that “becoming is

about a process of continual transformation without a complete transition into some other form

or mode; it is used to characterise an asymptotic movement towards a particular local telos.”

In simpler words, becoming is not imitation of others, or to be literally transformed into a

different entity, but a movement towards a point or finality (telos). “Becoming” describes

“changes of capacities”: “becoming” is positive if it increases our power to participate actively

in reality, overcome obstacles, and negative if it diminishes our power to act (Deleuze &

Guattari, 1987, pp. 256–257). While relations comprise connections within the assemblage,

becomings refer to changes in the qualitative dimensions within an assemblage.

I identified the following qualitative or “intensive” aspects that remain invariant in ritual

assemblages.

1. The transduction of ritual elements into ritual power: The process of activating or

actualising a plant’s latent aché through ritual protocols and relational dynamics

Chapter 2

remains consistent. Practitioners perceive this actualisation as an increase in agency,

and the observed effectiveness of these substitutions (“it works”) often serves as

evidence of their legitimacy and efficacy.

2. The role of metapersons and nonhuman sentience: Recognising plants, spirits, and

other nonhuman entities as sentient participants with agency facilitates relational

dynamics within the assemblage. These metapersons actively contribute to the

negotiation and actualisation of aché. This perception of non-humans as sentient

enables transformations that impact agency, or at least a sense of agency, and a sense

of connection akin to what social psychologists describe as intersubjectivity –a shared

understanding, awareness, and experience that emerges from interactions between

humans and with the spirits.

In Santería assemblages, these qualitative changes are sensed as “embodied sensations of

spirits in interaction with the living” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 7) that “erupt as intensities or

feelings of spatial-temporalities” (p. 8); “sensed through chills, shivers, tingles, premonitions,

and possessions” (p. 7); akin to “spiritual electric currents” (p. 31) that “electrify bodies” (p. 30).

Practitioners describe these experiences as instances of the aché of the spirits present in the

rituals. However, such experiences of becomings are not restricted to those of possession or

altered states of consciousness. Practitioners’ reports clearly show that everyday practices like

wearing the colours of the orisha, dancing or performing a ceremony, affect changes in them

that are described as a sense of empowerment and connection with the sacred. They are all

experiences of what Lévy-Bruhl (1975, 76-7) called participation. Lévy-Bruhl explained:

In the collective representations of primitive mentality, objects, beings, and

phenomena can be, though in a way incomprehensible to us, both

themselves and something other than themselves. In a fashion no less

incomprehensible, they give forth and they receive mystic powers, virtues,

qualities, influences, which make themselves felt outside, without ceasing to

remain where they are.

In the example of the ikines, when these palm nuts enter a composition with other forms of

aché, following established ritual protocols or “cosmic technologies”, their capacity to act

transforms, increasing practitioners’ power to act as well. The ikines become Orula; a “who”,

not just a “what”, and a sentient entity with whom they can interact (as he is a sentient

metaperson) and obtain guidance and agency, or at least perceived agency. The ikines are,

they do not merely represent, ontological actualisations of Orula and his aché, embedded in

practices of material participation. These material groundings of the sacred are not passive

recipients of religious practices, nor are they inanimate objects. Rather, they embody what

Theorising immanent transnationalisation

Bennett (2010) describes as “vibrant matter”. Not only can they act in the world, like Christina’s

Eleguá cutting the immigration officer’s hand, but more significantly, they actively shape how

transnational religious identities, subjectivities and communities are manifested, negotiated

and experienced.

2.5 Summary of the chapter

This chapter, along with the rest of the thesis, advances anthropological debates on religious

transnationalisation by proposing a way of theorising the immanence and emphasising

situated ritual assemblages and negotiation. Santería's transnationalisation depends on

immanent modes of the sacred, where the divine moves and is actualised through materiality

and practitioners' bodies. Aché must be carried through generations of practitioners and across

borders when practitioners travel. These immanent lines of the sacred, rooted in materiality

and relationality, must remain continuous across borders.

The application of a topological approach offers a robust analytical tool for examining continuity

amid change in this relational ontology. In the following chapters, I expand on the concepts

outlined here and apply them to the analysis of ethnographic data. The next chapter

investigates experiences of aché, highlighting its creative potential for practitioners in shaping

their self-identity. Chapter 4 focuses on relations. Chapter 5 explores processes of becoming.

Chapter 6 employs the topological framework to analyse rituals around the sourcing and

substitution of ceremonial plants in Australia, revealing invariants across both axes and

demonstrating the homeomorphism of ritual practices across borders. The rest of the thesis

provides further ethnographic analysis of how relations and becomings are fundamental to the

adaptive flexibility of Santería practices.

Chapter 3 I am aché: Creativity, connection and the Self

An impulse, creativity in motion, a wave upon the ocean, a vibration—that is aché.

This is how the short film I Am Aché (Hearn et al., 2019) begins. The brief documentary

includes interviews with my field collaborators, and the voice belongs to Adrian Medina, a

Cuban babalawo, dancer, and cultural bearer. His voice plays over images of waves crashing

on a Gold Coast beach.

The voiceover continues: “Life on Earth began in the sea. That is why we call the sea our

mother.” It is not a metaphor. It is an ontological claim. In Santería, Yemayá is not a symbol of

the ocean; she is the ocean. Aché is her movement, her rhythm, her voice within the human

body and in the world. Aché is the movement of dancing bodies. But also, the movements of

people from Africa to the New World. This transnational movement continues. “We are still

moving. By force and by choice. Between continents, between cultures.”

Aché is inherited through lineages tracing back to Africa; the ancestors grant the continuity of

aché. The narrator continues: “We pray to bring all those ancestors and all those people who

lived before us to come down and give us their blessing.” “Blessing” is another word used for

aché in Santería.

In the film, aché is not explained. Instead, in the interviews, practitioners describe how it is

sensed or how it acts in and through their lives. “Everything that we do is aché,” says another

speaker, “Every rock, every tree, every animal, every person.” Australian participants attest to

their powerful experiences during events: “There is a moment when hitting the drum opens up

something inside, and you realise this is much bigger than just hitting a drum.” University of

Melbourne’s professor Adrian Hearn, who directed the film, says that such experiences “open

up a world of new connections… with each other… and with nature.” “It is all about connection,”

Anna, from Cairns, would later tell me in our interview. More than substance or cosmological

doctrine, aché is an emergent capacity in an assemblage of relations.

This way of understanding aché, based on sensing, affords great flexibility to accommodate a

great variety of experiences and interpretations. Historian, practitioner, and scholar of Santería

Miguel “Willie” Ramos (2011) explains that aché has been crucial to the preservation of

Santería through its ability to adapt, reinterpret, and assimilate foreign cultures and

environments. He attributes this resilience to aché’s capacity to absorb external cultural

meanings without losing its essential nature.

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

The chapter emphasises the creative possibilities afforded by the notion of aché, relying on

people’s descriptions of aché and how they experience it. Such creativity is presented as the

actualisation of potentials already existent in aché. While the rest of the thesis will focus on

ritual practices, this chapter devotes more attention to personal experiences and creative

interpretations of the concept of aché. I focus on key aspects of practitioners’ experiences

through three facets of aché. These are: creativity and inspiration (Section 3.1), connections

to humans and nonhuman Others (Section 3.2), and how the Self is redefined in relation to

those Others (Section 3.3). By Self in this thesis, I mean “the locus of experience” (Harris,

1989), not an essentialised individual subject.

The chapter approaches experiences of aché as openings that, by their nature, transgress the

limits of language and expand what can be realised, especially regarding understandings of

the Self in connection with Others. Drawing on fieldwork and personal narratives, I suggest

that aché operates not only as a spiritual and metaphysical force but also as an expression of

our humanitas—the deep, multifaceted potentials of being human, not as separate individuals

but as defined in connection with Others, both humans and nonhumans. I use the word excess

here in the way Holbraad uses it (in Henare et al., 2007, p. 193): to refer to the way aché defies

conventional categorisations and distinctions, embodying qualities that are paradoxical—such

as being a “thing”, a force, a concept, and action, abstract and concrete—thus challenging any

fixed or singular definition. It is an excess in the sense that it points to more than what language

can define. It is in this excess that new potentials can be found.

This chapter, and the thesis more broadly, echoes a similar argument raised by Holbraad on

the notion of mana and mana-like concepts, such as aché.

… if the lesson of the story of mana-theory is that mana will always trump

the analytic axioms one throws at it, then its challenge is to make a virtue of

necessity, by giving the transgressive potential of mana full rein so as to

reach new analytical departures—thinking neither about it, nor just with it,

but through it (Henare et al., 2007, p. 200).

It also echoes other scholars’ calls to theorise mana-like notions beyond the linguistic and

structural approaches that have hindered mana debates in the past (Tomlinson & Tengan,

2016).

3.1 Creativity: aché as inspiration

The film “I Am Aché” was released during the 2020 Afrekete festival on the Gold Coast, having

been shot at the same festival the year before. This yearly event celebrates Cuban culture,

Chapter 3

music, and dance in Australia and draws attendees from across the country as well as from

overseas. For me, it was an excellent chance to connect with a diverse range of practitioners

from different places and invite them to share their experiences with me.

Each year, the festival opens with a ceremony. Practitioners recite prayers, sing chants, and

offer fruit to Yemayá, asking for her blessings for the festival to proceed smoothly. Yemayá,

the orisha of the sea—also known as Afrekete— plays a pivotal role in this ritual. The main

organiser of the festival, Christina Monneron, is a Mauritian-born Australian. She is a Cuban

dance teacher and a Santería priestess dedicated to Yemayá.

During the opening ceremony, a diverse group of participants, white Australians, Latinos,

Cubans, Asian immigrants and Indigenous Australians, sway their bodies to the beat of the

drums and respond in unison to the nasal tones of Afro-Cuban chanting led by the highest-

ranked babalawo.

Earlier, other babalawos had inscribed divination signs (Lucumí odú) in the sand to invoke

blessings for the Afrekete Festival. In Santería, an odú refers to a divinatory sign or a

combination of signs used in the practice of Ifá, a system of divination central to Santería.

The odú represent different life situations, spiritual messages and potential outcomes. These

patterns correspond to specific verses in the Ifá corpus, a vast body of oral literature that

contains teachings, stories and guidance related to human experience, moral conduct and

spiritual development. There are 256 possible odú, each with its own meaning, and during the

divination, the babalawo interprets the odú to offer advice, insight, or to understand the will of

the orishas. In rituals, odú can be drawn on the ground to call upon their sacred power for

guidance or blessings.

It was January, and odú they drew was La Letra del Año (Sp. letter of the year). La Letra del

Año is an annual divinatory proclamation in Cuban Santería, issued by councils of babalawos

(priests of Ifá) on December 31st or January 1st. Through an Ifá divination ceremony, a guiding

odu is revealed, along with the orisha who governs the year, proverbs, ritual recommendations,

and warnings about health, social, and environmental issues. It serves as a spiritual roadmap

for the year ahead, offering collective guidance for practitioners in Cuba and across the

diaspora. Multiple councils may issue different versions, but all are grounded in the authority

of Orula's voice. The odu traced by the babalawos in Afrekete was the one divined by the

Cuban Yoruba Association in Havana.

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

Traditional custodians of the area, members of the Australian Aboriginal community, were

invited to offer a Welcome to Country ceremony. Two Kombumerri didgeridoo players began

their performance, and, without any prior instruction, both pointed their instruments towards

the odú drawn in the sand. This spontaneous gesture sparked a ripple of recognition among

several practitioners in the group. The babalawos later explained that they thought that the

Kombumerri men were “inspired” by the orishas to direct their instruments towards the odú.

The following year, during the same ceremony, the babalawos explicitly asked the Kombumerri

didgeridoo players to aim their instruments at the sacred signs in the sand. Sometimes such

inspirations surface briefly and then disappear. They may or may not become part of an

expanding repertoire of “inspirations” that practitioners incorporate into their practices. For

influential figures within the tradition, these inspirations often spread to those seeking their

guidance and mentorship. In either case, the question I ask is not so much about whether

these “inspirations” are formalised or incorporated in future rituals, but how they come about.

During the part of the ceremony when participants make offerings of fruit to Yemayá, a massive

wave crashes onto the beach, soaking us up to our knees. In response, voices in Spanish and

English joyfully exclaim, “aché!” An Australian practitioner, her white dress soaked through,

laughs as she shouts, “She likes it!”, suggesting Yemayá herself had playfully blessed the fruit

offerings and the songs sung in her honour. Here, another synchronicity is seen as the orisha’s

intervention.

In Santería assemblages, knowledge, contingent events, human and nonhuman actors, and

material elements are accessed in real time through embodied knowing. This process is akin

to how a musician draws from a jazz ensemble to create something new—what practitioners

often refer to as “inspiration” or “mojo.”

3.1.1 Inspirations as actualisation of already existing potentials

Katherine Hagedorn, a scholar, artist and dedicated practitioner, describes aché as “emotion,

motion, commotion, locomotion—all that moves us in and through the world” (Hagedorn, 2001,

p. 212). A key idea in her work is that of “divine utterances”—creative, performative acts that

connect practitioners to the sacred. Hagedorn (2001, p. 136) notes that creating unique “divine

utterances” is essential for enticing the divine during ceremonies. These utterances arise from

“models” or “archetypes” during moments of religious obligation and inspiration, as

practitioners embody the sacred, such as when an orisha possesses a practitioner. This sacred

presence “inspires a series of creative musical and gestural utterances to complete the

process” (Hagedorn, 2001, p. 212). Hagedorn further clarifies that these improvisations on

Chapter 3

archetypes or “divine standards” enhance the aché, or divine potential, of the performance,

and consequently of the ceremony as a whole.

However, this does not imply creativity exists without boundaries or arises from arbitrary

invention out of nothing (ex nihilo). Instead, these insights and the creativity they foster are

better understood as the realisation of virtual potentials already inherent within the

assemblage. There is an “expected” potential that manifests as a reflection of what is already

known—the “models” or “archetypes” that Hagedorn describes. Nevertheless, the divine’s

presence is affirmed through creative action, where the new and the familiar not only coexist

but also strengthen each other. Training and inspiration work together seamlessly. Like ritual

music, although the words and melodies of songs stay constant, aché is expressed through

improvised melodic embellishments, harmonic choral support, and rhythmic phrasing

(Hagedorn, 2001, p. 123). It is precisely in the realms of creativity, inspiration, and connection

with the sacred that aché is most deeply experienced. Structured forms come alive through

spontaneous bursts of inspiration, creating a vibrant space where the human and divine realms

intersect.

Marcio Goldman (2009) proposes a “native theory” of the creative process in Candomblé,

which some Santería scholars have endorsed as applicable to the Cuban context (Espirito

Santo & Panagiotopoulos, 2015). This theory “holds that the creative process consists more

in the actualisation of already existing virtualities contained in beings and objects in the world

than in the model of ex nihilo production, which is characteristic of our dominant Judeo-

Christian and capitalist cosmologies” (Goldman, 2009, pp. 108–129).

Goldman’s “native theory” of creativity draws from Gilles Deleuze’s understanding of the virtual

and the actual. Deleuze sees reality as having two aspects: the actual, which is what is realised

already, and the virtual, which represents all the latent possibilities that could potentially

become actualised. Notably, the virtual is not imaginary; it is the hidden potential that can be

brought into existence. Thus, creativity is not about inventing something entirely new out of

nothing (ex nihilo), as is often emphasised in Judeo-Christian cultures. Instead, this creativity

is about actualising the possibilities that already exist within people, objects, cosmologies and

the world around us. Moreover, in Santería, orishas are seen as active participants in the world,

with the potential for spontaneous intervention in rituals—something practitioners often

interpret as divine inspiration.

A good analogy for understanding the creative process as actualisation of virtual potentials is

jazz improvisation. Jazz musicians do not create entirely new music out of nothing—they draw

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

on their extensive knowledge of scales, rhythms and motifs stored in their memory, and they

respond in real time to what is happening around them, creating something new from the

potential already present. As Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe noted, even with all the

improvisations in jazz, the echoes of a distant African past can still be heard in the music of

performers like Louis Armstrong.

To further illustrate, Hulse & Nesbitt (2010, p. 159) explain that jazz musicians rely on both

human and nonhuman factors in their improvisations, such as the instruments, acoustics of

the venue, or even a broken valve. These elements influence the musician’s performance in

ways that feel spontaneous but are a result of their attunement to the moment. This can be

compared to the babalawo at the Afrekete festival, who asked the didgeridoo players to point

their instruments at the divination symbols in the sand. This act was not an arbitrary invention

but an actualisation of potentials already in the ritual assemblage and guided by the orishas.

A modern example of this way of understanding the creative process can be seen in a

performance by Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino at the Royal Albert Hall in 2024. During his

improvisation, a phone rang in the audience. Rather than ignoring it, Hayato instinctively

responded to the ringtone, incorporating it into his piano playing. He did not create something

entirely new; instead, he reacted to the moment, drawing on the potential that was already

present in the room. Hayato later explained that musicians naturally respond to the sounds

around them, much like Santería practitioners respond to the energies and aché present in

rituals—for many, aché is “inspiration”.

Practitioners are attuned to what is happening in their environment and attribute their creative

responses to aché, including the aché of the orisha. Just as jazz musicians speak of being “in

the zone” or tapping into their “mojo”, Santería practitioners feel they are drawing from the flow

of aché, which allows them to respond creatively in rituals.

In the same way that Jazz has been interpreted as a manifestation of the divine, several

Australian musician-practitioners told me they have experiences of aché occur during

performances. What some musicians attribute to their “mojo,” Cuban and Brazilian Latin jazz

musicians attribute to their “aché.” In both contexts, aché or “inspiration” is a force that ties

together the secular and sacred realms. Henry (2008, p.39) reported that for Afro-Brazilians

who combine Candomblé religious music with blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, and rap, aché is

a unifying force that ties together the secular and sacred. Jones (2015) reports how Afro-

Cuban and Latin jazz performers utilise the word “aché” to express inspiration and performative

power.

Chapter 3

Goldman (2009) provides an example of the initiation ceremony of a priest. Like in Santería,

Candomblé practitioners assert that the orisha chooses the practitioner, and nobody decides

to become a priest unless the orisha calls them. The initiation is also, as one of my informants

puts it, to become “who you really are” (see Chapter 7). That is, who you already are but have

yet to be actualised or manifested. Practitioners see themselves as “manifestations” of the

orisha, who is deemed to be the “owner” of their “heads” or destiny.

3.1.2 An illustration from the field: Everything already is in Ifá

“Everything already is in Ifá” is a well-known and often-repeated axiom among babalawos.

The Ifá divination system centres around the figure of Ifá, also known as Orula, revered as the

orisha of wisdom and divination. Unlike other divination practices in the region that involve

spirit communication through mediums, Ifá divination relies on the interpretation of signs by

the babalawo, meaning “father of secrets”. It does not depend on individuals having innate

prophetic abilities, but rather on a structured system of symbols called odús. As already

explained, these odús are not only collections of advice and origin stories but are also

considered divine beings in their own right (Holbraad, 2006). There are 256 odús, in which

“everything is contained” (Sp. Todo está en Ifá). Every aspect of reality, and everything that

exists, originates or is “born” (Sp. nace) in one of these odús.

One babalawo once gave me a demonstration during our field interview. We were sitting on a

hotel balcony near the beach on the Gold Coast. Pointing at various objects around us, he

explained where each one was “born” (the word used by him, and babalawos in general, to

indicate when they had their origins in an odú). He told me which odú governed the palms in

the garden, the pool beyond them, and even the air-conditioning units protruding from the light

mustard-hued walls of the balcony. Anticipating my curiosity about how something like air

conditioning could have existed in mythical times, he added: “It is born in Obara Bogbe, [as]

the fan …” as he mimicked the movement of a hand-held fan. In this way, air conditioning

already existed in Ifá as an archetypal potential, captured in the idea of the hand-held fan,

which can be actualised in unexpected ways. The “fanning” or “refreshing” effect inherent in

the aché of this odú manifests in new forms, like the air conditioner. Thus, air conditioning is

an actualisation (or “manifestation,” as a babalawo would say) of a primordial principle

contained in the odú Obara Bogbe. Anything that will ever be invented already exists in one of

these 256 odús of Ifá and the relations between them, because they are the foundational forms

of aché (spiritual power) from which everything is made. This includes individuals born under

odú influences or who form connections with them through higher initiations, as every human

being is also “born” with an odú governing their lives.

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

This concept is particularly evident in the divination performed during initiations. As Velma E.

Love (2012) describes, the divination performed in initiations is a form of divination of the Self,

re-discovering “who you really are”. Practitioners are encouraged to align their lives with their

odú, orisha and sacred identity for both material and spiritual growth. By doing so, they

harmonise with the “energies” of the odú that govern their life— the odú that the practitioner

chose before birth. Since Orula is the only orisha who witnessed that moment, only he can

reveal the odú that was selected, something that happens during the Mano de Orula initiation.

Practitioners believe that following their odú is a process of realising or actualising who they

already are.

Just as a fan or air conditioning manifests the potential within Obara Bogbe, human selves

realise the odú and the orisha in unique and unexpected ways. Moreover, the odú is only one

part of a constellation of “influences” shaping a practitioner’s life and character. Of course, this

does not mean that there are, for example, 256 types of persons. Each odú should be

understood alongside the orisha who governs the initiate’s “head, " as well as other odús

revealed during divination (called “witnesses”). Divination also determines if the neophyte is

under the influence of spirits of misfortune (Osogbo) or fortune (Iré) and what actions can be

taken to either transform Osogbo into Iré or to strengthen the existing Iré. Each individual is

an actualisation of the potential contained within these relationships. Unsurprisingly, every

practitioner has ample material to craft a unique narrative about their inclinations, limitations,

powers, and sacred Self.

Furthermore, the relations and influences through which the practitioner interprets their life

experiences and sense of Self are not static but very dynamic, evolving over time and adding

new elements. Different levels of initiation reveal new aspects of the Self. The Mano de Orula

identifies the guardian orisha from whom the initiate inherits their aché, character traits and

agencies. The priesthood initiation (asiento) goes a step further, revealing the orisha’s specific

“path” (Sp. camino) or manifestation of said orisha and bestowing a sacred name upon the

new priest, which often reflects something essential about them. For instance, Sydney-based

babalawo Michel’s name is Ifá Okan (“Heart of Ifá”) and Christina’s is Omi Lefun (“Cleansing

Waters”). With each initiation, new odus are also “born”, as becoming a priest is also a new

birth of the practitioner. More than any of these influences in themselves, the practitioner’s

sacred identity is a process of making connections between these different influences and

what happens in their life, vocations and inclinations, including the contingent ongoing spiritual

and material influences that shape their lives. The Self exists as an emergent, dynamic

manifestation of all these connections.

Chapter 3

3.2 It is all about connection.

The Afrekete beach ceremony described earlier in this chapter marked the first time I

participated in such an event in Australia. At the time, I had been living in this country for 12

years. It was a powerful experience to reconnect with my origins in a place so far removed

from them. As the wave of enthusiasm swelled in the group and the thunderous rhythm of the

batá drums intensified, chills ran down my spine and goosebumps covered my skin, as though

my body remembered something my mind had buried beneath the years of struggles living as

a migrant. For the first time in over a decade, I was enveloped in echoes of my homeland. A

deep longing for my Cuban roots stirred within me, bringing tears of self-recognition to my

eyes. Junco, a Cuban dance instructor and practitioner, told me in our interview that the orishas

spiritually connect us to Cuba. With his warm and cheerful demeanour and Havana accent, he

said:

… religion, I think, also helps you greatly. It helps you a lot to be connected

with those you left behind, too … you know? And, for example, many … in

Melbourne, there are many people, especially now, there are many Cubans

who have taken the path of Ifá (…), and they are studying because they need

that connection …

Religion is like an anchor for Cubans, keeping us tethered to our roots while we seek a better

life in new lands. However, for Australians, what they seek in this religion is best described by

the word “connection”.

Though the film I Am Aché (Hearn et al., 2019) is only 14 and a half minutes long, the word

“connection” (or “connect”) is mentioned 13 times by different speakers. On several other

occasions, while the word is not directly spoken, its meaning is implied in the speakers’

statements.

The speakers in the film talk about their connection to nature and the community. The ocean

waves are described as “vibrations” (min. 0:13), with the sea/Yemayá referred to as a mother

(min. 0:26). One speaker says, “working together we can listen to nature” (min. 2:09). In

contrast, others discuss human–nature connections through the drums (min. 4:18) and the

idea of bringing humans together with each other and with the natural environment (min. 5:15).

Later, there is mention of learning from rocks, plants and animals (min. 9:58), and collective

action as a form of connection (min. 13:23).

The film also hints at journeys of personal growth and transformation towards deeper

connections (min. 6:23), and faith is described as a link to something greater than oneself (min.

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

13:32). There is an emphasis on learning from all these connections to overcome challenges

and seize opportunities (min. 0:39).

By the end of the Afrekete weekend, I had heard the word “connection” so many times that I

felt compelled to ask about it.

3.2.1 The yearning for connection

On Monday, after the festival, I visited the hotel where several practitioners were staying. Kent,

an Australian babalawo, was performing a divination in the apartment's kitchen. The loud music

from the pool seeped through the walls, while other family members watched television in the

living room. “It’s like Cuba,” Kent commented, referring to the noise, and added with a grin,

“the only thing missing is a rooster’s call in the neighbourhood”.

After the divination, I had the chance to sit on the balcony and chat with Anna and Joanna, two

women from Cairns who are passionate about dancing and orisha spiritualities. Joanna had

received the Mano de Orula initiation in Cuba, while Anna, keen to undergo initiation, had been

unable to do so due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

When I mentioned how frequently I had heard the word “connection” throughout the festival

weekend, Anna immediately responded, “It’s all about connection…In essence, it boils down

to that. It is connection to life, to the spirits, to the cycles of the earth, to ourselves, and each

other. Connection is … everything”.

Intrigued, I asked her to explain more.

… the thing that drew me into this is just that it facilitates that reconnection,

you know, to the earth and each other and to the high spirits and our

essence. We are all connected and … It is, it’s a connection. And we live in

a world that is so disconnected, and I think we are suffering. We are really,

really, suffering for it.

Anna’s words beautifully capture the multifaceted nature of what “connection” means for her

in Santería and orisha practice, emphasising how humans rely on connections beyond

themselves for a meaningful existence. She highlights the contrast between this worldview and

the disconnection prevalent in modern society, a phenomenon made more evident by the

pandemic. For Anna, the orishas offer a response to this disconnection, particularly to

reconnect with nature and our true selves: “When you have the orishas that are the

embodiment of the elements, and you know our affinity with them, and you know [that] they

are different aspects of human beings ..."

Chapter 3

A key concept in Santería’s relational ontology is the idea that the Self is a composite of aché

(spiritual energies) within a vast network of relations. These connections are not just

nourishing; they are foundational to understanding the Self. The orishas, as embodiments of

natural forces and human qualities, facilitate this reconnection as the Self is identified as co-

extensive with not only the orisha but also the aspects of nature and the human they command.

For practitioners, the orishas are what we share with nature on an ontological level.

Through the orishas, these elements are reconnected and naturalised. Anna noted:

Modern life is so twisted … our sense of self, our bodies, and our connection

with the land have been warped.

Furthermore, as the orishas are not distant or disembodied divinities, they are sensed and

experienced in these aspects of nature. For example, Oshun is the river but also the

embodiment of human qualities like eroticism, seduction, motherhood and love. She is the

beautiful queen of all sweet things in life. A practitioner who is identified as a child of Oshun—

perhaps what Anna means as “our affinity with them”—is encouraged to go to the river, talk to

Oshun there, and embody her qualities to advance in life. One of my friends in Cuba, who is a

priestess of Oshun, told me that her odú identifies her as “the one who conquers the world with

honey”. Indeed, her soft character and embodiment of the qualities of the Afro-Cuban “Venus”

have opened many doors for her.

In Australia, public discussions of Santería—both as a spiritual practice and as the cultural

foundation of music and dance—are often framed around this theme of connection to nature

as sacred. As babalawo Adrian Medina says in I Am Aché (Hearn, 2019):

Embracing and listening to Mother Nature can teach us who we are, how to

overcome problems, and how to pursue opportunities. Each year, we meet

at the sea’s edge for the Afrekete festival to connect with the ocean’s natural

energies.

Australians are acutely aware of the disconnection in modern society. As Anna explained:

We are all connected. But we live in a world that is so disconnected, and I

think we are suffering for it. The pandemic really drove that home. It

connected us in new ways, but it also made us realise how much we took for

granted, like sitting in front of a loved one. The facilitation of connection is

something worth dreaming about.

I had never heard the words “connection” and “community” mentioned so often back in Cuba.

In Cuba, the focus of religion is more about solving everyday life problems. As a Cuban

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

practitioner told me in an interview, in Australia, nobody needs the orisha’s help to resolver a

pair of shoes. He says most Australians who talk to him are feeling lonely.

In one of the Afrekete workshops, a practitioner drew attention to the disconnection by

comparing the treatment of animals in Santería, which involves prayers and gratitude, with the

treatment of livestock in industrial meat production, which is completely disconnected from life

and nature. Natural scientists also refer to this kind of disconnection from nature. Beery et al.

(2023) describe this as a “lack of awareness or disregard for human identity in material

elements and within flows, energy, and other non-material elements that constitute nature”.

Drawing on various authors, they emphasise the importance of recognising nature’s non-

material contributions, such as inspiration, joy, and the deep, non-instrumental relationships

that exist between humans and the natural world.

3.2.2 Connection and metapersons as cross-cultural elements

There is a therapeutic effect in relating to the natural environment as a “You” rather than just

an “It”. The orishas, as both human qualities and forces of nature, enable a relationship of

kinship that practitioners often describe as “connection”.

This relationship reflects what philosopher Martin Buber (1937) described as the I-Thou

relationship. Buber suggested that human interactions with the world can take two forms: I-

Thou and I-It. In an I-Thou relationship, we engage with another being or element as a “You”,

recognising it as a living, dynamic entity with which we can form a meaningful connection. This

contrasts with the I-It relationship, where we treat the other as an object or thing, beneficial but

ultimately disconnected from personal engagement.

In the context of Santería, the orishas facilitate this I-Thou connection by embodying both

natural and personal, human traits. The aché of the orisha and nature are intertwined with the

human and nonhuman realms. This dynamic allows for the type of kinship and connection that

Buber regarded as central to genuine human relationships with the surrounding world.

One might wonder: how can a white, educated English speaker, born and raised in a first-world

society, adopt such ontologies beyond a superficial belief in an exotic religion? Marshall

Sahlins’ concept of the metaperson (Sahlins, 2013, 2017a, 2017b) could provide a cross-

cultural explanation for this ontological shift.

Metapersons are nonhuman entities attributed with consciousness, such as divinities and

ancestors. These entities are present in every culture, making the idea of metapersons a cross-

Chapter 3

cultural concept. Although their specific attributes, names, and stories differ across cultures,

their main functions are pretty similar. The broad presence of nonhuman entities viewed as

conscious resonates naturally with Santería beliefs.

Santería’s transnationalisation is further supported by the religion’s openness to new

interpretations and its permeability to cultural incorporations—even if, at times, they remain

speculative. For example, some Australians playfully speculate that the rock art at Burrungkuy

(Nourlangie) in Kakadu National Park depicting Namarrkon (Argyriadis & Huet, 2008), an

ancestral figure responsible for lightning storms, could hint at a mythical visit by Shango, the

orisha of thunder and lightning. In Aboriginal culture, Namarrkon is depicted with two axes on

his head, elbows, and feet, which are used to produce thunder and lightning. Similarly, Shango

is often depicted with a double-edged axe, the Oshé, on his head in both Cuban and Yoruba

traditions.

Sahlins argues that the ontological agnosticism that has long supported ethnographic

relativism is no longer a sustainable analytical solution, as summarised by Pina-Cabral:

If metapersons and their attributes are nothing but the unfounded opinion of

our respondents, how can we explain the existence of metapersons

everywhere around the world, as well as our own readiness to interact with

them? (Pina-Cabral, 2018)

For many Australians, it is easy to relate to orishas as natural ecologies or metapersons. Unlike

the instrumental view of nature as an “it,” seeing nature as a “who” enables meaningful

interaction between persons and metapersons. Sahlins describes this mutual engagement as

“mutualities of being” (Sahlins, 2011), where beings and metapersons actively participate in

each other’s existence.

Melbourne University’s 360-degree film, Who is Nature? (reference), was filmed in Mexico,

Cuba and Australia as part of an Arts Faculty research project. It explores this concept. Hearn

explains the film’s title:

During 2019-2020, I visited sacred sites in Mexico, Cuba, and Australia. In

each place, I asked community leaders, “What does nature mean to you?”

While their responses varied, they all described nature not as a resource to

be extracted, but as a living entity with which to form a relationship. Nature

is not a what, but a who (Hearn, 2020).

As Anna from Cairns put it, the orishas “facilitate that connection”. This who-to-who connection

implies a form of relational deixis, which constitutes both the subject and the other in the

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

relation. Relational deixis refers to how language and interaction position individuals in relation

to one another and the world. It involves words or actions that indicate the speaker’s

relationship with others or their environment, shaping how they understand and interact with

them. As the anthropologist Viveiros de Castro (1998) suggests, saying “I” and “You” is not

just about language, but also about how we actively participate in and are transformed by our

interactions with the world, emphasising mutual influence and connection.

3.2.3 Human connections

As well as disconnection from nature, social disconnection is a serious issue in Australia. A

report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that many Australians experience

loneliness and social isolation (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023). Even before

the COVID-19 pandemic, 1 in 5 Australians surveyed between 2001 and 2021 reported feeling

“very lonely” Social isolation refers to having objectively few social relationships or roles and

infrequent social contact. At the same time, loneliness is a “subjective, unpleasant or

distressing feeling of lacking connection with others, accompanied by a desire for more, or

more satisfying, relationships” (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023). As the report

notes, a person may not be socially isolated but can still feel profoundly lonely.

For some practitioners, connection to the orishas redefines human relationships. Initiation

processes establish kinships that are seen as ontological rather than just moral obligations.

Joanna, an Australian practitioner who was part of my conversation with Anna, offered a

poignant example:

Yesterday was a classic example of connection. I was really struggling. My

uncle had just passed away at the beginning of last week, and I hadn’t had

time to grieve, feel the loss, or process his death. And then, two Obatalas

just appeared. I was sitting, talking with Lindley—she’s Obatala—and then

you walked around the corner, and it was like … “Yes, this is exactly what

was supposed to happen”. That’s a connection.

Lindley, a practitioner from Adelaide who was initiated with me in Sydney, is an Obatala. So

am I. A practitioner is considered a “son” or “daughter” of their orisha, inheriting their aché,

which includes the orisha’s agency, personality traits and even their challenges (e.g., anger

issues, tendencies toward hypersexuality, or vulnerabilities to things like alcohol). The name

of their orisha also refers to practitioners, so a child of Obatalá is often called “an Obatalá”—a

manifestation of Obatalá’s essence, embodying his cooling and calming energy (known as

funfun in Lucumí).

Chapter 3

The key point is that connections in Santería are understood as ontological, not merely moral

or social. Whether the connection is to nature, to other practitioners, to spirits, ancestors, or

one’s sacred Self, these relationships are seen as natural consequences of who they all are—

who is nature, who is the Other and who is the Self.

3.3 Self: I am aché

I asked several practitioners to describe what aché means to them, and it became clear how

closely their explanations were entwined with their perceptions of themselves, their personal

histories, backgrounds, feelings, knowledge, and values.

Rose

, an Australian practitioner, explained:

Because I study science, I think of quanta and quantum physics—even the

smallest and largest quanta of energy required for any interaction. For me,

aché is like the energy that underlies the interaction of all things.

Her reference to studying science explains why she describes aché in this way. She also drew

from her knowledge of Indigenous cultures:

You know when the Māori perform the haka and show the whites of their

eyes—that’s showing their aché. They have strong aché. And when the

women do the wiri (a hand movement), that’s another indication of the aché

flowing through them.

Rose’s understanding of aché goes beyond these cultural constructs. It is also an expression

of her embodied sense of self:

I’ve always felt very strong in aché, full of life force, ever since I was really

young. I’ve always been deeply spiritual and searching for something

magical because of the amount of energy I’ve always had. When I first heard

the cantos (chants) for the orishas, something just clicked inside me, like a

lock falling into place. That’s how I think of aché.

Rose’s description aligns with the title of Adrian Hearn’s 2019 short film, I Am Aché. Adrian,

who is both an artist and scholar, defines aché as an “enabling force”, a succinct yet profound

explanation. He elaborated further, saying, “For me, the concept of enabling is deeply

intertwined with inspiration”. Identifying aché with inspiration is common among artists

(Schmidt, 2012). Adrian added: “This is why we start the I Am Aché film with the words ‘an

Not her real name

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

impulse’. It’s a very direct, existential experience for me”. For Adrian, these aché experiences

are often tied to music, especially drums.

Other practitioners offered similar patterns in their descriptions. They might begin with simple

definitions like “aché is blessings” or “the power to make things happen”, but then expand

beyond that, delving into personal experiences and emotions that are deeply intertwined with

their subjectivity.

Kent, an Australian babalawo and ethnomusicologist, who is also a martial artist and Zen

meditation practitioner, gave his take on aché:

If I had a good Zen koan [a Zen story], I could tell you what it is. For me,

aché is a very deep understanding of the dynamics of the world. It’s the

foundation of everything and the force that keeps things moving.

As a musician, he experiences a strong sense of aché during performances and rituals, often

associating it with inspiration.

In Chapter 7, I will share the story of Adrian Medina, a Cuban dance instructor and now a

babalawo, who faced a personal crisis and asked himself, “Am I happy with all I have done for

those around me?” This existential question led to his initiation into Santería. When I asked

him what aché is, his response reflected his newfound purpose: “For me, aché is that legacy—

what I am doing, right now, to create a better future for my mother, my son, my brother, for

myself.”

Aché is often described as a moment of self-recognition, as Adrian puts it, “something very

existential”. Rose echoed this sentiment, saying, “I always was …” but this self-realisation

comes through encounters with the Other. There is always an element of aché that exceeds

explanation. Like Zen koans, aché is both what is expressed and what cannot be fully

expressed—it is the Self, and more than the Self. It is an experience of unveiling a core part

of oneself that can only be realised by reaching beyond personal boundaries into something

new yet already known as possible to be realised.

Rose comes alive when she says,

I have a sense that I’m touching God, that I’m completely open, coherent,

and part of something that only requires this frequency of me. And I can give

in to that. It’s joyous. It’s … it’s very … it is a divination in and of itself.

Chapter 3

Rose describes her experience as a divination—a revelation that highlights how religious

experiences play a key role in shaping subjectivity and identity. Velma Love (2012), in her

ethnography in the United States, refers to this as a “divination of the Self” in Santería

practices. However, this is not to say that it is a divination in the sense of foretelling something

that does not yet exist. It is a divination of who the person already is, but where such a

revelation comes from outside themselves.

3.4 Aché anew: a manifesto

I refer to this section as a “manifesto”, echoing Haraway’s (2000) concept of “faithful

blasphemy”. Blasphemy requires taking things seriously, challenging norms from within while

insisting on the importance of community. In theorising aché, we must consider its ethical

dimensions—not as morality (since aché is neither good nor bad; Hagedorn, 2001), but as how

beings form relationships and acquire the capacities needed to navigate life, not only in internal

but also in ecological terms (Cullen, 2020). Thinking of aché anew requires embracing the

humanitas within us, including the elements of “primitive mentality” (Lévy-Bruhl, 1975), that

challenge our common sense and rationality, where collective effervescence and rushes of

energy leak through. It is about thinking humanness anew, while at the same time embracing

who we already are and what we sense as possible to be realised.

The summoning and consequent performance of the sacred in a profane

environment can be construed as the ultimate improvisation, the ultimate

risk, the ultimate search for help in a world gone mad—when the divine

inspiration of spontaneous creation is gently tossed into the audience, like a

gift, in the hopes that it will be received by a kindred and wise spirit, someone

who understands the origins of the gesture: a sacred convergence of

utterance and reception (Hagedorn, 2001, p. 116).

Interpretations first championed by Durkheim and later by Lévi-Strauss dampened debates on

mana (a phenomenon similar to ache) that were once central to anthropology. Tomlinson and

Tengan (2016, p. 14) argue that linguistic, historical and structural approaches have

constrained our understanding of mana-like concepts. Mazzarella (2017) also critiques

structuralist and linguistic frameworks for their inability to account for the disruptive and

transgressive dimensions of religious experiences, such as mana.

In my fieldwork, I observe that practitioners engage with aché as a way of transcending the

limitations society imposes on their identities. In the words of Hagedorn above, “as the ultimate

improvisation, the ultimate risk, the ultimate search for help in a world gone mad” (Hagedorn,

2001, p. 116).

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

Christina, in the film I Am Aché (min. 12:13), puts it succinctly: “Society lacks that connection.

We are pushed into boxes, into a way of life that society imposes on us”. These boxes define

the limits of who you are and what is possible, and dictate how you can connect with nature,

others, or even yourself.

Holbraad (2012, p. 183) views the polysemy of aché as a result of its “excess of meaning”. He

argues:

What makes aché so powerful is precisely the fact that it transgresses

distinctions one might otherwise take to be axiomatic, including the very

dualities that underlie Lévi-Strauss’s attempt to analyse terms, such as

signifier versus signified, language versus word, concept versus object, and

so on (Holbraad, 2012, p. 183).

This leads me to ponder: What if the excess of aché’s meaning reflects the excess of

participants’ own humanness? What if aché allows us to escape the boxes we are placed in,

to recover what Jean-Luc Nancy calls our humanitas—the essence of being human—in a

disconnected society? What if aché allows us to create who “we really are” as the actualisation

of the potentials we feel possible to be realised?

Holbraad writes (in Henare et al., 2007, p. 193):

Like all good debates, the French one about mana turned on a common

premise, namely that the elusiveness of mana—its “singular ambiguity”—

was a matter of what one might call its excess. Summarising the state of play

on mana, Lévi-Strauss explains that the problem mana-terms present to

anthropologists has always been a matter of “the apparently insoluble

antinomies attaching to the notion of mana, which struck ethnographers so

forcibly, and on which Mauss shed light: force and action; quality and state;

substantive, adjective and verb all at once; abstract and concrete;

omnipresent and localised”.

The “excess” of mana is the systematic transgression of distinctions generally expected to be

axiomatic. My argument is that, at least in the experience of my informants, the excess is a

promise of potentials sensed as capable of being realised but limited by commonly accepted

or “axiomatic” understandings of the Self. It is transgressive because it must be so in order to

free such possibilities—potentials for creativity, connection and the expansion of the Self

beyond the constraints of axiomatic distinctions culturally established—between nature and

humans, spirits and person, objects and subjects, and so on. It is an excess precisely in relation

to these distinctions.

Chapter 3

Jean-Luc Nancy (2000) suggests that in a world where numbers define humanity, humanitas

itself appears as an excess that sets the standard against which we measure ourselves (p.

179). In Being Singular Plural, Nancy opens with Marx’s quote, “To say that a man is alienated

from himself is to say that the society of this alienated man is a caricature of his real

community”. Below this, Nancy writes, “We are meaning”, introducing the idea that existence

is inherently relational. He challenges the traditional notion of individual autonomy by arguing

that beings are defined through their relations with others. This resonates with the practitioners’

view that aché and Santería are all about connections between people, nature, spirits and the

Self.

The word “disconnection” in this context echoes Marx’s idea of “alienation”, or Entfremdung,

which refers to the estrangement of individuals from their human nature (Gattungswesen, or

“species-essence”). Similarly, aché represents a force that enables reconnection,

transgressing the limits of how we typically understand ourselves and our relations with

humans and nonhuman others.

As people in Oceania say of mana, such concepts are “too hot to handle” (Holbraad, 2012, p.

183). Just as aché and mana escape simple linguistic categories, so does our humanness. No

human being can be reduced to generalised categories such as “man”, “woman” or “person”.

These labels serve the purpose of social reproduction, but they also limit what it means to be

human. The “normal” is merely normalisation (Foucault, 1995). History is filled with atrocities

committed in the name of these categorical boundaries—whether it be the persecution of

witches, the stigmatisation of homosexuality, or the racial and mental health disparities justified

through rigid labels.

Deleuze and Guattari challenge these limitations, arguing that structures and identities attempt

to fix truth in a knowable form. Nevertheless, nothing remains fixed; everything is constantly

crossing over into something else, decomposing and recomposing beneath the identities we

construct (Mansfield, 2020, p. 145). Language itself sets limits, marking the moment when

excess begins (Deleuze, 2004, p. 2). Language also transcends these limits, opening an

infinite field of becoming (pp. 2–3). In this way, the word aché functions as both a definition

and a subversion of definitions. “I am aché” is a way of defining the “I” but subverting the social

“I”, and at the same time, is a way of saying “I am much more”. Aché, as both a signifier that

captures without limiting and a signified that escapes any definition, continually does the work

of transcending limits and allowing for infinite possibilities of humanness.

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

The phrase “I am aché” also captures the cultural continuity expressed in the construction of

the Self among practitioners from very diverse backgrounds. More than a set of beliefs about

aché, what is passed on is the “I” positioning, dialogically constructed with Santería Others.

Greg Urban’s paper The ‘I’ of Discourse (1989) explores how the first-person pronoun “I”

operates in discourse, particularly in relation to cultural transmission and transformation. He

examines how the “I” functions beyond mere reference to an individual speaker, arguing that

it plays a crucial role in the circulation and reproduction of discourse within a social system.

To claim “I am aché” is to assert an identity that, at the same time, transgresses the limits

imposed by society’s everyday roles and gives continuity to aché discourses and experiences,

new yet known, as potentials that can be actualised (Deleuze, 1984; Lazzarato, 2009). In that

sense, there is change and continuity. The “I” claim participation in the excesses of aché and

Santería’s ontologies of connection—to say, “I am a child of a deity, connected to nature and

the divine”—something that feels like a more authentic expression of the Self. It is common for

participants to say, “I have always been…”, to describe the experience of the Self as something

they had already sensed. The polysemy of aché reflects not only its ontological excess but

also the excess inherent in the human experience. In this sense, aché breaks out of the moulds

of social reproduction—the roles we cling to only because we believe them to be real and

unchangeable.

People’s descriptions of aché are speech acts. For a drummer, aché is “vibration.” For an artist,

it is “inspiration”. For an immigrant, it is “good luck”. For the sick, it is “health”. Aché is inclusive

for a diverse community and represents “connection to nature” for a society where people are

alienated from it.. In a pandemic of loneliness, aché represents connection to others.

Speech act theory, developed by philosophers J.L. Austin and John Searle, examines how

language is used to perform actions, rather than only convey information. It argues that when

we speak, we do more than describe the world—we can also make promises, give orders,

offer apologies or declare commitments. These “speech acts” are classified into different

categories, such as directives, declarations and performatives, where the very act of speaking

creates or changes a social reality. Saying “I am aché” or “I am Obatala” and similar statements

are performative.

Deleuze and Guattari remind us that the most crucial aspect of subjectivity is not internal

identity but the “surface of the skin”—the interface between the Self and the exterior world.

The Self is not a fixed structure but a threshold, a point of becoming between two multiplicities

(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 249). Even Durkheim said, “There is virtually no moment of our

Chapter 3

lives when a certain rush of energy fails to come to us from outside ourselves” (Durkheim,

1995 [1912], pp. 213, 227–228, 230). This “outside” is where we connect to the Other,

transcending the limits of social categories.

Rose captures this beautifully when she says, “The authentic ‘I’ is open, coherent, and part of

something that requires this frequency of me. I can give into that, and it is joyous. It is a

divination in and of itself”. This experience of self-revelation echoes Deleuze’s idea of

becoming something new, something already sensed but not yet fully realised (Deleuze &

Guattari, 1987, p. 305).

This phenomenon is similar to what Donna Haraway (2016) describes with her notion of

“sympoiesis”—derived from the Greek, “syn” meaning “together” and “poiesis” meaning

“making”. Sympoiesis—“making-with”—stands in contrast to “autopoiesis”, or Self-making.

Haraway uses sympoiesis to describe the collective and collaborative nature of existence,

emphasising the interdependencies of humans, nonhumans, ecosystems and technologies.

As Anna expresses, “We don’t exist without Others”. She goes on to say:

For me, it’s connection to the elements, the earth, the sky, the moon, the

ocean, the rivers, to ourselves. Because without all those things, we don’t

exist.

Haraway’s sympoiesis encapsulates the idea that we emerge from and co-create with the

relationships and systems around us. Entities do not exist in isolation but are part of a dynamic

web of connections.

Perhaps the question of what aché is deserves Louis Armstrong’s famous response about

what is jazz: “If you have to ask, you’ll never know”. Aché may require, as Deleuze and Guattari

suggest, “The necessity of not having control over language, of being a foreigner in one’s own

tongue, in order to draw speech to oneself and bring something incomprehensible into the

world” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2013, p. 440). To theorise aché, like mana, we must “launch

ourselves outward”, perhaps get “drunk on mana” or aché (Tomlinson & Tengan, 2016, p. 14).

3.5 Summary of the chapter

In this chapter, I have explored the concept of aché as a powerful experiential opening,

transcending the limitations of language and conventional categorisation. Drawing on fieldwork

and personal narratives, I argue that aché reveals the Santería Self as fundamentally

connected with human and nonhuman Others. By understanding aché not merely as a spiritual

“I am aché”: Creativity, connection and the Self

or metaphysical force but as an expression of our collective potential beyond the limits imposed

by dominant paradigms, the chapter underscores the inherent relationality and excess of

human experience.

Employing the notion of "excess" as articulated by Holbraad, aché is shown to defy simplistic

definitions, existing simultaneously as an object, a force, a concept, an action, and a bridge

between abstraction and concreteness. Practitioners report experiences of aché as the

actualisation of potentials that are sensed as new and exciting, yet deeply known, as authentic

expressions of who they are.

Echoing contemporary scholars, this chapter calls for moving beyond linguistic and structural

approaches that previously constrained discussions of mana-like concepts. By thinking

through aché rather than merely about it, we open analytical pathways that embrace and

illuminate the rich, transgressive potential inherent in such complex phenomena. The chapter

ends with a “manifesto” exhorting us to take seriously these transgressions aché as

expressions of the excesses in our own humanitas.

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Chapter 4 Relations: Assembling aché

It was 2021, during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had arranged a Zoom

interview with Sydney-based babalawo Michel. His imposing frame dominated the virtual

window of my laptop. Dressed in green and yellow, the ritual colours of Orula, Michel greeted

me warmly insisting we begin not with questions, but with a prayer.

“It’s Thursday,” he said. “Every Sunday and Thursday, at this time, I offer my prayers to Orula.

I cannot skip that.”

He moved away from the screen. The camera now captured the back of the room where an

altar stood with candles, offerings, and the presence of Orula. Michel faced the shrine. I sat in

silence, observing. I could hear him mention the names of his ancestors and orishas. His voice

oscillated between chants and invocations. Then, amidst the murmur of prayers in Lucumí, I

heard my own name.

He called me using my ritual name—my given name, the name of my odu, and the phrase

“Omó Obatalá”: child of Obatalá.

Michel’s invocation was more than just a formality—it was an act of ontological inclusion.

Through the prayer, he reaffirmed the bonds that united us in ritual kinship and connection to

the orishas. Across the screen, through dislocated space, he prayed for the flow of aché.

After the ritual, Michel returned to the camera. I thanked him for the prayer. He smiled and

said, perhaps a little apologetically, that he sometimes struggled to remember the names of all

his godchildren. “There are 47 of you now, in Australia,” he said with a chuckle. “But I keep

detailed records of everyone. All the names, the odus Orula gave…, the advice. It’s all written

down.”

I then asked him about how he became a practitioner.

“Bueno, mira” (“Well, look”), he began, his voice calm but charged with the intensity of precious

memories, “en Cuba, ya tú sabes… naces bendecido. Uno nace a la sombra de los orishas”

(“in Cuba, you know… you’re born blessed. One is born under the shadow of the orishas”).

From the very beginning, Michel described his path as marked by the presence of the spirits.

Raised in a religious household, he grew up surrounded by orishas, participating in rituals with

his grandparents. His grandmother, Petronila, was a powerful and widely respected santera.

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“Muy, muy reconocida,” (“very, very well regarded”) he repeated, emphasising not just her

status, but her spiritual power. “En un sentido… muy fuerte, ¿me entiendes?” (“In a sense…

very strong, you understand?”)

Still, he said, “as a boy, anyway… I really had a normal life”. The turning point came in his

teenage years, not in a spiritual vision or a personal crisis, but in the context of sport. Michel

had become a high-performance athlete, a member of Cuba’s national discus team. “I

represented my country for about ten years, nationally and internationally. Many

competitions…”

At sixteen, he boarded a plane for the first time—heading to a youth competition in Mexico—

and with that departure came his mother’s solemn warning. “En el deporte cubano hay que

estar protegidos” (“In Cuban sport you have to be protected”), she told him. Michel added: “Es

una guerra aquello” (“It’s like a war out there”).

I understood what he meant. My uncle, a member of Cuba’s national motocross team, often

travelled abroad for international competitions. The pressure was intense, but the greater

threat was unseen. Much of the protective ritual work my family performed for him was aimed

not just at accidents or injuries, but at spiritual attacks—witchcraft from rival athletes’ families,

for example. My grandmother, along with the rest of our kin, regularly carried out rituals to

ensure that the orishas and our protectors would watch over him, ward off harm, and open the

path to success.

Michel’s mother, alert to the dangers that could follow a young athlete abroad—jealousy,

rivalry, and the persistent undercurrent of sorcery and manipulation—guided him toward

protection. She took him to a babalawo. “Y ese babalawo después se convirtió en mi padrino”

(“And that babalawo later became my godfather”).

That first consultation was decisive. “Desde la primera consulta ya Orula me venía viendo con

camino de Ifá” (“From the first consultation, Orula was already seeing me on the path of Ifá”).

To have camino or “path of Ifá” means that he was called to become a babalawo.

Michel received his Mano de Orula with the odu Irete Yansa, discovering that he was a son of

Shango. “It was beautiful”, he said, with unmistakable emotion in his voice, “that’s why I believe

so much in Orula… from that moment my life changed”.

The interview lasted over an hour and a half, revealing many complex aspects of Michel’s life

as an immigrant practitioner—his responsibilities as a padrino, the challenges of ritual

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adaptation, and his vision for the future of Santería in Australia. These themes are rich and will

be taken up in other parts of this thesis. For now, I turn to what is most relevant for the argument

of this chapter: the constellation of human and non-human beings—ancestors, orishas, ritual

tools, prayers, and kinship ties—that together compose the relational fabric of Santería. It is

through these assemblages that aché flows and is made operative, sustaining both spiritual

and social life across geographic and cultural distances.

The topological analysis presented in this thesis focuses on two essential dimensions of ritual

assemblages: relations and becomings. This chapter specifically addresses the first of these

dimensions –relations. Drawing on ethnographic data, it argues that Santería embodies a

relational ontology characterised by emergent properties irreducible to individual components,

whether human or non-human. Relational ontology posits that the connections between

entities are ontologically more determinant than the nature of the entities themselves. This

approach contrasts sharply with the substantivist ontology predominant in Western thought,

where discrete entities are considered primary and relationships are considered secondary

and derivative (Wildman, 2010).

In Santería, relational ontology is actively constructed and continuously maintained through

ritual practices. Initiations are crucial junctures at which practitioners form assemblages,

dynamically evolving through ongoing interactions with orishas, ancestors, sacred objects, and

fellow practitioners. Santería's conception of the Self aligns closely with Espírito Santo’s (2019)

concept of "Self-systems" and the notion of "assemblages of copresences" of Beliso-De Jesús

(2015). Here, the Self is understood as a "locus of experiences" (Harris, 1989), rather than as

an isolated individual; Self is an emergent phenomenon—akin, for example, to how "wetness"

arises from the collective behaviour of water molecules.

By closely examining Santería practices, this chapter demonstrates how a relational ontology

is embedded in lived experiences, from initiation ceremonies and interactions with sacred

objects to daily engagements with orishas and other beings. Using my participation in the Mano

de Orula initiation in Sydney (2020) as an illustrative example, the chapter highlights how a

practitioner's journey is fundamentally rooted in assembling relationships with both human and

nonhuman Others.

Firstly, I describe how, from the initial initiation—the Mano de Orula—new practitioners are

incorporated into religious lineages that practitioners understand not merely symbolically but

as ontological connections. Subsequently, I illustrate relationships with ancestral spirits that

are established through initiatory practices and/or family links. Finally, I examine how these

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relational dynamics manifest within the practitioner’s body. The body is conceived as an

assemblage, especially the head, where the orisha is “seated” through priestly initiations, and

the Orí or “destiny” of the practitioners’ lives.

4.1 Lineages of aché: Mano de Orula initiation.

As Michel explained, the first initiation most Santería practitioners undergo in Australia is the

Mano de Orula. Presided over by babalawos, this ceremony intertwines the physical, spiritual

and ritual, drawing the initiate into a web of sacred connections. It commences on a Friday and

lasts until Sunday.

On the first day, an air of solemnity fills the room as offerings are made to the eggun

(ancestors), calling forth their blessings and protection. Each novice, clothed in white, is ritually

presented before the eggun. This is the ritual I described at the beginning of the thesis

introduction. In the afternoon, they receive their warrior orishas: Eleguá, Oshun, Ogún and

Oshosi, deities who will protect and guide them for the rest of their lives. These entities are not

merely figures or symbolic representations of the orishas, but their actual presence.

The power or aché of each warrior resonates with the goals, challenges and choices the

practitioner will face in life. Eleguá, a cement head with cowry shell eyes, serves as the

doorkeeper and the “owner of crossroads.” As the one who opens and closes doors, he keeps

vigil from the altar at the entrance. He guides the initiate at every fork in life’s path. Ogún and

Oshosi rest within a clay pot filled with tools—a miniature machete, a hammer, a bow, and an

arrow—and embody the raw strength and ingenuity required to face life’s challenges. Each

tool in the pot is a tangible fragment of their power, as well as a tangible representation of their

presence. We could say that these tools are the body of these orishas.

The second day of the Mano de Orula is quiet as novices are instructed to remain in reflection,

spend the day indoors and avoid social gatherings. On the third day, known as the day of the

Ita, the babalawos cast the sacred palm nuts (ikines) on the divination board to determine each

initiate’s odu. The odu is a divinatory pattern that maps the practitioner’s life. As the babalawo

marks symbols into the powder spread on the divination board, the patterns emerge, holding

stories, taboos and wisdom for the initiate.

Once the reading is complete, the initiate receives the Ildé de Orula, a bracelet of green and

yellow beads, which they tie around their left wrist. Worn close to the skin, it serves as a

constant reminder of the orisha's presence and protection from premature death, illness, and

misfortune. Through the initiation, the neophyte joins a lineage; a padrino (godfather) and an

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oyubona (second godfather) root them within a spiritual family, adding layers of kinship and

belonging.

4.1.1 Energy works: the birth of the warriors

At my own Mano de Orula initiation in 2020, I was one of seven novices: an Australian man,

five Australian women, and a four-year-old boy with Latino heritage. Being born and raised in

Cuba, I felt a profound connection to the ritual’s familiar rhythms and energies. The ceremonies

took place in Michel’s home. Five babalawos—three Cubans, one Uruguayan, and the

youngest, an Australian-born babalawo, Dominic (“Dom”) Kirk—presided over the rituals.

English and Spanish mingled in the air. Alexis, the ceremony’s leader, called out in Spanish,

thick with Lucumí phrases that carried the weight of his aché (aché lenu, or aché of the tongue).

On Friday afternoon, all dressed in pristine white, we novices stood outside the cuarto de Orula

(room of Orula). Inside, the babalawos worked, “birthing” our warriors. The sound of chanting

seeped through the closed doors, filling the house with a solemn rhythm. Dom emerged,

closing the door firmly behind him, and announced, “Your orishas are being born now”. His

voice hushed us instantly. He asked that we pray silently, seeking blessings, resolutions to our

problems, and a good birth for our warriors. He encouraged us to call upon family spirits,

ancestors, Orula, the warriors, and even our Orí (the top part of the human head, where the

Orí, or “destiny,” resides).

“It is all about energy work”, he added.

The year after, during the Afrekete festival, I asked Dom about this “energy work”. Shifting

fluidly between English, Lucumí and Spanish, he explained: “What’s going on is, more than

anything, an energetic process … channelling energies from out in the universe into those

warriors”. He sees babalawos as “energy workers”:

… we as babalawos are invoking and enlisting and in that sense,

manipulating and working … certain acheses, energies, divinities and forces,

so that we can channel [them] from out in the universe into those warriors …

These warriors are not static symbols but active, relational beings. They are charged (from

Spanish cargar, meaning “to charge”) with the energies of plants, animal blood and the

collective aché of the practitioners and the babalawos. Practitioners offer them ritual gifts: food,

candles, tobacco smoke, palm oil, cocoa butter and alcohol; offerings meant to nourish and

sustain them. At times, a priest will feed them with animal blood, but only when needed for

religious celebrations, specific tasks or “works” (trabajos). Each offering is a way of

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strengthening the orishas so they can, in turn, fight for the devotee—a vivid reminder that the

relationship with these entities is not one-sided but very reciprocal. The power and purpose of

the orisha is intricately tied to the devotee who receives them. Palmié (2018) describes this

relation between humans and spirits as “symbiosis”.

All the elements that are used for birthing the orishas are considered acheses (plural of aché).

“Mental energies” are only one form of aché the babalawos manipulate. The warriors are “fed”

with the aché of animal blood, and washed with omiero, a potent mixture of many plants, water,

and other secret acheses. Babalawos must tear the plants with their bare hands, so their own

aché goes into the mix, while chanting and reciting sacred odus in Lukumí. The odus are also

acheses, and considered divinities themselves (Holbraad, 2012, pp. 118-119). More than just

a prayer, the chanting of the odu in Lukumí is regarded as a form of “encantamiento”

(incantation) that holds its own aché, as well as the aché of the priest who pronounces it.

The “birth” of the orishas refers to the process of them being born out of the orishas of the

priests who perform the initiation. The perception of the orisha as a newborn is literal. David

Brown (2003) recounts that if a scheduled initiation is cancelled after the orishas have been

“conceived”, a funerary rite, or ituto, is required, akin to an abortion rather than a burial.

4.1.2 The birth of the practitioner

On Sunday, the third day of the Mano de Orula, in the complex divination ritual called the Itá

takes place. It is this divination that determines the odu into which the initiate is “born”, and the

birth of the odu is also considered the birth of the initiated as a practitioner. It marks the

beginning of a new journey walking with multiple Santería copresences. As Michel said, “from

that moment my life changed”.

During the divination, Michel sat on the floor with his legs extended and apart. He then asked

me to sit opposite him, ensuring I was between his ankles. Between us was the Opon de Ifá,

a wooden board on which the divination is cast.

The divinatory configurations (odus, plural of odu) that Michel marked in the powder (aché of

Orula) during the ritual indicated that I was born under this sign and, as such, I would inherit

“the energies” that the odus contained. There are 256 possible configurations which amount

to the 256 odus. Besides divine beings, the odus are collections of mythical origin stories,

advice and taboos. They must be studied by the initiates who should shape their lives

according to them, if they are to prosper in their endeavours. In these stories, the odu may

appear in forms as varied as a warrior, a diviner, a king or an animal.

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When Michel told me about his own journey of initiation, he explained that his life changed

after his own Mano de Orula when he was sixteen years old. According to the predictions of

his Odu, Irete Yansa, he would achieve prosperity. But like Irete Yansa, he would also have to

endure perils. In mythical stories related in the odu, Irete Yansa had to undergo suffering

before becoming a king. There are 256 possible odus, each representing not only divine beings

but also collections of origin stories, advice, taboos, and archetypes. Initiates are expected to

study these stories and shape their lives according to them in order to prosper. In mythic

narratives, an odu might appear as a warrior, a diviner, a king, or even an animal.

The diviner told Michel that there would be separations. “Y realmente así fue” (“and that is

really how it was”), Michel told me. He left Cuba in 2002 and was unable to see his family for

eleven years due to Cuban laws that prevented him from returning as a visitor. The law

changed in 2013, and Michel hurried to Cuba as soon as he could afford his initiation as a

priest of Shango, the next step in becoming a babalawo.

The act of divination is considered the birth of the practitioner. The sign or odu is revealed on

the board between the diviner’s legs. What this birth means to practitioners is better illustrated

by a conversation I had some time after with Michel, now my padrino, who, in his words, “gave

birth” to me.

In 2023, more than three years after my initiation, I returned to Sydney for a conference taking

place a short walk from where Michel, my padrino, was working. I was pleased to have had

enough time to see him before my presentation, as we hadn't seen each other in about a

year—we had both been very busy.

He told me about how, “with the blessing of Orula”, he had not only achieved national

recognition in Australia for discus throwing in his age category but was now preparing a young

athlete for the Olympic games, and a woman for the Paralympics. I expressed my regret that

it had been so long since we’d met up. Michel’s response was: “We are connected, we are one

in the religion. Even if we have a fight and stop talking to each other, we are still united in

heaven”. And then, he repeated a phrase I had often heard from him since my initiation: “Yo

te parí en Ifá” (Sp. “I gave birth to you in Ifá”). The birth is not only a metaphor for a beginning,

but it also indicates an ontological connection. It is, so to speak, a sort of “genetics” of aché.

It was strange for a white Cuban like me to hear this from a black former Olympic athlete,

slightly younger, who is a child of Shango, the epitome of what many Cubans understand by

manhood. But what Michel emphasises with the expression “to give birth” is that the connection

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we have is ontological, not just symbolic. That is why he explains, immediately after, that even

if we have a disagreement or go a long time without communicating, we are still connected,

much like a mother is genetically connected to her children even if they do not talk to each

other. This connection is a kinship in which I now partake, as part of Michel’s lineage and the

aché that has been passed to him through generations.

Babalawos can recite their lineages by heart because reciting their names is part of their

Moyuba, a long, structured prayer used in every ritual. Moyuba is a Lukumí word meaning “I

pay homage”, but the prayer’s objective is to invoke the power and blessing of the lineage—

their aché.

As Murphy (1988, p. 8) explains, aché is “present in the human line of continuity with the past”.

Every generation owes its existence to the one before it, each laying the groundwork for the

next. This is why, in the Mano de Orula ceremony and in all other significant rituals, the first

step is to seek the blessing of the dead, as we did in the ritual performed early in the morning.

The Lukumí phrase Ikú Lobi Ocha, meaning “the dead gave birth to the Saint”, reflects this

belief. It signifies that the eggún (ancestors or “muerto”—the dead) are essential for facilitating

interaction with the orishas. Without their permission, the orishas will not communicate with

us.

4.2 Relations with the spirits of the dead.

Two years after my “birth” in Ifá, Michel stayed at my house while competing in the 2022

Master’s Athletics national championship on the Gold Coast. When he entered my home, he

took a few steps into the hall, turned right, and looked down toward the altar where I keep my

warriors—the ones I had “received” from him three years earlier. As is customary when

entering a practitioner’s home, Michel greeted my Eleguá by knocking three times on the floor

with his fist, introducing himself with all his ritual names and titles, and asking for the blessing

of “doorkeeper”. “I haven’t seen them since they were born”, he remarked, referring to my

warriors (Eleguá, Oshosi, Ogún and Orula).

Still before my altar, Michel gently sat on the floor, tilting his head reverently toward the orishas.

The six-foot-tall figure held the small, old bronze bell I keep beside my Eleguá. In his large

hand, the bell looked tiny. It had belonged to my grandmother, who taught me my first prayers

and how to call the orishas with it. It is one of the few precious items I brought from Cuba.

“That bell belonged to my grandmother”, I said.

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He rang the bell and began his moyuba. The prayer begins by honouring the Creator, calling

him by the three names (Olodumare, Olorun, Olofi), then proceeds to all the orishas, the

children of the orishas, ancestors—both living and deceased—and invokes their aché. Each

priest’s moyuba is unique, shaped by their ancestors, lineage and spiritual connections. One

part of the moyuba includes recitations such as “aché baba, aché bobbo kaleno ocha, aché

oluwo, aché ayibbón, aché apetebbí, aché iyalocha babalocha, aché bobbo iworo” (Holbraad,

2012, p. 155). Holbraad translates this as an invocation of the “powers” (Sp. poderes) of Olofin,

one of the names of the supreme Creator and the primordial source of aché. Yet, words like

baba (father), oluwo (priest) and apetebbí (wife) indicate the relationships through which this

aché is conveyed. The orisha who guards the practitioner is also addressed as “father” or

“mother”, depending on their gender.

Suddenly, Michel paused his moyuba, looking at me with wide eyes and showing me his

forearm, covered in goosebumps. “Tu abuela está aquí” (“Your grandmother is here”), he said.

He immediately instructed me to gather items for setting up an ancestral altar, or bóveda: nine

glasses of water arranged in the shape of a cross, a photo of my grandmother, a candle, and

a white cloth with the sign of Ifá drawn on it. We spent the next 20 minutes arranging the

bóveda. Michel explained that my grandmother’s spirit was nearby and had seized the

opportunity of a babalawo’s visit to let me know of her presence. He told me that I should now

use the bóveda to speak to her, ideally every week, on Saturdays, the day dedicated to the

eggún (ancestors).

Michel explained that, from now on, I might notice unusual occurrences in the house—objects

falling without apparent cause, strange noises. These would be my grandmother’s attempts to

communicate, to help me or offer advice, and I should listen.

When I asked Michel why my grandmother had chosen this moment to reveal herself, he

replied, “Un babalawo es un muerto vivo” (“A babalawo is a living dead”). The bond between

a babalawo and the dead is a deeply secret part of their initiation, and he did not consent to

share more details.

Michel could sense my grandmother’s presence because he participates in her realm—the

world of the dead. At the same time, my grandmother’s ability to enter the world of the living

depended on Michel’s presence as a “living” intermediary. “They are ‘symmetricalised’ to each

other, as it were, and in mutual states of coming under each other’s influence” (Palmié, 2018).

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4.3 The body as an assemblage

For an initiated priest, the body is also perceived as a topography of relations. “Shango lives

here”, Michel says, pointing to the crown of his head. As a babalawo, Orula also resides in his

belly. His odu is tattooed on his calves. Although this is not ritually required, it is for him a way

of walking with or in his odu. Several beads, necklaces and bracelets suggest his alliances

with other orishas.

Like Michel, those born under Shango’s protection are endowed with luck, strength and

charisma—his aché blesses and is shared with his children. Other aspects, such as embodied

emotions and states like anger and sexuality, are connected to this orisha. Orishas’ children

inherit specific vocations, tendencies, abilities and traits, both positive and negative: “a wise,

placid individual may be associated with Obatala, while a wild man-about-town may be

associated with Shango” (Clark, 2005, p. 26).

Michel attributes my intellectual inclinations to Obatala, my guardian, as Obatala is known as

the “maker of the human head” and the owner of the “aché of thought” and mental clarity. The

“energy” of an orisha is also embodied in the sense that it's rooted in a person’s physical and

mental being, and it's embedded in the social context. That’s why, just before my guardian

orisha was revealed during my Mano de Orula, some practitioners were convinced it would be

Obatala. When I asked them why they were so sure, they pointed to my calm demeanour and

quiet tone of voice. The father of the four-year-old boy mentioned, for example, the way I

interacted with his son when he was refusing to enter the initiation room.

But unlike Michel, I am not a priest, so I do not share my body with an orisha. This distinction

is essential for understanding how ontology in Santería shapes Selfhood through relationships

and perceptions mediated by the literal presence of the sacred in and around human bodies.

In my case, for example, knowledge alone lacks depth without the presence of the orisha

residing in my head. “You must receive Obatala”, Michel says, and explains that other

practitioners will not “respect” my knowledge in the religion, regardless of how many books I

read or how erudite my explanations. Unlike our logocentric Western cultures, Michel

emphasises that my intellect does not inherently command “respect”. In this context, “respect”

is an appropriate relationship with the sacred, with the orisha residing within one’s body (more

on this in further chapters). During the asiento (“sitting”), also known as the “crowning”

ceremony, the orisha is “seated” upon the practitioner’s head, which becomes their “throne”.

From then on, the initiate is considered a priest of said orisha. The head is shaved for the ritual,

and the orisha is then fed in the abode of the orisha on the top of the practitioner’s head.

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“Respect” extends to my capacities in matters of ritual. I once asked Michel if I could cast obi

divination—using coconut rinds (Appendix 1)—to seek guidance from my own Eleguá without

relying on a priest. Opinions vary among practitioners: some believe a non-priest cannot

perform divination without the orisha living in their body. In other words, if only practitioners

who have an orisha living within their bodies can divine, then people who have only undergone

the entry-level initiation of Mano de Orula (therefore, the orisha is not in their bodies, but only

in their altars) can also divine. In contrast, others permit this kind of divination for personal

guidance, particularly for those who have undergone the Mano de Orula and therefore have

Eleguá among their personal warrior orishas. Michel’s response was nuanced. He explained

that the divination would be much more reliable if I received Obatala in my head, because

when I cast the divination, Eleguá would see not just me but the powerful father-figure Obatala

casting alongside me.

Eleguá, known for his child-like trickery, may sometimes offer unreliable advice, whereas

“royal” orishas like Shango or the righteous Obatala are more steadfast in their responses.

Some answers from obi divination, like etawa (a “weak yes”, see Appendix 1) might be

considered final when coming from Obatala. As the saying goes, “Eleguá throws a stone

tomorrow and kills a chicken yesterday”. Therefore, diviners often “test” uncertain answers by

repeating questions and only accept them as final after receiving consistent responses. Michel

believes that Eleguá would “respect” the elder Obatala if he were present in my head and

would not dare mislead me. “Eleguá sees Obatala, not Carlos”, he says.

For practitioners, the body functions as a kind of sacred map, with particular emphasis on the

head, where the orisha lives—the guardian orisha is often called “owner of the head”. This

sacred map is best understood not as an abstract belief but as an ontology—as a way of being

in the world in relation to other beings. A striking example of this phenomenon is evident among

those who leave Santería to join Christian churches in Cuba and other countries. Even after

adopting a new creed, many remain fearful of the consequences of discarding their orishas

and ritual paraphernalia. In such cases, it is often a Catholic priest or pastor who takes on the

responsibility of removing them. These cases highlight that, for practitioners, Santería is not

merely about belief but about the presence of spiritual entities within the body. It is less a

question of what one thinks than who inhabits one’s body. Much like placing a coin in

someone’s pocket—whether or not they acknowledge it, the object remains there, exerting its

presence regardless of personal conviction.

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A pivotal moment in the process of initiation that implies a radical transformation of Santería

bodies is the initiation as a Santería priest and the year that follows it, which practitioners call

yaworaje.” The term yaworaje originates from yawo or iyawó, meaning “wife”, which

practitioners like babalawo Kent Windress translate as “bride”. Regardless of gender, a new

priest is considered an iyawó; he or she is a “bride” of the orisha residing in their head.

Most practices during the yaworaje are focused on the body. Cleanliness is paramount during

this one-year-long period. No one should touch the iyawó’s personal belongings. They eat

using cutlery that is only used by them and sit on a mat used for rituals. “Brides” should avoid

funerals, visiting the sick, and even looking into mirrors. Although these rules may vary by

house or lineage, they affect every aspect of their lives. Their sleep, diet, movements, and

even modes of social interaction are governed by rules that prioritise ritual purity and spiritual

protection. They must regulate sexual intimacy and avoid public crowds, parties and direct

physical exposure to natural or social turbulence.

Carr (2016) describes this process in her autoethnography as a transformative restructuring of

the Self to incorporate the sacred into one’s life and body. She explains: “Religious expression

happens at home, on the streets, at work and school, in artistic performances, in financial

dealings, at the playground and the gym, and in the grocery store” (p. 23). From a sociological

perspective, this process is “a dramatic resocialisation, especially with regard to relationships

with the orisha and relationships with families, friends, and co-workers” (p.20). Reflecting on

the prohibition of mirrors, she writes, “When one is denied a mirror, s/he relies much more

heavily on the eyes of others” (p. 19). This change in identity results from reconfiguring the

practitioner’s relationships and self-perceptions—a “bride” of the orisha, a child of the orisha,

a godchild and a member of a religious lineage. Relations to the others are primary in this

reconfiguration.

Windress (2010, pp. 153-165) explains: “The rules are meant to instil discipline and enable the

iyawó to avoid attracting negative energy that might interfere with the power to communicate

and represent the orisha that is installed in the head during the asiento”. Arrangements are

sometimes necessary to accommodate daily life. Michel, for instance, worked as a security

guard in Sydney during his initiation, and he sought permission from the orishas to work night

shifts. Similarly, Julie, another initiate, explained her white clothing to co-workers as a “fashion

statement”, deflecting further enquiries.

The practitioner’s head is the “throne” or “seat” of the orisha. The Orí, located at the top of the

head, is considered a deity in its own right, akin to the “soul”. In the Rogación de Cabeza

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(Prayer or Rogation of the Head), certain foods are ritually placed on the head and left

overnight to feed the Orí. A similar but more complex ritual, the Ebbo Meta, is performed three

months after the orisha has been “seated” on a new priest’s head. The crown of a new priest’s

head is treated as delicate, like the fontanelles of a baby, especially during the first year

following initiation to the priesthood. Only the godparents (padrinos) and, in emergencies,

medical personnel are allowed to touch the novice’s head during the yaworaje, or year-long

period after a priest’s initiation. The orisha living in the head is also very “young” as they are

also “born” during the initiation. Traditionally, priest celebrate the day of the birth of the orisha

as their birthday (both their own and the orisha’s), and the older both are, the more respect

they command.

The Ebbó Meta is a pivotal ritual in the year of yaworaje, marking the transition of the iyawó

from the initial phase of their spiritual journey into a more autonomous stage of religious life.

Conducted three months after the initiation ceremony (called Kariocha), this rite serves to

"refresh" the orisha received by the initiate. The ritual is directly performed on the practitioner's

head. It is intended to awaken them from their period of rest after birth and to integrate them

more fully into the practitioner's daily life. In some cases, this ceremony also involves the lifting

of certain restrictions imposed during the initial three months, such as rules about sexual

conduct. I witnessed Alexis administering an Ebbo Metta to Julie, an Australian priestess,

during a ceremony on the Gold Coast. During this ritual, he “fed the head” with coconut and

other substances, and chanted prayers and odus directly to the head. There were only a few

centimetres of distance between his mouth and the scalp of the priestess. The breath and the

saliva of the babalawos are considered powerful sources of aché.

In 2021, I attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Christina Monneron’s initiation. Kent

Windress officiated rituals and directed the drumming. As practitioners arrived, each of us paid

our respects to Yemaya at the altar Christina had arranged in a corner of her home. We

approached one by one, lying face down on the floor in the traditional manner. According to

custom, practitioners should not stand up without assistance from an elder in the religion. The

elder practitioner typically taps the practitioner on the shoulder and says a few words, asking

for blessings from the orishas.

As the only babalawo present, Kent needed to find someone who could act as his elder. His

only option was Christina, who, despite Kent’s higher initiation, holds seniority as she has been

a priest longer. Additionally, this 20th anniversary represented a milestone of maturity within

the religion, marking Christina’s transition to the status of Santero Mayor (Elder Santero). In

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other words, the orisha that lives in Christina’s body is older than the orisha in Kent’s body.

Therefore, Christina is older than Kent, as they also belong to the same “house” or religious

lineage.

Practitioners traditionally wear beaded bracelets and necklaces associated with specific

orishas as a way of embodying spiritual protection. These items, like green and yellow beads

for Orula, white for Obatalá, or red and white for Shango, are believed to channel the orishas’

aché into the body. In doing so, they connect the wearer not only to spiritual forces but also to

the divine and natural environments that the orishas inhabit and oversee (Issa, 2021).

Practitioners view the discipline of yaworaje as more than reinforcement of a moral code; it

protects the practitioner and amplifies their aché. The rituals dramatically reconfigure the

practitioner’s subjectivity, transforming them into “the living vessel of an orisha’s aché” (Brown,

2003, p. 195). Such relational constellations and the affective experiences they elicit provide

a fertile ground for creatively “divining” a Self (Love, 2012). Many Australian practitioners may

lack a complete understanding of these complexities, depending on godparents for guidance.

However, each practitioner actualises aspects resonant with their authentic Self and

experiences, allowing aché potentials to emerge in unique ways through interaction with a

network of dynamic entities. Resonances, inclinations and events of life are explained or taken

to be manifestations or confirmations of the influences that configure the life and personal traits

of the practitioner.

The orishas that practitioners receive are unique entities themselves and, at the same time,

specific manifestations of the orisha essence—a “multiplicity” (Goldman, 2005). This term

captures their dual nature, as each orisha is both an individual entity, referred to as “my Eleguá”

or “my Yemaya”, and an expression of a larger archetype. As these relationships deepen, they

gain individual distinctions, evolving into personal narratives and unique expressions of orisha

support, such as “my Eleguá travels with me” or “he doesn’t get sweets often, so I give him

rum”. This shared story, though uniquely personalised, exemplifies the ongoing intimacy and

dynamism in orisha-human relationships, as well as the potential for creative interpretations of

these relations. The next chapter focuses on the transformations that occur in these relations,

utilising Deleuze’s notion of becoming and the anthropological concept of participation.

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Chapter 5 Becoming

Yeah… it’s an interesting question because there’s some people, you know,

there’s certain traits. They say ‘Oh that’s because they’re Eleguá…’ or

Obatala, or whatever… but I don’t know if it’s so important about those traits,

it’s just that personal relationship with that orisha… and then maybe that

influences some of the ways you act…

For Kent Windress, the relationship with the orisha is not about fixed traits, but rather an

ongoing becoming —a mode of attachment and transformation. In our interview, Kent

emphasises a process of “identification through relations,” a phrasing he affirmed as precisely

describing his experience. In this sense, Kent distinguishes this from “possession” in the

narrow sense, pointing instead to “constant interaction” resulting in transformations. , this

becoming the orisha cannot be reduced to a symbolic or psychological level. He described

moments of ritual intensity: “Sometimes… if you’re doing ceremonies and stuff and the orisha’s

closer… that’s something you can feel very physically… very physical sensations…”

Santería ritual technologies are also technologies of the Self that do not operate within a

metaphysical binary of mind and body but emerge through assemblages of relation,

embodiment, and affect. Paraphrasing Deleuze, the most crucial aspect of subjectivity is not

internal identity but the “surface of the skin.” Deleuze's philosophy emphasises the importance

of experience and its potential for transformation over fixed identities and representations.

Deleuze and Guattari remind us that the Self is not a fixed structure but a threshold, a point of

becoming (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 249).

The previous chapter examined the relational dimension of Santería ontology. This chapter

explores the second aspect: becoming, the transformative processes experienced by

practitioners as they engage with Santería assemblages. This is not suggesting that

practitioners literally transform into orishas or spirits of the dead; no practitioner would assert

such a literal transformation. Neither do I focus on the transformations occurring during spirit

possession, which Santería is famous for. Instead, the focus here is on what these becomings

accomplish within assemblages, highlighting how Santería worlds dynamically unfold as a

process of what Donna Haraway (ref) called “sympoiesis”—a “making with”—the assertion that

nothing makes itself.

“It’s more about just becoming… like you’re becoming attached to this orisha

and you’re learning about that orisha and then you’re spending time with that

orisha and you’re thinking about that orisha… and then that’s when some of

that aché can… You know… help… that orisha really comes in, into your

being…”

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In Santería, becoming extends beyond mere affiliation, constituting profound transformative

experiences of connection. Practitioners undergo continual reshaping influenced by invoked

divine forces and collective energies, especially during rituals. These transformative

engagements resemble what anthropologists have historically explored under the concept of

participation, originally proposed by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Lévy-Bruhl described participation as

an experiential mode in which individuals deeply connect or merge with spiritual and communal

entities beyond themselves (Lévy-Bruhl, 1926). Similarly, becomings in Santería exemplify

practitioners' active, embodied engagement within ritual assemblages. A topological approach

allows us to revisit and extend Lévy-Bruhl’s insights on participation.

In recent anthropological discourse, Gilles Deleuze's notion of becoming has been increasingly

employed to articulate the fluid, processual nature of social life. Deleuze conceptualises

becoming as continuous transformation and emergence, emphasising fluidity over fixed

identities or states. Rather than static entities, people, identities, and phenomena are

perceived as perpetually transitioning, shaped dynamically through interactions, adaptations,

and environmental responses. Becoming, thus, is not merely episodic or exceptional; it

constitutes the fundamental character of reality itself.

Despite its popularity, becoming is often invoked thematically rather than analytically within

anthropology. Bialecki (2018) illustrated this thematic usage in widely cited anthropological

papers on the topic, for example, Biehl and Locke (2010). While thematic use has yielded

valuable insights, a more rigorous analytical application offers untapped potential, particularly

for scholars examining immanent cultural practices and ontologies, as well as those interested

in the study of participation.

5.1 Becoming Shango

Every year, on December 4th, Michel celebrates the day of Shango, his “head orisha”. One

year, Michel invited “Moro” to celebrate the day of Shango. Airagdin Pavon Moré, known as

“Moro ”, among friends, is a Sydney-based Cuban dance instructor, a talented performer and

a priest of Shango. The celebration took place in Michel’s backyard in Sydney. It was 2021,

and restrictions on travel and gatherings kept the group small, but the energy filling the

backyard was unmistakably powerful.

The gathering included Australians, Cubans and other Latinos with various initiatory

backgrounds, among them initiated bataleros (drummers), babalawos, Santería priests and

aleyos (Mano de Orula initiates). Moro wore his Shango attire: red and white garments, a

crown of fabric on his head, and the oshé, Shango’s double-headed axe in his hand.

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The voice of the akwon (lead singer) called out, commanding attention and setting the pace

for the drummers with a chant. The backyard pulsed with the resonant batá drumbeats,

evoking the primal presence of Shango, the “king of thunder and lightning”. Rhythms and

bodies responded to each other in kind as the ritual’s physical and spiritual intensity grew.

At some point, the energy of the drums reached a plateau. Alexis, the senior babalawo,

stepped into the circle, took the role of atwon and spoke directly in Lukumí to the drummers

and Moro. Though I could not understand the meaning of his words, the references to Shango

were unmistakable. Alexis then began singing a song I immediately recognised as a ritual

canto (chant) of Shango. Facing Moro, he directed the song to him, or perhaps to Shango

embodied in Moro. The voice of the experienced babalawo carried aché.

Guerra (2015) describes language as a bearer of aché, emphasising that words have the

power to build and destroy. Similarly, Hagedorn (2001, p. 120) speaks of the aché of the tongue

in ritual contexts, showing how speech becomes directed power. She illustrates this with an

example of ritual possession, in which “the akwon (lead singer) focused his energy—his vocal

aché—on the man, singing ‘onto’ him the praises that he thought would evoke or goad Eleguá

into coming down.”

In response, Moro straightened his back and returned Alexis’s gaze, proud and defiant,

embodying Shango, the warrior-king. The drumming intensified, and Moro nodded to the call.

He spun into a fierce, blazing dance, leapt, glided down, and then rolled across the circle of

ebullient participants. He then darted from the circle, dancing wildly through the backyard

between the palm trees—Shango’s sacred tree. The others followed him, some exclaiming

“Aché” while Michel shouted, “Shango!”.

After the ritual energy reached its peak, the drumming slowly softened and eventually stopped.

Moro lay on the ground, face down, prostrated before Añá, who resides within Iyá (Lucumí:

“mother”), the largest of the three batá drums. Someone called out once more, “Aché!”.

5.1.1 He is Shango

Moro … if you’ve seen him dance Shango …, he is Shango. He’s not

pretending to be Shango. He’s not choreographing Shango, he is Shango.

And that is a very pure thing.

I have heard several practitioners say that when Moro dances Shango, “he is Shango”, or that

Shango dances through him, even without full possession. This impression arises not only

because he perfectly executes Shango’s dance movements—other dancers in Australia can

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perform these moves as well—but because Moro’s dancing transcends mere choreography.

He is not possessed, but “channels” Shango’s moods: his virility, fierceness, sensuality and

playfulness all radiating from Moro’s personal attunement to Shango’s aché. For Moro, Shango

is “papá” (“dad”), his guardian orisha.

Yet Moro’s dance is not a solitary performance. His body responds to Alexis’s call, as Alexis

sings a song passed down through generations; the drummers, too, respond both to Alexis

and to Moro. Energy ripples through the group celebrating Shango, who watches from his altar.

The ritual becomes a sensory landscape, embodying Shango’s colours, rhythms, sounds,

movements, moods, expressiveness and images. Shango’s presence is not merely evoked

but palpably felt, his energy, his aché, enveloping Moro as much as Moro embodies it in his

dance. The affects produced in this ritual assemblage extend beyond each individual’s skin;

they are collective intensities—waves of energy that practitioners perceive as coming from

“outside” themselves. Émile Durkheim (1995, pp. 213, 227–228, 230) describes this

phenomenon as “collective effervescence”, a notion that ethnographers in Santería, such as

Wirtz (2007c, p. 10), have also applied to Santería experiences..

Yvonne Daniel (2005, pp. 4, 224) characterises Santería as a religion with “dance-dependent

ritual structures and dance-initiated objectives”, containing an embodied wisdom, or

“kinaesthetic knowledge”. Thus, dance moves beyond mere accompaniment to possession.

Daniel describes how her ability to dance “was dependent on being in an ensemble” with

drummers, singers and other dancers (p. 7), showing how the knowledge and energy of the

dance are co-created. This is also the experience of practitioners in Australia, who notice the

different “energy” and power of a ritual in Australia compared with one in Cuba. I also heard

that some practitioners who would often become possessed during rituals in Cuba have fewer

of these experiences in Australia. In any case, context matters, and the relations in which these

phenomena occur transcend individual boundaries.

Furthermore, as Wirtz (2018) showed sound, movement, and material objects do not simply

represent the orishas but actively bring them into presence during rituals. For practitioners

engaging in the rituals, this materialisation process reinforces belief and spiritual efficacy by

making the divine tangible.

Moro’s expression of Shango’s character through ritualised movement is seen as a channelling

of the orisha—a becoming Shango that does not amount to possession. Moro’s dance,

however, is also Shango becoming Moro’s dancing body, and part of an assemblage of chants,

drumming and intersubjective processes. Shango becomes present through the

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expressiveness of the assemblage, in sensations, colours, sound, movement, moods,

meaning and everything that goes into forming the ritual assemblage.

Christina was the first to tell me that when Moro dances Shango, he is Shango. She knows

that Moro does not become possessed, but she connects Moro’s ability to the “crowning” or

priesthood initiation, which she, too, has received, and which she believes gives her the

capacity to channel orishas. She attributes his expression of Shango to an ontological

connection as Shango lives in Moro’s head. Christina explained:

I can see the difference because some people become that orisha … they

allow that orisha to come through them, and they are there […] … if you’re

crowned, you’ve opened the channel … you’ve already opened the channel

… Yeah, so I feel, I’ve been crowned, I’ve been given that right to open that

channel … and I get goosebumps again when I say that …

Moro … if you’ve seen him dance Shango …, he is Shango. He’s not

pretending to be Shango. He’s not choreographing Shango, he is Shango.

And that is a very pure thing.

Christina is a priestess of Yemayá. She told me, “If I dance Yemaya, I am Yemaya. I am not

me …” She continued, “I allow myself to be danced, rather than dance … I can’t explain it any

other way. I am not afraid … whatever that spirit is ... If it is fierce or calm or sensual, I can

express all of that … without being me … if I put me in there, I am afraid of it!”

“I allow myself to be danced”, Christina says, signalling:

- a relational connection with the Other, expressed as “whatever that spirit is”,

- an attunement to intensities and moods she senses and embodies, whether “fierce or calm

or sensual”

- and, finally, a becoming Other, captured in her declaration, “I am Yemaya. I am not me”.

Just as scholars of Candomblé have described, becoming orisha is a metamorphosis rather

than imitation (Bastide, 1961; Goldman, 1985, 2007). Christina further illustrates this in

recounting her own experience of possession, explained below.

5.2 Becoming the dead

During a ceremonia de cajón (a ceremony performed for the dead), Christina was possessed

by the spirit of a Black man, “a big African warrior”, whose fierce presence initially unsettled

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her. Witnesses describe her face as transformed during possession, taking on “almost a very

masculine and fierce” appearance—a striking contrast to the pleasant and gentle expression

of Christina in daily life. In that moment, her possessed face became the warrior’s face, as

much as the warrior’s face became hers, producing a fusion of identities.

According to Deleuze and Guattari, a face is socially and politically “programmed” to produce

particular regimes of signification, guiding how one is perceived and how one performs identity.

A face, they argue, “imposes interpretation upon the subject, which continues to nourish itself

on it in order to survive” (1987, p. 138). Reflecting on this, I remember how, upon arriving in

Australia, I felt compelled to smile politely all the time, even with other members of my

household. By the end of the day, the tension in my facial muscles was evident. As someone

living with autism, I have felt the strain of misinterpretations of my facial expressions, and the

constant demand for my face to adhere to taken-for-granted social expectations—markedly

different ones in Australia compared with Cuba.

When the fierce warrior possesses Christina’s face, he subverts the norms of speech, race,

demeanour, propriety and gendered expression, imposing an alternative regime of

signification. This resulted in a new Christian-African man face, not an imitation but a

metamorphosis which was experienced as empowering. This process created a “zone of

indetermination” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 32), a block of intensities where distinctions

between Christina and the warrior dissolved. In these moments, her body becomes “the body

is something shared with the dead” (Ochoa, 2007, pp. 484, 490).

5.3 Becoming colours

In Santería, colours are modes of aché of each orisha. They are not just symbols but what

Holbraad (2012, p. 161) describes as a “hypermetonymy”. Holbraad explains: “Imagine a

crown that did not just signify royalty, but actually made it—a magical crown, then”. Colour

becomes a material force, enhancing the participatory flow between human and orisha.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of practitioners from the Gold Coast and Brisbane

invited me to participate in a small reunion at a pub. That afternoon in Brisbane was one of the

few times Christina wasn’t dressed in blue and white, the colours of Yemaya, her guardian

orisha. I commented on it, and she replied, “I know! These are my office clothes. When I wear

this, I feel like … this …” She gestured helplessness, shrugging her shoulders and slightly

hunching—a posture and expression that sharply contrasted with the powerful presence she

exudes when possessed by the African warrior spirit.

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At the time we were speaking, Christina worked for a community centre and had just finished

her shift. She continues: “When I wear my blue dress and my elekes (consecrated necklaces

and bracelets), I feel like Superman stepping into the phone booth and suiting up”. She then

straightened her back, expanded her chest, her face brightening and transforming as she

mimed a superhero stance, fists clenched in a gesture of strength. Christina’s blue and white

clothing does not merely represent the foaming sea of the mother goddess Yemaya but

enables her to participate in Yemayá’s power. By wearing these colours, she enters an

“intensive functioning” of the Christina-Yemaya assemblage.

Michel, as a babalawo, similarly embodies Orula, whose colours are green and yellow. He

once bought a University of Oregon jumper in these colours specifically to wear to sporting

events. He has no ties to the university; rather, in his mind, the green and yellow, and the large

“O” on the jumper, stand for “Orula”. Michel, who drove for Uber for a while, even customised

his number plate to read “Shango”, set in red on a white background. For Michel, these colours

bring the orishas into both sacred and secular spaces. Christina also shared that her padrino

in Cuba, another babalawo, often requested green and yellow clothing, after noting that these

colours are used by Australian sports teams.

5.4 Double becoming

Bastide (1961) argued that possession is not a ritual imitation but rather a lived ritual

experience [rituel-expérience vécue] that allows us to penetrate the world of the gods more

easily (Goldman, 2017). Trance, he argued, is a lived reality, not just a representation or

imitation but a metamorphosis (see also Goldman, 2009, 2017).

Goldman (2019) compared Candomblé possessions with the examples used by Deleuze and

Guattari in the chapter “Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible”. The

philosophers also explain that becoming is not a form of imitation. However, another central

characteristic of becoming intense, relevant to Santería, is that it is double. “Becoming is

always double, that which one becomes no less than the one that becomes; a block is formed,

essentially mobile, never in equilibrium” (Deleuze & Guattari 1987, p. 305).

Deleuze and Guattari illustrated double becoming with the tarantism dance, which is performed

to cure or exorcise the victims of a spider bite.

One does not imitate; one constitutes a block of becoming. Imitation enters

in only as an adjustment of the block, like a finishing touch, a wink, a

signature. But everything of importance happens elsewhere: in the

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becoming-spider of the dance, which occurs on the condition that the spider

itself becomes sound and color, orchestra and painting! (Deleuze & Guattari,

1987, p. 305).

This is what practitioners say about Moro: he does not imitate. He is Shango. However, this is

contingent upon Shango, or if preferred, Shango’s aché, being part of the intensities circulating

within the assemblage.

The becoming-spider of the dancer occurs in the sense that the spider is embodied in colours,

sounds and movement. Similarly, Moro is Shango as much as Shango becomes Shango-

songs, Shango-drumming, Shango-dance, Shango-sensuality, Shango-belligerence, his axe,

crown, and red and white colours. What practitioners describe when they say that Moro is

Shango is precisely this: he is embodying all these qualities.

I must emphasise that becoming, in Deleuzian terms, is not limited to possession. Moro’s

Shango, for example, does not involve possession, as he is neither possessed nor seeking

possession. Becoming, in this instance, refers instead to the topological and material

transformations of the face, movement, and affects—changes that do not depend on

possession but on other embodied and relational dynamics.

Ernesto De Martino (2005), who extensively studied tarantism, describes how the dancer

needs to identify the spider that had bitten them by identifying the corresponding music and

colour of the spider and dance holding a ribbon of said colour. Tarantism therapy assumes

that each tarantula is associated with a particular kind of music to which the tarantula itself

dances, and that it has a particular colour. Moreover, the experience described by practitioners

of “being danced” is also a characteristic of tarantism. During the dance, the tarantist

approaches the players as if she wanted to “be played herself” (Magrini, 1994).

Double becoming is the simultaneous sensing of the Self and Others, the Self-with-Other and

the Self-becoming-Other, deeply interconnected in a way that subverts conventional

understandings of the Self, favouring experiential, affective states over rational categorisation.

5.5 Participation

In the anthropological tradition, becoming is framed through the concept of participation. As

first described by Lévy-Bruhl and subsequently by others, participation is defined as the

ambivalent encounter between the singular and the plural in the formation of the person in the

world (Keck, 2005, 2008; Pina-Cabral, 2018). It encompasses the idea of the “soft self”

proposed by Clark (2007), as a fluid and negotiable collection of resources that crosses

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boundaries between biology and artifact. It is an affective and relational binding that transforms

spirits, humans and sensory elements into a new, integrated assemblage where Santería

personhood dynamically emerges.

The notion of becoming allows for an understanding of participation that accounts for

transformations beyond subjectivity. Entities are better understood in constant flux, continually

affecting and being affected by other entities. Becoming allows us to describe participation not

as a mere subjective event, but as a way in which humans can experience and engage with

the world in non-normative, non-rational ways. These events challenge the sovereignty of the

individual sponsored by neoliberal capitalism, and embrace a more interconnected, dynamic

existence. The notion of becoming also serves to highlight a broader anthropological and

philosophical inquiry into the nature of human consciousness and social existence.

Furthermore, Gallagher (2009) proposed a distinction between the problem of social cognition

and the problem of participatory sense-making. The first problem focuses on how we

understand Others. Participatory sense-making focuses on how we make sense of the world

with Others. Both understandings involve social interaction. However, the importance of

participatory sense-making is that it highlights the drawbacks of approaches that ignore the

involvement of others in our perception of the world. Anthropological approaches that

overemphasise the cognitive side of religious processes and neglect participatory sense-

making might be counted among those that ignore this involvement of others. Perception “is

not merely observation. All perception is embedded in living and doing” (Reddy, 2008, p. 29).

The way colours are “lived” in Santería is an example of this.

In these moments, the practitioner’s humanity expresses the divine, and the divine expresses

through the human, culminating in an event marked by intensities of aché, the palpable energy

of Santería ritual experience (Wirtz, 2007, p. 10). As Holbraad (in Henare et al., 2007, p. 164)

argues, “the differences that previously distinguished one cosmological element from another

extensively now become intensive characteristics of those elements themselves”, marking not

merely a resemblance but a homoiosis (Mauss, 1923); a becoming.

5.5.1 More than thoughts: A topology of participation

Understanding participation from a topological perspective is possible because of the

tangibility or sense-ability of spirits," enacted as a "category of action," rather than a question

of belief or as a metaphysical question of spirit possession (Goldman, 1994, p. 230). In this

context, participation is not reduced to a psychological phenomenon, nor does it involve

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theological inquiries about whether spirits genuinely possess humans. Instead, participation is

examined through the material entanglements present in the sounds, colours, movements,

and sensations circulating within ritual assemblages. This tangible, sensory grounding makes

a topological approach feasible, extending beyond mere metaphor.

The “kinaesthetic technologies of copresence” that Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p. 215) described

in Santería assemblages reveal the Self surpassing limits prescribed by dominant paradigms.

In participation, movement itself is a way of knowing and of being-with others in which

participants “discover themselves in movement” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2011, p. 136). In this I

follow Roger Bastide (1953, p. 32) criticism of Lévy-Bruhl: participation is not a “category of

thought” (French: catégorie de la pensée) but a “category of action” (ne catégorie de l'action).

In Mind in Motion, Barbara Tversky (2019) argues that actions become mental acts, enabling

meaning-making through bodily interaction with the world:

Our actions in space change space, change ourselves, and change others.

Our actions create things we put in space that change us and others. They

change our thought and the thought of others (Tversky, 2019, p. i).

These changes manifest as affective intensities, the phenomenological ground from which

Santería’s relational ontologies and embodied epistemologies emerge—actualisations of the

virtual potentials within the assemblage. In this context, the practitioner’s sense of Self and

identity becomes a multiplicity, both human and nonhuman. Espirito Santo and

Panagiotopoulos (2015, pp. 7–8) draw from Holbraad, Goldman and Viveiros de Castro to

describe spirits in Cuban folk religions as “potential relations, as potentially ‘other’ to

themselves”. This orientation is not about seeking Otherness for its own sake but finding the

Self in a shared becoming with the Other.

As Deleuze and Guattari observed, “becomings have optimal peaks and lows” (1987, pp. 257,

263). Practitioners know that “connection” can fluctuate in intensity—becoming more intense

in possession states or less so in moments of “disconnection”. For instance, after a chanting,

dancing and drumming session in a Brisbane garage, I heard one practitioner say they “got a

good download”, while on a different occasion, I heard someone lament there was a

“disconnection” from the spirits.

5.6 Summary: relations and becomings

In Santería, the Self not only “has” relations but also finds itself emerging from these relations,

suggesting a relational structure in which boundaries between the human and nonhuman, the

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Self and the Other, are porous and co-constitutive. As Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p. 77) observes,

“entities are not objects and subjects but phenomena that are entangled and intra-acting”. This

notion resonates with Karen Barad’s idea that entities exist as emergent from relations (Barad,

2007, p. 429). In this view, agencies are relational, not absolute; “agencies are only distinct in

relation to their mutual entanglement; they don’t exist as individual elements” (Barad, 2007, p.

33).

Barad (2007, p. 429) explains that the term “intra-action” signifies the mutual constitution of

relata within phenomena (in contrast to “interaction,” which assumes the prior existence of

distinct entities). That is, relations are not secondarily derived from independently existing

entities; rather, the mutual ontological dependence of relata—the relation—is the ontological

primitive. As will be discussed in more detail later, relata only exist within phenomena as a

result of specific intra-actions (i.e., there are no independent entities but within-relations).

For Beliso-De Jesús (2015, p. 9), copresences are “intra-actions” between practitioners, dead

and alive, mobile and immobile, revealing an ontology where “entities are not objects and

subjects but entangled phenomena”. Materiality—including colours—anchors these intra-

actions: “Gods, stones, people, herbs, blood, plaster statues, and chromolithographs were all

part of an ‘intra-active’ continuum” (Palmié, 2018). Espirito Santo (2019) argues that in Cuban

spirit mediumship, the Self is understood relationally, “moving” beyond a substantive, fixed

identity. This relational movement is essential to agency in ritual, where “the agency of spirits

and their amenability to the agency of people” becomes evident (Wirtz, 2014).

A processual understanding of reality provides a material, ontological foundation for seeing

participation. This approach to participation focuses on relationality, intensity, sensation, intra-

activity, not on the essences or entities. Applying a topological framework to participation

allows us to analyse how the relational dynamics of Santería practices adapt and transform

across different cultural and spatial contexts while maintaining continuity.

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Chapter 6 Osain in Australia

This chapter examines the adaptations of Santería rituals in Australia, with a focus on the

substitution of plants for ritual purposes. Central to this discussion is the ritual of collecting

plants and the interactions with Osain, the orisha of the forest and the owner of plants, whose

domain provides the foundation for much of Santería’s ritual practices.

The chapter applies the understanding of relations and becomings proposed in the two

previous chapters to the topological analysis of the substitution of ritual plants. By identifying

the invariants in both coordinates (relations and becomings) of ritual assemblages, the chapter

demonstrates the homeomorphism that makes the relationality of rituals continuous within

transformations. The adaptability of this relational ontology underscores the resilience of

Santería as a transnational religion capable of thriving in diverse contexts. It is at the core of

Santería’s creative continuity.

Rather than treating the elements within ritual assemblages as static entities (practitioners,

spirits, ritual objects, plants, colours, and sounds), a topological lens allows us to frame the

assemblage as a relational field in which the connectivity and transformation of elements takes

precedence. The aché that practitioners activate through rituals links them to the orishas in a

continuous relational structure, ensuring that Santería modes of participation remain intact

across various geographies. Santería’s relational ontology ensures that substitutions, such as

replacing plants native to the Americas with Australian species, do not disrupt the continuity of

the ritual assemblage.

This discussion also considers Merlan’s (2020) critique of actor-network theory (ANT) and New

Materialist approaches—two theories which draw inspiration from Deleuze’s work, particularly

regarding the role of sentience in agency. In Santería, plants and other nonhuman entities are

understood as metapersons—sentient and conscious Others whose agency is integral to ritual

efficacy. The sentience, or at least the attributed sentience, of the non-human Others enables

relations and becomings, which facilitate and give rise to changes in capacity. This perspective

enriches our understanding of agency in religious contexts and possible interpretations of

Deleuze’s philosophy for anthropology.

6.1 Preparing the omiero

On the outskirts of Sydney’s suburban bushland, it is rare to witness a babalawo collecting

plants for ritual use. They work discreetly, often hidden beneath the tree canopies in the early

morning to avoid curious onlookers. Here, in “el Monte”—the bush—the orisha Osain presides,

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dispensing the aché of plants to those who tread respectfully and follow the prescribed

protocols.

The plants gathered from the forest serve various purposes, but one of the most ritually

significant and powerful is the preparation of omiero. Omiero is a sacred mixture of material

and immaterial elements combined with water, plants being the primary ingredients. It is also

used to cleanse, heal and protect by harnessing the combined aché of all its ingredients.

Omiero is the cornerstone of many rituals and ceremonies in Santería. Its preparation is highly

ritualistic, accompanied by prayers, invocations, chants and offerings to the orishas. Only

initiated priests can prepare omiero, infusing it with their personal aché, which is why they must

tear the plants by hand rather than cutting them with tools. The specific combination of plants

varies depending on the ritual, the orisha being invoked, and the guidance of the priest or

priestess. As with many other practices in Santería, these processes often differ among

lineages.

At the conclusion of the first day of my Mano de Orula initiation, each of us neophytes were

given a small portion of the omiero that had been used to wash the orishas. We were instructed

to pour it over our bodies after showering, just before going to bed, and to allow it to dry on our

skin. It was the same omiero used to wash our warrior orishas. That night, I had a terrible

toothache and retired early. Following the priests’ guidance, I showered and then poured the

omiero over my body from the small bottle they had provided. As the liquid touched my skin,

the fragrant oils and plant essences, combined with other secret ingredients, released their

powerful aroma. As per the instructions, I allowed the omiero to air dry and went straight to

bed.

The next morning, I woke at 4:30 AM feeling completely rested and pain-free. My body felt

light, and my mind was imbued with a profound sense of serenity I had not experienced in a

long time. Having practised meditation since my teenage years, I had known moments of deep

calm. Yet, this was different, as though the peace arose from an external source. While the

rest of the house slept, I quietly prepared coffee and took a walk along the nearby beach, still

enveloped in that tranquil state.

The plants used to prepare the omiero must be collected in the wild. The aché of a plant is

deeply connected to its environment and, more specifically, to the orisha that governs that

space. A garden plant cannot match the spiritual potency of a wild plant growing in the forest,

as it lacks the aché conferred by Osain on plants within his domain. Moreover, the plants are

connected to the spirits and embody their power. As Cabrera (2015, p. 22) notes, “Each plant

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has an owner who is watching”. Plants are said to “belong” to specific orishas. The relation is

often signalled by something in their morphology or characteristics. Colours, for instance, serve

as significant markers of these relationships. A plant or flower of a particular colour associated

with an orisha might indicate this connection, for example, yellow for Oshun or white for

Obatalá.

Different locations are also imbued with the aché of the orisha who resides there. This

underscores the relational and participatory nature of aché ontologies. A plant growing at a

crossroads channels the power of Eleguá, while one in a cemetery resonates with Oyá, and

one found on a mountaintop embodies Obatalá’s energy. A plant does not merely exist in its

location; it actively participates—or, as Pina-Cabral (2018) puts it, takes part in—the aché of

the orisha who imbues the place.

Furthermore, in Santería, plants are considered metapersons with distinct personalities,

preferences, and taboos. Cabrera (2015, p. 22, first published in Cuba in 1954) reminds us:

“Let’s not forget that our blacks humanise it all”, referring to the ceremonial process of

collecting plants. “They all have their mysteries and their quirks” (2015, p. 134). Cuban

anthropologist Mercedes Cross Sandoval (2006) describes plants as having personalities and

moods. As summarised by Brandon (1991):

Not only are plants, weeds, and herbs alive with divine power, but they also

have personality and temperament. Some are easily frightened and

therefore withhold their powers by refusing to bloom. Others are retiring and

shy. Others have brittle, explosive personalities and require the utmost in

etiquette and respect before being picked. If not pampered, others will simply

hide the next time you want to find them.

A plant’s “character” or personality and aché are often expressed in its morphology. Prickly

plants, for example, are considered to have an intense and combative nature and are used in

witchcraft or to confront adversaries—but they are never suitable for omiero, which requires a

“cooling” aché. Similarly, a plant that thrives in harsh environments, such as cracks in footpaths

or rocky terrain, is thought to possess particularly strong aché. Certain plants are known for

specific powers and are accompanied by distinct prayers to call upon their aché. For instance,

practitioners in Cuba may call upon albahaca (Ocimum basilicum, also known as Cuban basil)

for protection against enemies or to attract a loved one.

6.2 Osain: Collecting plants in the forest

Before entering the forest to collect plants, babalawos perform prayers and songs, seeking

Osain’s permission to enter through divination. Cabrera (2015, p. 22) recounts her informant’s

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words: “If the forest (Sp. monte) is not greeted, if it doesn’t get paid, it gets angry” (Sp. “si al

Monte no se le saluda, si no cobra, se pone bravo”).

The prayers and songs in Lucumí are not merely symbolic or devotional gestures; they hold

intrinsic aché. Sydney’s babalawo Alexis, in an interview for the film Who is Nature? (Hearn,

2020), refers to these invocations as “incantations”. He added: “We enchant the plants in a

very special manner with Yoruba songs, so they know we need them for our common and

social wellbeing”. The term “incantations” suggests a magical potency, an “excess” beyond the

literal meaning of the words. These incantations, often memorised and recited without

complete understanding of their meaning, resonate aché (note: In this response, Alexis refers

to Lucumí as the “Yoruba” language).

However, the final decision to grant access to the forest lies with Osain. Diviners may employ

Obi divination or the opele chain—a divination tool used by babalawos—to discern the orisha’s

will. If Osain grants permission, the path is clear. Otherwise, practitioners must negotiate

alternatives, asking through divination what offerings might change Osain’s decision. The

straightforwardness of the system requires diviners to carefully phrase their inquiries in a

manner that yields only yes or no answers. For example: “Is it [offering]?” The responses

guide the practitioner through potential offerings that might alter the answer of the orisha,

starting with simpler offerings like fruit and gradually escalating to sacrifices of feathered, then

two-legged, and four-legged animals (in that order). The negotiation may also involve the

babalawo’s intuition in asking questions, a manifestation of their own aché, called aché awo.

Once the required offering is determined and completed, the process is repeated. New

negotiations might be needed until Osain grants access to the forest’s aché.

Once access is granted, babalawos may collect the plants. Protocols governing the treatment

of the plants themselves must also be respected. Plants must be approached with care and

respect, as failure to follow these guidelines can render their aché ineffective or even anger

Osain, with potentially damaging consequences for both the priest and the intended recipient

of the plants’ power.

The timing of plant collection is also taken into consideration. The aché of plants is believed to

be strongest in the early morning. Plants for omiero must never be collected after sunset.

Plants gathered at night are primarily used for witchcraft. They are often bitter, toxic, or prickly.

Practitioners only remove parts of the plant rather than uprooting it completely, ensuring its

survival for future use. This way, the plant remains willing to give its aché when needed again.

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In Cuba, yerberos—herbalists who sell plants for medical, culinary or ritual purposes—often

refuse to sell plant roots, even for a generous price, because uprooting a plant would breach

this principle by killing it. Many Cuban yerberos are also priests of Osain or osainistas—

specialists in the ritual and medicinal uses of plants—who have a deep relationship with the

plants they harvest. Carelessly killing a plant not only risks its refusal to share its aché but

might also bring spiritual repercussions from Osain.

After collecting the plants, practitioners must leave payment, often in the form of coins, next to

the plant, as an offering of gratitude. In my family, during the 1970s and 1980s, it was

customary to use one-cent coins for this purpose. In the tradition followed by my family, the

number of coins left would correspond to the orisha associated with the plant or the trabajo

(ritual work) being performed—for example, eight coins for Obatalá, twenty-one for Eleguá,

four for Oyá, or seventeen for Babalú Ayé. Practitioners in Australia seem to be less concerned

with the number of coins, but they do pay the plants for what they take.

6.3 Plant substitution

Many plants essential to Santería rituals are difficult or impossible to source in Australia. Many

are native to the Americas, making them particularly scarce in this region. In the United States,

practitioners can find ritual plants in numerous botánicas—stores dedicated to Afro-Cuban

ritual supplies—both in physical locations and online through platforms like Amazon or Etsy.

Australia, however, lacks options like the botánicas with the small number of practitioners not

generating sufficient demand for such services, and importing such plants from overseas is

prohibited by Australia’s stringent biosecurity laws.

One Cuban practitioner in Sydney faced this challenge when he needed Escoba Amarga for a

cleansing ritual. Known by its sacred name, Ewe Guama (plant of the thoughts), practitioners

use it to clear the mind from negative spiritual influences. Practitioners carefully guard the head

which must be kept “fresh”, for it is in the head that the orisha lives. A proverb in the odu of Ifá,

Ejiogbe Irosun, warns “if my head does not sell me, nobody shall buy me”. It is a patakí that

recounts how the orisha Eleguá recommends using Escoba Amarga for spiritual cleansings.

This ritual involves “sweeping” the client’s body from head to toe with a bundle of plants and

other elements. During the process, the santero blows tobacco smoke and aguardiente (a

strong alcoholic drink) over the client’s neck and body. The aché of the practitioner, carried in

their breath, merges with prayers to limpiar (cleanse) the negative spiritual influences affecting

the individual. I vividly remember my grandmother performing this ritual for me. She would

envelop me in the pungent aromas of rum, tobacco and freshly gathered plants. These scents,

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combined with her invocations, created a cocoon of sacred protection for her children and

grandchildren.

Different varieties of amaranth exemplify the principles of “freshness” and “hotness” that

permeate Santería’s ritual lexicon. White amaranth (Amaranthus albus) is considered

appropriate for initiations because of its cooling properties, while red amaranth (Amaranthus

viridis L), which is prickly, is unsuitable for such ceremonies.

The “hot–cool” dichotomy is one of the most generalised principles in Santería. Many rituals

are designed to cool down or “freshen” the orishas, the spirits of the dead, or the practitioner’s

own head and path. My grandmother often performed rituals to “cool down the house”, using

a mixture of plants, perfumes and cascarilla (powdered eggshell). Some orishas, such as

Shango and Eleguá, are considered “hot”, while others, like Obatalá, are funfun, meaning

white, “cool” or “fresh”. Many rituals, including the Moyuba, begin with the act of cooling the

space by letting drops of water fall to the ground while praying: “Omi tuto, aché tuto, tuto ilé,

tuto Laroye, tuto arikú babakua” (Lukumí: Fresh water, fresh aché, freshness for the house,

freshness for Laroye [another name for Eleguá], freshness for long life).

Unfortunately for the practitioner in Sydney, Escoba Amarga is classified as a prohibited

invasive species in Australia. An article in The Conversation (Cowie, 2018) offers a grim

portrayal of its ecological impact, labelling it a “poisonous herb” that “spreads rapidly and is

devastatingly destructive…kills other plants within its vicinity, wipes out entire crop harvests,

poisons wildlife as well as livestock, makes food inedible, and causes a variety of health

problems in humans”. Despite such obstacles, practitioners in Australia have not allowed the

unavailability of traditional ritual ingredients to impede their practices.

6.3.1 The signatures of plants

I use the term “signature” to describe the association practitioners make between the

morphological characteristics of plants and the sacred. Inspired by the ideas of Paracelsus

(1493–1541), the father of toxicology, the concept of signatures refers to external

characteristics that indicate internal or unseen qualities (Paracelsus, 1988). The signature of

complex organisms like humans is hard to discern, whereas in plants, shape, colour, texture

and smell reveal their therapeutic value. The principle that the similar can be cured by the

similar has guided the use of medicinal plants for centuries.

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The doctrine of signatures, widely cited in the literature on medicinal plants, has its roots in

early Western medicine, with contributions from figures such as Galen, Pliny the Elder, and

Dioscorides, and was championed by the botanist William Coles (1626–1662). In 1669,

Oswald Crollius believed that plants communicate to us through signs indicating their medicinal

properties. He stated, “for everything that is intrinsic, bears the external figure of its occult

property” (cited in Bennett, 2008).

In Santería, I see signatures as clues to a plant’s mode of aché. White flowers, for instance,

carry Obatalá’s cool and cleansing aché. The red-and-black seeds of Abrus precatorius

(commonly known as Paeonia seeds) are associated with Eleguá, reflecting his colours and

his power to protect against harm and mischief. Similarly, sunflowers are imbued with Oshun’s

golden aché and sweetness. Beyond colour, other signatures point to a plant’s aché and its

ritual applications. A plant’s texture—whether prickly or smooth—and its resilience, location

and growing habit also indicate its power. Even taste, such as sweetness or bitterness, offers

insights into a plant’s suitability for specific rituals.

6.3.2 Signatures versus the authority of the orisha

Fonseca and Balick (2018) observed similar practices among Candomblé practitioners in the

United States, who identify suitable plants for rituals. These ethnobotanists identified two

primary methods of plant substitution: “subconscious substitution”, in which practitioners select

plants with similar morphological features to those used in their home country; and “intentional

substitution”, where different scientific species are treated as the same ethnospecies due to

shared vernacular names.

Interestingly, substitutions accounted for only 16% of the cases that Fonseca and Balick

studied. Most plants used by practitioners were commercially available from botánicas, while

a few were sourced from West African stores. In his earlier fieldwork in New York, Brandon

(1991) observed a significant reduction in the variety of plants used there compared to Cuba.

He noted that practitioners had cut their reliance on plants down to only the most essential

herbs for each deity. This reduction is understandable given New York’s “asphalt jungle”,

where wild plants are scarce, forcing practitioners to depend heavily on botánicas. In Australia,

the absence of botánicas and the restrictions on importing plants present unique challenges.

Practitioners in Australia employ strategies similar to those documented by Fonseca and

Balick, but specific characteristics may only hint at a plant's suitability. Here, especially in the

case of initiations and complex rituals, the suitability of the plant is determined through

divination.

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On one occasion, after receiving permission to enter the forest, babalawo Michel encountered

a plant resembling malanga (commonly known in English as Elephant Ears), a plant frequently

used in many rituals. A malanga was precisely what he needed, but there are many species

of Elephant Ears in Australia, and Michel needed to consult with Orula to ensure he got the

right one. Using the opele (the chain used for divination), he consulted Orula to determine if

this plant was suitable for the ritual he intended to perform. To his surprise, Orula did not

approve of its ritual use, despite its similarity to malanga.

Soon after, Michel’s attention was drawn to another plant. Unlike malanga plants, this plant

had narrower leaves and red stems. Once again, he asked Orula if this plant was appropriate.

This time, the response was affirmative. Michel later explained that as a child of Shango,

whose colours are red and white, he believed Shango was guiding him toward this plant. “It

may not work for somebody else”, he noted, emphasising the personal and situational nature

of plant selection.

Michel’s story is crucial for the topological study of plants. While, as Fonseca and Balick (2018)

reported, the signatures of the plants play a significant role in these substitutions, they do not

constitute invariants. The authority of the orisha, as expressed in divinations, can trump any

signatures that practitioners might identify. Thus, the relations with and the overriding authority

of the orisha are what is invariant in the assemblage.

6.4 Topological homeomorphism in ritual plant substitutions

The concept of homeomorphism provides a powerful metaphor for understanding how

Santería’s relational ontology accommodates substitutions of ritual ingredients without

breaking the relational ontology of the assemblage. In the context of Australian Santería

practices, the substitutions of plants due to ecological constraints exemplify how these

transformations preserve the structural integrity of Santería’s ritual assemblages.

In Santería, the aché is made available to practitioners not by the intrinsic characteristics of

the plant, but by its relational placement within a ritual context and its uses. This relational

emphasis allows substitutions to occur without disrupting the continuity of the practice. This

can be demonstrated by considering common invariances as they are studied in topology.

Drawing from topology and assemblage theory, an invariant is a quality, relation or structure

that persists through changes in the components or context of the ritual, ensuring its continuity

and effectiveness. In the context of Santería practices and their adaptation to new ecological

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and cultural environments, an invariant refers to an aspect of the ritual assemblage or

ontology that remains constant despite transformations or substitutions in its external form or

material components.

The analysis below explores the properties of Santería assemblages that remain intact despite

transformations, focusing on the invariants present in both their extensive (relations) and

intensive (becoming) dimensions.

The relational character of Santería ontologies is clear in ritual substitutions: plants-as-aché

are defined by their localised relations with the spirits. For ritual purposes, a plant’s identity as

a member of a species is secondary to the relational context established within the ritual

assemblage. When practitioners enter the assemblage through established protocols, the

plant becomes actualised as aché.

The protocols followed by practitioners are consistent between Cuba and Australia. However,

in Cuba, the relational ties between plants and spirits are often embedded in myths and

revealed through signatures—visible characteristics that signify a plant’s spiritual alignment.

In Australia, where these plants must often be substituted with unfamiliar flora, myths do not

predefine their connections to spirits or their aché. In these cases, practitioners rely directly on

divination to establish these relationships.

In this dynamic, divination not only assumes the role traditionally assigned to myth but, in

specific contexts, such as the determination of signature, even supersedes it. Thus, the living

relationship between practitioners and the orishas emerges as the fundamental principle

ensuring continuity. It is important to emphasise, however, that the divination ritual itself is not

a topological invariant. In Cuba, traditional myths guide practitioners in determining which

plants are suitable for specific rituals, thereby eliminating the need to individually consult the

orishas each time a particular plant is collected. Nonetheless, practitioners must obtain

permission from Osain before entering the forest and must faithfully observe all ritual protocols

in preparing the omiero. Here, the invariant lies in the supreme authority attributed to the

orishas rather than in the methods employed, such as 'signatures' or divination itself. Divination

remains indispensable, but only as the means through which the relationship between the

practitioner and the orisha is actualised. In this sense, divination is the “voice of the orisha.”

Wirtz (2018) showed that the “voices of the orishas” do not emerge spontaneously but

materialise through ritual processes, including Ifá divination, cowry shell readings, and trance

possession. Wirtz defines the “voice of the orisha” as the ritualised, mediated, and socially

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negotiated speech of the orishas, made present through divination, possession, and

ceremonial discourse, where human intermediaries—such as priests and diviners—

materialise divine messages through prescribed linguistic and performative techniques. Priests

and diviners act as interpreters, transforming divine speech into actionable knowledge for

devotees.

The substitution of plants in Australia can be compared to the classic example of the doughnuts

and coffee cups. From a categorical standpoint, doughnuts and coffee cups belong to different

groups—let us say, pastries” and “open-top containers”, respectively. However, in topological

terms, they share the same relational structure, as both can be reshaped into the other without

breaking or creating new connections. They are homeomorphic systems. Similarly, plants can

be grouped by their botanical classifications—genera, species or families. According to this

classification, a plant in Cuba from a particular species and a plant in Australia from an entirely

different species would be considered distinct. However, for practitioners, it is the relational

assemblage in which the plant is situated that determines its ritual function and suitability. In

topological terms, the relations that define a plant as aché in Cuba are homeomorphic—that

is, equivalent—to the relations that define a plant as aché in Australia. It is this continuity that

matters rather than the specific biological or taxonomic identity of the plant.

It might be worth mentioning that while we often regard classifications such as species as

“naturally given”, these are also relations established by humans. These categories are human

constructs, abstractions based on selected characteristics for the sake of organisation.

Aristotle is often credited with developing such classifications, influenced by the transcendental

forms of his teacher, Plato. The systems are not necessarily arbitrary, but they represent just

one possible mode of categorisation.

For instance, evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, after extensive

research on marine life, concluded that there is no such thing as a “fish”. Many aquatic

creatures are more closely related to terrestrial species than to one another—for example,

salmons are more closely related to camels than to a hagfish (Beswick, 2016). Gould argued

that the category “fish” is a human construct grouping creatures from disparate evolutionary

branches.

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6.4.1 Topological invariants in the relations

We can further ground the argument by examining the topological invariants in the relational

aspect of the assemblage; the characteristics of Santería assemblages that remain constant

amid adaptations. These characteristics include:

• Boundaries and boundary-making processes: The ritual assemblage uses the same

boundaries and boundary-making practices. They have the same relational “inside”

and “outside” of the assemblage.

• Hierarchy of participation: The hierarchical structure that organises who can do what

remains invariant. Authority, such as that of the orishas, determines the validity of

substitutions, and there is a structure of who can access the advice of the orisha and

perform the ritual. This hierarchy remains even within a ritual.

• The constitutive character of the relation: Relations, not intrinsic properties, define

entities within the assemblage as aché.

I will now explain each of these invariants.

6.4.1.1 Boundaries and the relational field of aché

One of the topological invariants within the ritual assemblage is the boundary established

between the “inside” and the “outside.” This boundary is relational rather than physical; it is

demarcated through the practitioner’s engagement with ritual protocols according to their

capacity to participate in a particular ritual or aspect of it.

The act of entering the forest or approaching a plant in Australia mirrors the relational

boundaries observed in these rituals in Cuba. The homeomorphic continuity here lies in the

practitioners’ boundary-making practice: greeting the forest, offering prayers and seeking

divinatory confirmation of permission to “enter”. These practices transform the Australian bush

into a space where Osain’s aché can be accessed, irrespective of its geographic or botanical

differences from the forests of Cuba. Thus, the boundary is preserved as a relational construct,

maintaining the integrity of the assemblage.

“Entering” the forest in a Santería ritual does not merely refer to crossing its geographical or

legal boundaries, such as a fence, the forest’s edge or a demarcation sign. Physically, a

babalawo might already be within the forest, walking among the trees and then seek

permission to enter a particular area. Likewise, a practitioner visiting the same location on a

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Sunday morning for a stroll or a picnic would not engage with Santería protocols but approach

the landscape as something to enjoy with family and friends. For many practitioners, however,

even during such casual visits, the forest retains an affective presence, albeit of reduced

intensity, and there is no need for the protocols used when collecting plants.

To “enter” the forest in a ritual sense is to step into a specific composition—a ritual assemblage,

or a relational system of spirits, humans, and material elements. In this context, the forest

embodies a juxtaposed ontology. The “inside” of the forest in this sense holds Osain’s aché;

“outside” is an Australian forest. These relational modes emphasise that Santería’s ways of

participating in the world do not create a “world apart”. Instead, they coexist with or juxtapose

the “ordinary” world. The difference lies in the relational configurations activated by ritual, not

in spatial demarcations. This point is crucial for understanding how practitioners live “between

worlds” in contexts like Australia (see Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion).

Boundary-making is an ongoing, pervasive process in Santería. In ritual spaces, these

boundaries are enacted through demarcation, access to ritual knowledge and even the use of

ritual language. For example, during my own initiation of Mano de Orula, we were not allowed

to enter the room where the omiero was prepared and the orishas were born; there was a clear

spatial boundary. Wirtz (2005) described how the use of Lucumí as a ritual lexicon not only

enhances the mystique of the ritual, but the obscurity or unintelligibility of the lexicon also

constitutes a pragmatic enactment of boundaries. Those able to understand “position

themselves as authoritative by performing their linguistic competence in the ritual language”

(Wirtz, 2005). The use of ritual language creates ritual participant structures based on

communicative exclusivity, which contributes to a hierarchy of religious authority. Espirito

Santo (2010) also argues that boundary-making is central to Afro-Cuban religious life, as it

allows practitioners to construct their identity, defend their practice, and navigate social power

structures. These boundaries shape who is seen as a legitimate spiritual authority, what

practices are considered authentic, and how different groups interact within Cuba’s religious

and political landscape.

For the aims of my research here, boundaries delineate a hierarchy of participation that, as

Wirtz (2005) states, “descends from the orishas to ritual experts and elders, to all santeros,

whose ability to use Lucumí distinguishes them from non-initiates”. Such boundaries are kept

intact in Australia while performing ritual adaptations.

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6.4.1.2 Hierarchy of participation

Santería’s ontology places the orishas as the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes aché.

Divination, as a mediating tool, ensures that plant substitutions align with the orisha’s will. This

hierarchy establishes a mechanism in which relational equivalences, rather than intrinsic

properties, validate substitutions.

For example, the narrative of Michel’s discovery of a plant with red stems that Orula approved

through divination highlights how relational qualities (such as the plant’s colour resonating with

Shango’s aché) override taxonomic classifications. The relational network of aché remains

intact, ensuring that substitutions are not arbitrary but guided by the orisha’s authority.

Another hierarchy concerns the “formality” of the rituals. For example, higher initiations, such

as a priestly initiation or the initiation of a babalawo, are not possible in Australia. The reason

for this is that the essential (relational) components for such rituals are not present in this

country. These include consecrated items, the correct number of practitioners with the

necessary consecrations and knowledge, and the presence of the spirits or orishas that must

be involved in such ceremonies.

For entry-level initiations such as Mano de Orula, all the necessary conditions can be met in

Australia. There are sufficient babalawos (at least three) with the requisite consecrations—

such as the kwanaldo (or “knife”), which authorises them to perform sacrifices—and the

essential ritual knowledge. The orishas required for these ceremonies are present in their

material forms, along with plants and other ingredients, such as ikines (palm nuts). I heard of

a Mano de Orula initiation held in Australia some years ago that was considered invalid by

other practitioners because it was performed by only one babalawo and thus did not meet the

necessary conditions.

Minor rituals performed in day-to-day life by practitioners, particularly those who are not priests

and/or do not perform divinations, are often guided by “signatures”. Many priests neither

practise divination nor perform services for others but rely on the symbolic and relational cues

provided by the natural world when practising Santería.

For instance, water infused with white flowers of any kind may be used to “refresh” the

practitioner or their home. Similarly, yellow fruits and flowers, regardless of species, can be

offered as a courtesy to Oshun at a river, aligning with her signature colour and association

with sweetness and abundance. It is also the case in Cuba that even non-practitioners use

practices recommended by practitioners for their well-being. However, more complex rituals

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can only be performed by practitioners who possess the necessary knowledge and fulfil the

initiatory requirements.

While Australian plants and materials are not identical to those used in Cuba, the primary focus

is on the relationships rather than the individual entities themselves, as scholars of Santería

have demonstrated (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015). This relational ontology ensures that the rituals

remain effective and meaningful, even when substitutions or adaptations of plants are

necessary—the hierarchies influence who can “speak” for the orishas and how their messages

are interpreted. The training and initiation of diviners establish their credibility as

intermediaries, reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the ritual.

Even the process of divination adheres to a hierarchy of rigour. Babalawos rely on the maxim

“the word of Orula does not fall on the ground” (la palabra de Orula no cae en el suelo) when

using divination to determine whether an unknown plant can be used for a ritual. This phrase

underscores the belief that the results of divination are “true beyond doubt” (Holbraad, 2012,

p. 94). This is why the only method accepted for complex rituals, such as the final divination of

the Mano de Orula (the Itá divination ritual), is performed using Ifá divination, which is more

comprehensive than other methods, such as coconut divination, which are typically used for

simple yes-or-no answers and in less critical situations.

6.4.1.3 Constitutive character of the relations

As discussed earlier, relations are primary to entities, a principle evident in my ethnographic

findings and well-supported by Afro-Cuban scholarship. The most significant argument here is

this: if relations define what a plant can do—plant-as-aché—then two different plants

embedded in equivalent relations are functionally equivalent. For instance, the omiero as an

event of aché in Australia is equivalent to the omiero in Cuba because the relations and

intensities elicited by the assemblage are equivalent; that is, they are homeomorphic

assemblages. In short, if relations determine the ontology of the relata (the entities involved),

then equivalent relations determine the same corresponding ontology.

Geospatial topology examines the qualitative spatial relationships between geographic

features, regardless of their extension, type, or geometric form.

Without delving deeply into

Examples of these relationships include disjoint, meet, overlap and inside (Felice & Clementini, 2009).

Egenhofer (1993) proposed the 9-intersection schema, a model that simplifies the study of topological

invariants, or homeomorphisms, and has been widely applied in geographic information systems (GIS) and

spatial databases.

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these or related models, geospatial topological relations can be broadly categorised as

coincidental or as inherent:

• Coincidental relations are not integral to the identity or existence of one or both related

phenomena. For example, in botanical terms, a particular plant has a coincidental

relationship with the forest where it grows; the forest can exist without that specific

plant, and the plant can grow elsewhere, such as in a garden.

• Inherent relations determine the identity or existence of one or both related

phenomena. In topological terms, for instance, Canberra’s identity as the capital city of

Australia depends on its relationship with the country. The term “capital” signifies a

qualitative relation, not just a physical location. Being a city does not make it a capital.

Similarly, what makes a plant suitable as an aché is the relations established in the

ritual assemblage. Being a plant of a particular kind is not sufficient, even in Cuba, as

ritual protocols and structures must be followed there as well.

In the ritual assemblage of Osain, the relational boundaries of inside-outside (as established

earlier) allow the plant to become actualised as aché. This actualisation reflects an inherent

relation: the identity of the plant-as-aché depends on its integration into the ritual assemblage.

This does not negate the plant’s other classifications, such as its botanical species, just as

Canberra remains a “city” while also serving as the capital. However, these taxonomic or

coincidental classifications are secondary; they are not topological relations that define the

plant’s ritual identity.

To further illustrate, consider this reversal: a cultivated Escoba Amarga plant grown in a Cuban

garden would be unsuitable for ritual use because it lacks the inherent relational connection to

the wild domain of Osain. It would be unsuitable if it were not collected in accordance with

ritual protocols by a qualified ritual expert. Conversely, an unfamiliar plant in Australia growing

in the wild and approved by Osain through divination—whether found in a forest, a cemetery

(Oyá) or a crossroads (Eleguá)—can fulfil its role as aché.

Espirito Santo (2018) draws on Thomas Nail’s explanation of assemblages to describe how,

in Cuban Palo religion, ontologically distinct “bits” of the cosmos can come together for specific

purposes. (Nail, 2017, p. 31) states:

Suppose the elements of an assemblage are defined only by their external

relations. In that case, it is possible that they can be added, subtracted, and

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recombined with one another ad infinitum without ever creating or destroying

an organic unity.

This view emphasises that assemblages can be actualised or adapted without disrupting their

co-functioning, allowing us to describe the substitution of ritual ingredients in Santería as

homeomorphism. The invariance of relational structures ensures that substitutions do not

compromise the continuity or efficacy of the ritual assemblage.

6.4.2 Topological invariants of becoming

From a Deleuzian perspective, the process of plant substitution in Santería can be understood

as a change in the capacity of the assemblage to act—a transformation in latitude. The plant’s

identity is not static but a becoming-aché, a dynamic reconfiguration of what it can do within

the ritual. In that sense, there is a change in agency, or at least in perceived agency.

The process of transduction (Palmié, 2018), as observed in the preparation of omiero, further

emphasises this becoming. The plants, prayers, songs and the priest’s own aché coalesce into

a new assemblage that actualises spiritual agencies and the agency of practitioners—or at

least perceived agency. In Australia, despite these transformations, the assemblage retains its

capacity to generate aché, demonstrating its homeomorphic continuity.

The critical question is not “what is a thing”—a plant, the omiero, or the forest—but rather how

do they interact and become, together, a form of aché. Ontology, in this context, is best

understood as “the effect or appearance of an expression of one assemblage into another

assemblage” (Bialecki, 2017, p. 222). It is an ontology of events more than essences.

To demonstrate the homeomorphic continuity of the adaptations occurring in Australia—and

likely in other transnational contexts—I draw on Deleuze’s conceptualisation of becoming as

changes in capacities to act:

We call the latitude of a body the affects of which it is capable at a given

degree of power, or rather within the limits of that degree. Latitude is made

up of intensive parts falling under a capacity, and longitude of extensive

parts falling under a relation (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 256–257,

emphasis in the original).

In this framework, the latitude (or intensive dimension) of an assemblage refers to its capacity,

and becomings are precisely shifts in these capacities. Intensive parts are like what Christina

describes as “like Superman suiting up” when she wears the blue of Yemaya, or Moro

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becoming Shango. A becoming plant-as-aché is thus a transformation in what the plant is

capable of—a change in its capacity to act within the ritual assemblage.

To explore this further, I will isolate some “intensive characteristics” that could be considered

invariants in these becomings. These invariants include:

• The process of “transduction” into ritual power: How the plant’s latent aché is activated

or actualised through ritual protocols and relational dynamics.

• The role of metapersons or nonhuman sentience in agency: Recognising plants, spirits

and other nonhuman entities as active participants with sentience and agency in the

assemblage.

6.4.2.1 Transduction

Two influential works, Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010) and John Protevi’s Political Affect

(2009), build on Deleuze’s insights to challenge the notion that agency is exclusive to humans.

Bennett advances a Deleuzo–Spinozian model of affective assemblages where agency is

distributed among human and nonhuman elements, advocating for a symmetrical treatment of

their interactions. Protevi, meanwhile, combines Deleuzian ontology with complexity theory

and cognitive science, proposing that human agency can be bypassed in somatic and social

assemblages. He suggests that agency can become nonhuman when the human body acts

as a conduit for direct connections between somatic and social forces, even in the absence of

subjectivity (Bowden, 2020).

Anthropologists similarly recognise that “things” in religion are not merely inanimate objects.

Drawing on Houtman and Meyer (Houtman & Meyer, 2012a, 2012b), Kathleen Openshaw

(2019) distinguishes between “objects” and “things”: while objects imply a subject–object

relationship where the subject exercises control, “things” are entities that link us to a world

beyond ourselves. Openshaw (2019), citing Plate (2015, pp. 3-4), argues that “the most

ordinary of things” can become extraordinary, facilitating religiously meaningful experiences.

This perspective aligns with New Materialist views, such as Barad’s (2007) understanding of

matter as intrinsically entangled with meaning.

Stephan Palmié draws on actor-network theory (ANT) and the concept of transduction to

describe Afro-Cuban rituals, where stones, blood and herbs are transformed into the physical

bodies of spirits. He uses transduction in its most literal sense, likening it to the transformation

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of mechanical energy into heat or electricity. In this case, however, the “energy” being

transformed is aché.

Applying this reasoning to my ethnographic descriptions, the entire process –from the

collection of plants and other ingredients to the moment I poured the omiero on my body—can

be understood as a process of transduction. The same can be said of the birth of the orishas

who now reside on my altar, made possible through that ritual process.

A few years after my experience with the omiero in Sydney, I discussed my impressions with

Adrian Medina, one of the babalawos who prepared the potent mixture. I told him how

impressed I was by its profound effects. He responded that if I had not felt those effects, it

would only mean that the omiero had not been adequately prepared.

This ritual process involves transducing energy from one form into another, making it usable

in a ritual context. It integrates the plant into the assemblage, combines it with other acheses

(including immaterial acheses like incantations and the aché of the priest), and transforms it

into omiero. This, in turn, is assembled with the orishas and transduced into my body, effecting

a change in my capacities—not just a calming effect but a transformation aligned with my

initiation as a practitioner. As practitioners explain it, “it is all about energy work”, integrating

the energies of priests, orishas and even our own desires for solutions to our needs.

Significantly, the omiero I poured on my body was made with the very Australian plants I

described earlier in this thesis—the plants that first sparked my curiosity about ritual

adaptations.

The entire process of transduction and self-assemblage to resolver (to solve) is experienced

as an increase in our capacity to act. This is what aché is ultimately about: “the power to make

things happen”; even when practitioners do not receive what they ask for but instead what is

meant for them, as one of my informants said. And with it, they receive aché. They have

agency, or at least what Moore (2016) describes as a “sense of agency”—a feeling of control

over actions and their consequences.

6.4.2.2 Metapersons, agency and sentience

Both assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) conceptualise space and agency

as products of associations between humans and nonhumans (Müller, 2015). Here, I follow a

similar approach. However, I want to highlight a point that users of these theories often neglect:

the role of sentience for agency.

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Francesca Merlan (2020, p. 209) critiques these and similar theories for neglecting the role of

sentience in agency:

Scholars in New Animist and Actor-Network Theory camps sometimes

expound broadly generalised notions of agency, thus overlooking the ways

in which characterisations of different kinds of beings—and the implications

of these characterisations—may apply to aspects of environment and

change historically.

These theories draw heavily from Deleuze, although the notions of agency and intention in his

work are far from clear or explicit (Bowden, 2014, 2020). Merlan explores the ontologies of

sentient nonhuman Others among Indigenous Australians, urging us to consider how

attributions of sentience—defined as the capacity to feel, to experience, and to perceive

subjectively—shape both perception and action (Merlan, 2020).

My fieldwork also reveals that attributions of sentience to Santería Others significantly

influence agency, whether real or “perceived” agency. The data presented here and in other

chapters demonstrate that the relations within Santería assemblages, and what these

assemblages “can do”, rely on understanding the nonhuman as a metaperson-a conscious,

sentient Other. The relations are possible because the other is a “who”, not a “what”.

For example, an ANT approach might describe what pieces of coconut can “do” in a divinatory

assemblage by distributing agency across the elements of the assemblage. However, to ignore

the fact that the act of casting coconuts and interpreting their messages is grounded in the

assumption that the divinatory act—and even the coconut rinds themselves—are sentient,

conscious metapersons would be an incomplete application of assemblage theory. Such an

omission risks reproducing the Cartesian divides that these theories aim to challenge, by

relegating thoughts (or what Deleuze and Guattari call “mental bodies”) to a non-entity or part

of the assemblage. “We may take the word ‘body’ in its broadest sense (there are mental

bodies, souls are bodies, etc.)” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 80). Assumptions about the

sentience and consciousness of Others in any assemblage, as Merlan (2020) highlights,

cannot be disentangled from their agency.

Figure 2, below, summarises the argument of this chapter. Considering the assemblage as the

primary unit of analysis, and Deleuze’s perspective that becoming and relations constitute

assemblages, we can conclude that Santería ritual assemblages remain homeomorphic when

plants are substituted. Paraphrasing Nail (2017, p. 31), the elements are defined only by their

external relations; therefore, it is possible that they can be added, subtracted, and recombined

with one another ad infinitum without ever creating or destroying an organic unity.

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Figure 4, Chapter 6: Invariants in relations and becomings

145

Chapter 7 Something happened: Becoming a practitioner in

Australia

How do individuals come to participate in the world of Santería? How is it that their experiences

feel so “tailor-made”, simultaneously novel and yet profoundly resonant, as if revealing an

authentic self? And how can these religious experiences be explained in a way that

accommodates such a diverse array of participants?

I utilise analytical tools from the study of the multivoiced Self (Aveling et al., 2015) to analyse

narratives traditionally classified as “conversion” stories. The term “conversion” is closely tied

to Christian theology and the concept of “metanoia” in the New Testament. In Santería,

however, there is no demand for repentance or the “metanoia” of Christian conversion, nor an

eschatological promise of reward or punishment. Instead, the focus is pragmatic: when we

follow our destinies, we strengthen ourselves, and by strengthening ourselves, we strengthen

the orishas, thus opening the road for spiritual and mundane resolver (Hagedorn, 2001, p.

214). Through aché, practitioners gain the power to address life’s challenges—whether it be

illness, purpose, connection, or success.

The stories in this chapter answer the question “How did you become a practitioner?”. They

are what Wirtz (2007, p. 1) identifies as telling moments—instances both noteworthy in

themselves and potent as retellings, continually mined for religious meaning. Multivoiced

analysis reveals how narrators position themselves and the role of Others during pivotal

encounters.

Deleuze’s concept of the “Other as a structure of the possible” further illuminates these

narratives, framing encounters as moments of transformation (“something happened”) while

reaffirming a sense of continuity (“I have always been …”). It helps explain how these

encounters are perceived as new, yet intimately familiar. This approach is an alternative to

conventional approaches in social sciences, which tend to reduce religion to socioeconomic

or psychological factors (Gooren, 1999). The heterogeneous demographic composition of this

religion would make it difficult to use such an approach without excluding the experiences of

practitioners who do not fit a one-size-fits-all methodology. They also fail to explain what feels

new and mysterious to the practitioner as their focus is on explaining identifiable patters that

repeat through a variety of experiences. Instead, I propose a framework grounded in Deleuze’s

insight that the Other expresses a “possible world”, a structure preceding dialectical mediation

(Reynolds, 2008). As Deleuze (1984) writes: “I am nothing other than my past objects, and

myself is made up of a past world, the passing away of which was brought about precisely by

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the Other. If the Other is a possible world, I am a past world”. Thus, Santería Others become

heralds of a possible future in which their own existing potentials are realisable.

As Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos (2015, p. 10) argue, Religion “resolves” through

technologies of Self-assemblage, and “because it is variable and adaptable to circumstance

and context, comprised of infinite manipulations that speak to but are not contained by

tradition”. The resulting Self-assemblages are tailor-made because they are a crystallisation

of the potentials or “virtualities” already existing, and sensed as capable of being realised,

actualised in the encounter as a solution to resolver a human necessity in a moment of crisis.

Even if the specific need is not resolved, the person can become a practitioner because they

see the Santería Selves as who they “really are”.

7.1 Telling moments

The narrative of Christina Monneron exemplifies the embodied, transformative potential of

Santería. A former pharmaceutical researcher, her dissatisfaction with a disembodied,

rationalist worldview led her to Afro-Cuban dance in Sweden. Recalling a performance of

Yemayá she witnessed, she describes experiencing of profound resonance: “Something

happened … like I felt there was some familiarity … It was the drums, the chants, the

movement … straight away, I said, ‘That’s what I need to do …’”. Her journey from Sweden to

Cuba and eventually to Australia reflects a movement from disconnection to embodied

connection—with her African roots, the orishas and her community. Now a priestess of

Yemayá, Christina embodies the stormy sea deity in her dance, folding waves of blue and

white into her movements.

Adrian Medina’s story intertwines success and vulnerability. As a performer and model in

Australia, Adrian faced profound isolation. His turning point—a near-suicidal moment—

involved a dream of his grandmother’s spirit, catalysing his return to Cuba. There, Adrian found

his guardian orisha, Ogún, whose traits of resilience and sacrifice he deeply identified with.

Julie’s initiation into Santería was a response to terminal illness. Diagnosed with stage-four

cancer, Julie sought hope in the orishas. Her transformation into a priestess of Oshun brought

not only spiritual empowerment but also physical healing. Five years after her initiation, Julie

remains cancer-free—a reality she attributes to Oshun’s aché. Julie’s narrative emphasises

Santería’s deeply relational ontology, where the sacred is experienced through material

connections, such as Oshun’s colours, jewellery and flowers.

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7.1.1 Christina: Something happened.

… my life turned around completely. I mean, I started learning Afro-Cuban

rhythm and dance in Sweden while working as a medical scientist in

pharmacology research. I wanted to move my body and learn to dance, and

a colleague told me about a dance class her daughter was attending. It was

Afro-Cuban dance—I had never heard of it. Then I went to a concert where

they were dancing Yemayá, drumming, and singing, and something

happened …

Christina Monneron (Omi Lefun)

Christina Monneron, an Australian of Mauritian heritage, radiates warmth and enthusiasm. Her

African roots and reverence for her ancestors form the foundation of her spirituality—

something that naturally resonates with Afro-Cuban religious performance. When Christina

recounts her experiences, her glowing eyes, poignant gaze and evident goosebumps testify to

her deep connection to embodied emotions and intuitions. Reflecting on her previous life as a

pharmaceutical researcher, she finds it hard to reconcile her current, spiritually enriched and

embodied perspective with the dispassionate, “scientific mind” she once cultivated.

As a priestess of Yemayá, the powerful orisha of the sea and life itself, Christina embodies her

deity’s spirit through dance. With each performance, she evokes the ocean’s stormy majesty,

her movements flowing in graceful yet commanding waves, enhanced by the swirling blue and

white ribbons of her dress. Her joy and commitment to her community are contagious, inspiring

others to connect with their spirituality. It is no surprise she has come to be affectionately

known as “Mama Cuba in Australia”, a title she embraces as a promoter of Cuban culture and

the founder of initiatives like the Afrekete festival.

7.1.1.1 The encounter that changed everything

Christina’s first encounter with Afro-Cuban performance occurred while she was living and

working in Sweden. A Cuban troupe was performing at a nearby theatre, and Christina

attended out of curiosity. The experience was transformative:

Something happened … I felt an inexplicable familiarity. I loved the sound of

the drums—the batá drums—and the chants. I didn’t know what it was, but I

loved the movement, the big, beautiful blue skirts … the flow, the energy.

And immediately, I thought, “That’s what I need to do”. Even now, I get

goosebumps just talking about it.

At the time, Christina had a prestigious and well-paying position as a pharmaceutical

researcher. However, a corporate merger had dissolved her team, and the new employer’s

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questionable ethical standards left her disillusioned. The work in the corporation had lost its

meaning, and Christina found herself in crisis.

After the concert, Christina began attending Afro-Cuban dance classes in Sweden, which led

her to joining a tour to Cuba organised by her instructor. Immersed in the vibrant culture, she

delved into the spiritual significance behind the dances and drumming, learning about orishas

such as Eleguá, Oshun, and Yemayá. For Christina, dance opened the door to a deeper

connection with her African roots, echoing her heritage from the island of Mauritius. A diviner

in Cuba affirmed what she already sensed: “Your time in Sweden is up”. Cuba, with its warmth

and spiritual vibrancy, felt like home—a connection not only to her ancestors but to her sacred

Self.

Christina returned to Sweden determined to change her life. She quit her job, sold her

apartment and moved back to Australia, where her immigrant parents had raised her. Her

colleagues in Sweden thought she was “crazy”, but Christina saw the move as a necessary

step toward rediscovering herself.

In Cuba, Christina had found a new passion and a supportive community. In Melbourne

Australia, she founded a Cuban dance academy which became popular in the late 1990s.

Christina never returned to the corporate world, instead embracing a life filled with movement,

spirituality, and connection.

7.1.1.2 A journey toward embodiment

Like many Australian practitioners, Christina was raised Catholic but grew disenchanted with

what she considered its lifeless rituals and rule-bound moral codes. She also maintained a

lifelong interest in esotericism, clairvoyance and spirituality, often gravitating toward narratives

of feminine empowerment found in New Age traditions. Afro-Cuban spirituality provided a

profound sense of embodiment, linking her African heritage to sacred, grounded practice.

For her, the journey has been one of transformation: from a disembodied intellectual life to an

embodied spirituality; from a transcendent, distant God to spirits who dance and live in nature

and altars; from the cold and isolation she felt in Sweden to the warmth of the Caribbean; and

from disconnection to meaningful connections with her roots, her community and the sacred.

Now, others see Christina dance and feel drawn to her joy, just as she felt captivated by that

Cuban performance in Sweden. As the founder of the Afrekete festival, created in collaboration

with practitioners like Adrian Medina, Christina has become a vital “vector” in Santería’s

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transnationalisation, bridging continents and spiritual worlds through her vibrant, embodied

practice. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Christina led yearly groups of Australians to Cuba,

introducing them to the country’s rich cultural and spiritual heritage.

7.1.2 Adrian: connections

Maybe because of all that happened in my life—struggles as a little boy,

family situations, leaving Cuba to face a new culture, a new country.

Adrian Medina

Adrian Medina’s journey exemplifies resilience and transformation. As a young man driven by

a desire to support his family, Adrian left a promising career as a high-performance athlete to

join the prestigious Narciso Medina Dance School. He went on to perform with top models,

world-renowned fashion designers, actors and singers, touring internationally with the famed

“Havana Nights” and “Tropicana” dance companies. In 2003, he was awarded Australia’s

Distinguished Talent Visa (Performing Arts) and became a celebrated performer and dance

teacher in his new country. That same year, he was named Australia’s “Male Model of the

Year” and gained international acclaim as a star in the “Manhunt International Male Model of

the Year” competition.

Despite all the glittering success, Adrian was deeply unhappy. He was separated from his

partner, Julie, and living alone in Sydney. His mother, his closest confidante, was terminally ill

in Cuba, and he felt far from the siblings and friends he had left behind. Phone and internet

calls provided some solace, but as Adrian lamented, “It is not the same … that connection”.

A crisis of disconnection

One night, Adrian found himself standing on the edge of his apartment balcony, overwhelmed

by despair. For a fleeting yet harrowing moment, he considered ending it all. The dark asphalt

below seemed to beckon, a chilling embodiment of what Deleuze and Guattari (1987, p. 161)

describe as being drawn into a “black hole”. Adrian was startled by the thought. “What if I

jump?” he asked himself, shaken by a vulnerability foreign to his character. Reflecting on that

moment, he said, “Something’s wrong … maybe it was a little bit of disconnection … spiritually

disconnected”.

Adrian’s inner turmoil led him to confront existential questions:

At 40 years of age, what is my goal in life? What is the way? You get lost in

life … you do everything, but little of it has substance. Everyone comes to

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Earth with a purpose, and the day I leave, I think I should leave a legacy.

What do I leave for others? Why is it that Adrian does not feel complete?

That night, he sought help at a local hospital. Although his treating doctors prescribed

medications, Adrian declined to take them, choosing instead to face his pain unmedicated.

The following day, he returned to his apartment, determined to find rest.

A turning point

That night, Adrian experienced a dreamlike encounter. A gentle hand exuding a motherly

warmth stroked his back, then a familiar voice called his name: “Adrian!” Startled awake, he

sat upright just in time to glimpse a shadow slipping out through the cracked open bedroom

door. Though the moment was fleeting, Adrian knew it was the spirit of his late grandmother.

“I am talking to you, and I have goosebumps”, he recounted.

This profound experience catalysed a decision: “I must find Adrian from the spiritual point of

view and find answers to the things that are happening to me”. Shortly thereafter, Adrian

returned to Cuba. There, he underwent his first Santería initiation and learned his guardian

orisha was Ogún—a revelation he had long suspected.

Connecting with Ogún

“I always had a connection with Ogún”, Adrian explained. During his time studying folkloric

dance in Cuba, he was often cast in the role of Shango, leading colleagues to insist he was a

child of the thunder deity. However, Adrian consistently replied, “I feel that I am Ogún”. He

identified with Ogún’s defining traits: hard work, resilience and sacrifice. A sacred pataki (story)

recounts how Ogún vowed to work tirelessly as penance for a grave offence against his

mother, traits Adrian saw mirrored in his own life. Adding depth to this connection, Adrian

observed that “[the word] Ogún means medicine”, and at the time of our interview, he was

studying natural therapies.

Practitioners often describe themselves as manifestations of their orisha. Through priesthood

initiation, the orishas are said to reside within practitioners, sharing their bodies and character.

Adrian embraced this belief, saying, “My connection to him is a connection with an inner self

[Sp. yo interno]”. However, this connection did not collapse their identities; instead, it deepened

their bond. When troubled, Adrian seeks solace at Ogún’s altar:

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I converse with him as if I were speaking to Olodumare [the supreme creator

of the universe], about everything—whether simple or complex.

Adrian describes this relationship with tender intimacy:

I talk to him as if he were sitting there, as my father. I put my head on his

knees and say, “Dad, I am not feeling well [Papá, me siento mal]. I need a

hug … I need you to listen to me, to see me. Dad, this is happening to me

… but I know, Dad, that I shall overcome it, because I know, Dad, that you

will open doors for me, that your machete will clear the path”.

Restoring connection and purpose

Adrian’s spiritual journey has profoundly reshaped his life. At the height of his crisis, he asked

himself, “Am I happy with all the things I’ve done? What am I doing for myself, for others?”

Today, his answers are clear. Adrian collaborates with the University of Melbourne and the

Yoruba Heritage and Cultural Association of Victoria on cultural preservation projects. As the

New South Wales director for Baseball5, he brings sports programs to schools and disability

communities. Additionally, he co-founded the Cultural Association of Cuban Heritage and

Roots in Australia, dedicated to safeguarding Cuban culture for future generations. His life is

now imbued with purpose and connection, and he has reunited with Julie.

7.1.3 Julie: hope

“Tragedy struck”, Julie confided when asked how she came to Santería. “I was diagnosed with

serious cancer, stage four. It was a strange time for me, not knowing what is real … what isn’t

real”. After exhausting all conventional medical options, Julie found herself at the edge of hope.

Her partner, Adrian, suggested seeking help from the orishas.

“The chemotherapy was going to kill me”, she explained. The surgery was invasive: “They cut

me open from here to there”, she said, gesturing from her chest to her lower abdomen with a

sweeping motion, mimicking scissors. The cancer had spread, and four more tumours

emerged. “They cut off this and that, my liver, my colon”. Though the surgeons removed the

tumours, they offered no guarantees without further chemotherapy. However, Julie’s first round

of treatment nearly took her life. She made the difficult decision to forgo additional therapy. “I

told them, no more”.

The doctors warned that her decision left her with a “100 percent chance” of recurrence, but

Julie stood firm. “With a very heavy heart, I walked out of there. We made plans to go to Cuba

… and I did my initiation … and that was the start”. She knew little about Santería, but it offered

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something she desperately needed: hope. “It sounded like hope, hope for me. That there is

something spiritually that I could try”.

Discovering Oshun

In Cuba, Julie underwent the Itá, an in-depth divination central to Santería practice. She

described it as a highly personal reading—a kind of “user manual” for life.

They tell you who you really are from a spiritual point of view, who are the

spirits that support you, and the dos and don’ts specific to you to have a

successful life.

Many, like Julie, approach Santería with significant challenges, but they find both guidance

and a path forward. For Julie, this path led to initiation as a priestess of Oshun, her guardian

orisha.

Julie admitted her apprehension: “I knew that I had to be locked up for seven days, I knew that

I would be crowned, and there was a possibility that my hair would be shaved, that I would

have to wear white clothes, and things like that.. I had so many questions!” Adrian was

undergoing his own initiatory process at the same time, but due to ritual protocols, Julie was

unable to see him for several days. Despite her uncertainties, she trusted the process, knowing

that belief was secondary to the ontological transformations she was about to undergo. Like

patients trusting a surgeon, novices need no technical or religious knowledge to benefit from

Santería rituals.

A Cuban friend of mine, now living in Mexico, had a similar experience several years ago.

Diagnosed with cancer, she faced a desperate situation. At the suggestion of a friend, she

reluctantly sought the guidance of a babalawo. With her strong Christian upbringing, she

initially resisted, hesitant to engage with a practice so unfamiliar and seemingly at odds with

her faith. However, as her circumstances grew increasingly dire, she decided to proceed.

During her initiation, she confessed to her now-godfather that she lacked faith in the orishas.

His response was both compassionate and resolute: “Don’t worry, I have enough for both of

us”. This reassurance carried her through the process. Remarkably, she also recovered and

went on to fully embrace Santería, eventually becoming a priestess of Oshun.

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Becoming Oshun’s daughter

Julie’s words carried the same enthusiasm as that shared by other Santería practitioners,

describing their experiences. “I felt fantastic when I did my initiation … even though it was all

in Spanish!”, she recalled with a bright smile. “It was something tangible”. Without the need for

words or theological assertions, Julie emerged from the ceremony as a child of Oshun,

embodying the goddess who now lived within her body.

A pivotal moment in Santería priesthood is the ritual known as asiento, when the orisha takes

residence in the initiate’s head, making it their “throne”. This ritual establishes a profound bond,

granting the orisha’s guidance, protection and influence over the initiate’s life.

Julie, born in Australia to Maltese parents of Italian background, contrasts her Catholic

upbringing with her experiences in Santería. “It is so potent, so spiritual, so … sacred”, she

said. “Whereas the other side of my religion is not so tangible”. She described the misa, a

spiritual ceremony where spirits communicate with the living, with wide-eyed wonder:

“Unbelievable … you just think, how could this happen? There is no way you cannot believe”.

For Julie, it was not doctrine that drew her to Santería but a direct and powerful encounter with

the sacred. “You never ever, ever, ever feel that wonderful feeling again”.

Julie speaks of Oshun, the orisha of fresh waters, jewels and sweetness, with tenderness and

awe: “It is not about getting rich or asking for something and getting it. You get what is meant

to be for you. It’s completely for you. And that is why it feels so exhilarating and tangible—it’s

so tailor-made for you”.

“Oshun coming down … that energy! That bright light!” Julie exclaimed, struggling to articulate

the intensity of her experience while respecting the ritual secrecy. Oshun descended into

Julie’s body, forging a union that would last a lifetime. “Oshun lives in my head, forever”, she

said, emphasising what anthropologists might call an ontological claim—a declaration of what

exists rather than a statement of belief.

Upon returning to Australia, Julie’s eleke (sacred necklace), dedicated to Oshun, broke—a

significant event, as these necklaces symbolise practitioners’ connections to their orishas. “It

is very important to me. It is part of my connection to Oshun”, she said. Unable to source a

replacement from Cuba, Julie decided to create her own. “Something was driving me to this”,

she said. This endeavour evolved into a business, now called La Reina Jewels, which supplies

sacred jewellery to other practitioners. The name “Reina”, meaning “queen”, honours Oshun’s

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epithet as the queen of jewels. Julie attributes her vocation for jewellery-making to a trait she

inherited from Oshun.

Julie speaks with quiet gratitude: “It has been five years, and I am cancer-free. I am scared to

say it, you know? Because I don’t want anything to go wrong. But you can’t ignore that. Not

even the doctors understand it”.

Santería not only restored Julie’s health, but it also deepened her relationship with Adrian. “He,

being Ogún, and me, being Oshun, it just fused our relationship, and it became our way of life.

All our existence revolves around the religion”. Reflecting on their journey together, she added,

“It gave us a new lease on life”.

Oshun’s presence

Julie’s garden reflects her devotion. She planted Siempre Viva (Spanish for “always alive”) and

yellow roses, Oshun’s sacred colour. One morning, she entered the room where Oshun

resides in her home and noticed a yellow rose blossoming in view of the altar. Julie smiled and

said to Oshun, “Look. Just for you”.

7.2 My intimate world of Others

These narratives share a common thread: a movement from a state of vulnerability toward

various forms of empowerment. It is a movement between two “worlds”, present in these

narratives as “chronotopes”: blocks of space-time as represented in language and discourse

(Bakhtin, 1981). The world of the past Self is presented as inhabited by Others who present

the “common sense” opinion, but also a dead end. The world of the present Self as a

practitioner is also inhabited by Others, humans and nonhumans, who open up possibilities

and power to overcome limitations and seize opportunities—aché for short. The world of

Santería Others is presented as already sensed as an authentic Self, potentially there but

unrealised. In contrast, the world devotees inhabited before the encounter is expressed as

inauthentic and controlled by external circumstances.

Santería Others in these narratives are presented as a promise of healing and connection.

They implicate the pre-existence of objects yet to come. The Other implicates an entire field of

virtualities and potentialities which are already known to be capable of being actualised

(Deleuze, 1984). People perceive them as already inhabiting that promised world, and they

are trusted as guides in orienting one’s perceptions toward the beings that populate it.

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7.2.1 I-positions and the worlds of inner Others

Alex Gillespie, Flora Cornish and Emma-Louise Aveling have advanced methodologies for

researching intersubjectivity (Aveling et al., 2015; Gillespie & Cornish, 2010), drawing on the

theoretical insights of Mikhail Bakhtin. Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) was a Russian philosopher

and literary theorist renowned for his contributions to the study of language, culture, and

literature. His work explored the dialogic nature of meaning, emphasising that understanding

emerges through interaction between voices, each shaped by its social and historical context.

The approaches inspired by Bakhtin have been particularly effective in examining multicultural

selves and “hybridity”, as evidenced by studies such as Bhatia (2002) and Luttrell (2010). At

the heart of these methodologies lies the concept of “multivoicedness”, which frames the Self

as a constellation of dynamic, interacting voices. These include multiple first-person voices,

inner voices of Others, and the dialogues occurring between them.

Aveling et al. (2015) outline three core principles for analysing multivoicedness:

1. Voices of the Self, or “I-positions”: These represent the various roles or identities an

individual assumes within their internal narrative.

2. Voices attributed to inner Others: These may involve “real” individuals or imagined or

generalised Others, such as “doctors” or “a pharmaceutical corporation”, whose perspectives

are internalised and engaged in the individual’s inner discourse.

3. Interacting voices: These encompass dialogues with actual others (heterodialogue) and

dialogues within the self (autodialogue). The latter can be observed when, for example, a

person asks themselves a question, contradicts their own utterance, or references the

imagined response of another (Aveling et al., 2015). This dynamic is evident in Adrian’s

narrative when he speaks to Ogún as part of his spiritual dialogue.

Aveling et al. (2015) further emphasise that “[w]hile the method is suited to research questions

about the interactions of Self and Others, it is distinctive in that it does not rely on data which

records actual interactions between individuals or groups, nor on asking people to self-report

on their interactions with the perspectives of others”. This flexibility allows researchers to “read”

multivoicedness and the presence of “inner Others” within narratives, even in the absence of

direct observation of these interactions.

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7.2.2 From explicit vulnerability to implicated empowerment

The analysis of these narratives reveals the presence of distinct chronotopes, temporal-spatial

frameworks that structure the “telling moments”. The concept of the chronotope, as introduced

by Bakhtin, identifies blocks of space-time within discourse that frame and orient the narrative.

In this context, the Others present in these moments function not merely as psychological

entities but as constituents of these chronotopes. As Lazzarato (2009) argues, Others are not

first and foremost linguistic or psychological subjects. However, as Deleuze (1984) saw it, they

are possible worlds or existential territories.

Two primary chronotopes emerge from the narratives:

1. The chronotope of the past Self: This is often marked by phrases like “I was …” and

represents a world of constraints and disempowerment, populated by Others who enforce

limitations or “common sense” norms.

2. The chronotope of the possible and sacred Self: This chronotope arises after the

transformative encounter, framing a world of potential and empowerment. The Others

inhabiting this space guide the narrator toward possibilities sensed as both new and deeply

authentic.

The narratives analysed reveal the interplay between these two chronotopes, with

multivoicedness serving as a lens to trace the dynamic shifts in Self and Other across the

transformative arc of the practitioner’s journey.

Table 1, Chapter 7: I-Others relation

“I” positionings

“Chronotope of the past Self’

“Chronotope of the possible

and sacred-Self’

Christina’s “I”

positioning

Pharma researcher

Unhappy with her job

Yemayá priestess

“Mama Cuba” in Australia

Community leader

Christina’s Others

Pharma corporation—a world of

“disconnection”, cognitive

Dancers and musicians in

Sweden and Cuba. A possible

world of “connection” (to the

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dissonances, disembodiment,

disconnection from roots

Team members, “You are crazy”

(indexing rationality or common

sense)

Past experiences in the “Catholic

church”—the world of a

disembodied sacred

sacred, to her African roots

and ancestors, to the body and

a place in community.

African ancestors, Cuban

diviners, Yemayá

Community in Australia

Adrian’s “I”

positioning

Disconnected. “A bit of

disconnection”.

Successful but doing things “of little

substance” for others

Priest of Ogún his “dad’

Babalawo, and teacher serving

the community

Adrian’s Other

Family far in Cuba, close friends

also in Cuba

Separated from his Australian

family

Hospital doctors (indexing

rationality or common-sense

approach to depression)

The voice of grandmother

Ogún

Family together

Realising his mother’s dream

by becoming initiated

Community

Julie’s “I”

positioning

Sick, hopeless “no hope without

chemotherapy”

Daughter of Oshun

La Reina Jewels

“Free of cancer”, “new lease of

life”

Julie’s Other

Doctors (indexing rationality or

common-sense approach to

cancer)

Relation with Adrian as

Oshun–Ogún myths

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Catholic Church (disembodied

sacred)

Oshun—as mother and role

model, expressed in jewellery-

making. Becoming Oshun and

a tangible experience of the

sacred. Free of cancer by

Oshun.

Cuban diviners and healers

The Others in the “chronotope of the past Self” are positioned in relation to a disempowered

Self confronting a world of foreclosed possibilities. This chronotope “explicates” limitations,

defined by “common sense”, and presents a cul-de-sac in the narrator’s life. I use the term

“explicate” here to mean “making explicit”. This notion is best understood in relation to

Deleuze’s concept of “implication”. For Deleuze, “implication” or “envelopment” refers to how

the Other involves a possible world.

7.2.3 The Other as the expression of a possible world

I use the word 'implicate' here as a translation of the French implique, a term Deleuze employs

frequently, which many translators render in this way. While in everyday English implicate and

imply can both indicate something conveyed indirectly, their connotations can diverge. Imply

generally means to suggest something without stating it outright; implicate carries the sense

of involvement, sometimes in a negative context, but always indicating some form of

participation. This nuance preserves the philosophical weight of “implique,” which derives from

the Latin' implicare, meaning “to fold into, entangle, involve” (from “in, into,” and “plicare,

meaning “to fold”). It also aligns with other Deleuzean terms linked to le pli (French: the fold),

like impliquer, expliquer, compliquer, which are thus rendered in English as implicate,

explicate, and complicate, preserving the conceptual relation among them and to the terms

“fold” through the phonetic particle pli.

For Deleuze, impliquer describes a relation within an immanent field in which beings, events,

or concepts are enfolded into one another, rather than merely connected by external or

transcendent relations. In Logic of Sense (2004, p. 101), Deleuze writes that “the Other as

structure is the expression of a possible world, the expressed understood as not yet existing

outside of that which expresses it”. Here, the word “expression” does not mean to express a

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world external to the expression, but that the expression already involves a possible world.

The Other is not a signpost toward a world; it is the expression of a world of possibilities within

the folds (pli) of the present field of relations. This potential may also be “explicated” or

“unfolded” through events and discourses, but it is already implicated in the expression itself

as a field of possibilities.

In the narratives explored here, the chronotope of Santería Others functions not to explicate

but to implicate a world of promise and potential. In this sense, the encounter with the Other is

a threshold toward the unknown where experimentation takes primacy over interpretation. The

process of “unfolding” these possibilities is what Deleuze calls “to explicate”. By contrast, the

Others inhabiting what I called here the “chronotope of disconnection” foreclose the possible.

They explain the constraints defined by the “common sense”. Christina’s colleagues called her

decision to leave her job and sell her apartment “crazy.” Julie’s doctors insisted aggressive

chemotherapy was her only viable option. These Others state, “You are…” —sick, depressed,

irrational— reinforcing the limits of current reality by interpreting it. The Others of Santería,

however, implicate what “you could be”. The polysemic nature of this openness allows these

experiences to resonate with diverse backgrounds, desires, and needs. Thus, an Australian

woman from Sydney can feel Oshun descend upon her with the immediacy and intensity as a

any Cuban practitioner.

Deleuze illustrates the differences between explicating and implicating with an example.

Seeing a frightened face triggers a possible world of danger, even if we have not seen its

source. The face implicates a reality yet to be revealed or “unfolded”. Similarly, a child’s scream

can lead our perception to a field of possibilities, from trivial to serious. Before we find the

cause that explains the unknown (such as a cockroach), we fear a world of possibilities and

hope for the best. In both cases, the expressions of the face and the scream implicate a world,

guiding perception towards a range of possibilities rather than explaining it.

Not only do expressions of fear implicate a field of possibilities. The principle also applies to

desire and what feels alluring and promising. Advertisers have long harnessed this

phenomenon. In 1954, Marlboro became the first brand to sell cigarettes as an expression of

masculinity, dissociating itself from its earlier image as a product for women. Advertisements

featured rugged figures, such as football players, cowboys, sailors, and pilots, portraying them

as archetypes of toughness and masculinity. To amplify this implication, Marlboro’s television

campaigns included Julie London, a cultural icon of feminine allure, performing the brand’s

theme song. The cigarettes bore no physical resemblance to these “manly” men or had any

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logical association with Julie London. However, the advertisements conveyed an aura of

strength or desirability associated with smoking Marlboro cigarettes.

When several Australians encountered their first Santería performance —whether artistic or

ritual— the drumming, flowing garments, and sensual movements did not symbolise or

explicate; they implicated or involved a world that resonated with their needs. For Christina,

for example, the performers on stage in Sweden inhabited a world that stood in stark contrast

to her own, by implicating something that she already felt as possible and giving a structure to

her perception of the new and unknown in it. In another case, when Adrian heard his late

grandmother’s voice say his name, that single word, in its context, recalled an entire world

inhabited by her and intimate to him, setting him on a transformative path. The voice did not

explicate or define but called him to walk towards the possible.

7.2.4 The telling and the making of the world

These stories are not merely accounts of past events; they remain active and meaningful in

practitioners’ lives, shaping their present worlds and relationships with others. The act of telling

is not simply retrospective—it is performative. As a speech act (Austin, 1962), it participates in

world-making, as Wirtz (2007) demonstrated in her research in Cuba. The retelling transforms

the narrative into an ongoing process that shapes reality for both the teller and the listener. It

creates “epistemes”—ways of knowing—that shape the way practitioners perceive and

understand other similar experiences. Santería Others are not only discernible in the verbal

recounting of these moments; they seem to be copresent during the act of telling. Goosebumps

during interviews, for instance, are interpreted as a “re-sensing” of the mysterious potentials

implicated in these encounters. In fact, in some cases, the teller speculates that physical

sensations like goosebumps are a sort of affirmative nod from the orisha. It is almost as if these

Others are witnessing the telling itself.

The retelling of the story is also a re-encounter, a perpetual process of becoming. Christina

becomes Yemayá, Adrian becomes Ogún, and Julie becomes Oshun. Each retelling reaffirms

their sacred identities: “I am Yemayá”, “I am Ogún”, “I am Oshun”—an ongoing act of

transformation and embodiment. It gives direction to their engagement with their worlds. For

example, Yemayá in Christina’s embodiment of the orisha who gives the name “Afrekete” to

the festival; Ogún in Adrian’s dedication to medicine and resilience; and Oshun in Julie’s loving

spirit and jewellery-making as La Reina.. This retelling is also a re-sensing of the mysterious

and unknown. As Christina observes, “I have goosebumps when I talk, so it must be true”, and

Adrian echoes, “I am talking to you, and I have goosebumps …”. Julie shared: “It has been

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five years [referring to the past], and I am cancer free [in the present]. I am scared to say it,

you know? Because I don’t want anything to go wrong [anticipating the future]”. Their

statements collapse past, present and future into the performative act of recounting—a

hallmark of how these narratives function. Through their words, the sacred continues to unfold,

not as a fixed reality but as an ever-evolving presence. The sacred is copresent.

Beliso-De Jesús (2015) draws on assemblages “to explore the intensities and affective

economies of religious feeling through [Santería] copresences” (p. 13). Her concept of

“copresence” highlights the complex multiplicity of embodied sensations of spirits in interaction

with the living (p. 7), akin to “spiritual electric currents” (p. 31). Copresences are sensed

through chills, shivers, tingling, premonitions and possessions (p. 7) that “electrify bodies” (p.

30). “Since sensory experience produces worlds, then each form of interarticulated bodily

Practitioners perceive themselves as part of these assemblages, not as part of an alliance, but

ontologically; and it is from these assemblages that their feelings, their sense of agency, and

the “relations that produce energetic affectivities” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 78) emerge.

Beliso-De Jesús draws from Karen Barad (2007) to postulate a relational ontology of Santería

where “the primary units of analysis are no longer objects with inherent boundaries but rather

phenomena that are entangled and intra-acting” (2015, p. 78). Intra-acting indicates that

entities exist within phenomena and therefore emerge only out of relations (Barad, 2007, p.

429).

The question about the primacy of relations over relata might be akin to the chicken-egg

problem. In any case, it could be interpreted as a reversal of the common paradigm in Western

culture, where entities are considered to be the ones that compose the relations, and therefore,

they are primary. Barad’s point is that “Relations do not follow relata, but the other way around”

(pp. 336-337). As already explained in the introduction to this thesis, I am not making

philosophical or metaphysical claims about reality; instead, I am using the concepts that best

describe the ethnographic data while taking participant descriptions and experiences seriously.

Other scholars have described the relationship between the orisha and the practitioner as a

symbiosis (Palmié, 2018). Espirito Santo further elaborates that this relationship is not merely

established but must be actively discerned and achieved across temporal, material and

phenomenological dimensions. Crucially, the relationship is also constitutive of the orisha

itself. The orisha both pre-exists its relationship with people and relies on that relationship for

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its ongoing efficacy, presence and, perhaps most significantly, its substance (Espirito Santo &

Blanes, 2013).

Deleuze’s application of speech acts theory furthers the idea that utterances have a world-

making effect by asserting that an utterance both emerges from an assemblage and transforms

it. J.L. Austin’s (1962) speech act theory explores how language is not merely descriptive but

also performative—it can actively do things. Austin argued that certain utterances, known as

speech acts, do not merely describe reality but also bring about actions or effects in the world.

Language can create social realities, such as when making promises, giving orders, or

performing a marriage (“I now pronounce you...”).

While Austin classified certain utterances as “illocutionary” statements, for Deleuze, language

itself is fundamentally illocutionary, participating in the ongoing transformation of reality. The

“telling of the moment” in these narratives also imposes order on experiences that, as Lévi-

Strauss (1963) observed, might otherwise remain “hazy and unelaborated attitudes which

have an experiential character for each of us” (p. 171). This ordering is evident in the sharp

contrast practitioners draw between the chronotope of “I was” and the new world they inhabit

through Santería. These narratives give direction to the present and reflect current values and

commitments.

The act of telling, therefore, serves multiple purposes: it helps the practitioner make sense of

the past, integrate the present and set direction for the future. However, the performative

aspect of the telling is not just for the teller—it also engages the listener, transforming their

understanding and opening possibilities. This performative dynamic operates continuously,

reshaping the assemblages in which these stories are shared, whether among practitioners,

newcomers or the ethnographer. For the listener, these narratives may implicate their own

potential solutions. Either way, the ongoing re-telling of the narrative ensures its vitality and

influence within the spiritual and relational fabric of Santería. Wirtz (2007c) identified these

narratives as how Santería “epistemes” circulate and shape new religious experiences, albeit

in a nondeterministic manner. In Michel Foucault's (1995) sense, epistemes refer to the

underlying ways of knowing that define what is considered true, possible, and meaningful

within a particular historical social context.

7.3 Change and continuity in Santería encounters

This chapter has examined the transformative journeys of individuals who become

practitioners of Santería in Australia, situating their experiences within encounters that reveal

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new, promising possibilities. These “telling moments” form a bridge between the constraints of

past self and the potential sacred self. Using frameworks such as multivoicedness and

Deleuze’s notion of the Other as a structure of the possible, I have argued that these

encounters are not merely reproductions of existing structures but openings toward new,

deeply personal, and tailor-made worlds that practitioners describe. This approach sheds light

on the interplay between continuity and change in religious experiences, emphasising how the

new can emerge as simultaneously new and intimately familiar.

A central sociological question concerns how such experiences can be explained as the result

of structural causes or individual agency, and how they might be interpreted as both

deterministic and non-deterministic. This tension is often framed through dualities like

individual–collective or structure–agency, with theoretical approaches emphasising either

structural constraints or individual resistance. Traditional social theory, as inaugurated in

Durkheim’s (1995 [1912]) work, posits that religious experiences are the effects of collective

forces, portraying the divine as a transfiguration of society itself. However, this structural

emphasis risks dismissing practitioners’ own accounts of experiencing that “something

happened”—a phrase that expresses novelty, allure and non-determinism (Wirtz, 2007).

Practitioners’ narratives reveal a paradoxical resonance: the encounter is simultaneously

destabilising and constitutive. It evokes a sense of being “more oneself than ever”, as Christina

noted, while also representing a crisis of physical and emotional integrity, as Mazzarella (2017)

also describes. According to Mazzarella, such encounters are a “making and unmaking of

selves and worlds”, where individuals sense both a heightened self-awareness and a loss of

the prior self.

This thesis takes a different approach to the “chicken and egg” problem of whether structure

or encounter comes first. Drawing on Deleuze’s conception of the Other, I propose that we are

shaped by past worlds, but the Other in the encounter implicates the possible—something

new, alluring and promising. The Other reveals difference as a potentiality compared to the

past, offering a new world that practitioners intuitively sense as capable of being actualised

(Deleuze, 1984). In this dynamic, continuity and change are not oppositional; they are co-

constitutive. The new emerges as an actualisation of virtual potentials already present in the

assemblage, as theorised by Goldman (2009) and Espirito Santo and Panagiotopoulos (2015),

and explained in Chapter 2. The Other in the encounter does not simply affirm existing

structures but implicates new worlds, calling forth possibilities that are both alluring and

recognisable as latent potentials.

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Contrary to most social theory that tends to emphasise continuity, the approach proposed in

this chapter accounts for both, phenomena: how the experiences are recognisable as a known

pattern and also feels new and full of possibilities. This approach complements Wirtz's (2001)

findings on how conversion narratives shape new religious experiences. While she

acknowledges that Santería religious experiences are not deterministic, her focus her

approach is more suited to explain how these experiences are reproduced. Shared epistemes

explain new experiences rather than what is new in them. Deleuze’s notion of the Other offers

an alternative that does not rely only on shared discourses but also accounts for what feels

mysterious and full of possibilities. The Other is the herald of the world yet to be realised.

Practitioners’ experiences affirm that what feels new is not merely a reversal of the past but

something richer and more complex. As Julie put it, “It is not about asking for something and

getting it; you get what is meant to be for you”. This indicates a desire not for isolated outcomes

but for entire assemblages—a landscape of possibilities that envelop the practitioner’s self and

world. As Deleuze (1987) observes, desire is not limited to specific outcomes but involves

“constructing an assemblage”. Santería’s ritual technologies actualise these assemblages by

furnishing tools for self-assembly, understanding and transformation (Espirito Santo &

Panagiotopoulos, 2015).

Ultimately, these experiences suggest a sense of excess—a surplus of potential and meaning

that extends beyond what is explicitly present. Becoming, as an asymptotic process, is an

ongoing act of world-making, a movement toward the realisation of new potentials. This sense

of excess, implicated by the sacred, is what drives practitioners to perceive their transformative

encounters as not only meaningful but also inexhaustible. Santería’s assemblages of aché

thus emerge as both solutions to immediate life problems and openings to an ever-expanding

landscape of possibility. Becoming a practitioner is not a one-off experience; it is an ongoing

journey toward the world of Santería sacred Others.

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Chapter 8 The orisha understand Santería adaptation

This chapter explores how Santería practitioners in Australia navigate the intersections of

sacred and social worlds in public spaces, adapting their behaviours to suit specific contexts.

This dynamic is evident in the artistic performances of Afro-Cuban culture in Australia, as well

as in situations where rituals are performed in public.

Practitioners carefully monitor perceptions, attributed intentions and actions within complex

webs of perspectives: their own, those of the orishas, and the expectations of both religious

peers and non-practitioners. The phrase “the saint understands” encapsulates how

practitioners adapt their practices to contextual constraints in a way that expresses the priority

of relational dynamics over a rigid adherence to rules, emphasising Santería’s inherent

flexibility and responsiveness to its contexts.

Rather than adhering to a fixed set of codified rituals, practitioners cultivate and sustain

personal relationships with the orishas, who are perceived as active, sentient partners in their

lives. They attribute intentions and states of mind to the orishas, just as one attributes such

qualities to a friend or family member. For example, as mentioned previously, a practitioner

who avoids sacrificing a dog to Ogún because it is illegal in Australia, has confidence that

Ogún, whom he refers to as “his dad”, would understand the situation and not wish him to

suffer negative consequences.

When practitioners say that the orisha or the saint “understands”, they refer to the orisha who

also inhabits their body and/or altar, and with whom they cultivate an ongoing relationship.

This connection is often described as deeply personal. Practitioners position their own

intentions as visible to the orishas, trusting that sincerity, effort and ethical adaptation are

recognised—even when circumstances necessitate deviation from traditional practices.

The boundaries and hierarchies of participation in Santería are respected when ritual changes

become necessary, especially when legal, cultural, or natural constraints limit practitioners’

ability to perform rituals as prescribed. In nearly all cases where I heard a practitioner say that

“the orisha understands”, they were referring to personal rituals, offerings or ceremonies they

would usually be qualified to perform under normal circumstances.

In the practice of Santería in Australia, the dynamic interplay of perspectives, intentions, and

adaptations constitutes the primary site of religious continuity and transformation. In this

chapter, I argue that Santería’s adaptability lies in its capacity to foster meaningful relationships

through participatory practices. This flexibility enables practitioners to balance the demands of

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their religious commitments by attuning to both the will of the orishas and the constraints of

their social and cultural environments.

8.1 The orisha understands

In late 2021, the Gold Coast Multicultural Communities Council organised an event to celebrate

the city’s cultural diversity. The Afrekete festival was assigned a stall, and Christina enlisted

my help to promote it. The irresistible coupling of Christina’s infectious enthusiasm and blaring

salsa music soon had people from all walks of life dancing together. I took a moment to relax

behind the shaded table, watching the diverse mix of Asians, Australians, Middle Easterners,

Samoans, Māori, Latinos, and more. All the while, I was sitting back, watching the dancers,

when two cowry eyes set into a conical head, no larger than a coffee mug, gazed up at me

from beneath the table: Eleguá. Once again, the orisha had appeared, this time brought by

Rose

Rose is a child of Eleguá, and the way she talks about the orisha highlights her bond with him:

… my Eleguá gets restless like I [do]. Just think of us as … well … yeah,

good friends. He likes to go places, you know? I’ve noticed Dominic, Adrian,

and others take their Eleguá out, so I thought, OK, I’m taking mine too.

Rose did not refer to the orisha in general terms but as “my Eleguá”. She attributed to him

states of mind and desires as one would a close friend, shaping her connection with him; their

shared preferences are based on the fact that she is a daughter of Eleguá, and they share

common traits.

As I sat under the umbrella that shielded our stall from the midday sun of the Gold Coast, I

noticed beneath the table two cowry eyes set into a conical head, no larger than a coffee mug,

gazing back at me: it was Rose’s Eleguá. At another stall, a group of Latinos promoting a

dance academy shared traditional sweets, offering us a piece of dulce de coco (a sweet made

of coconut). A piece fell beneath our table, and Christina bent down to retrieve it. Noticing it

had landed near Rose’s Eleguá, she said, “He wants some!” and left the accidental offering in

place. Later, when Rose returned, she saw the dulce de coco next to Eleguá and smiled

warmly. “I often give him rum,” she remarked, “but he doesn’t get many sweets.”

For practitioners, orishas are not distant deities but companions whose daily lives are familiar.

What I refer to as “relational ontology” in this thesis is not a self-conscious abstract construct.

Not her real name

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This relational dynamic is typical of practitioners who often regard the orishas as close allies

with whom they share a respectful yet endearing and intimate relationship. Rather than entities

demanding hierarchical obedience to rules, as one might expect in traditional religious worship,

they view them as allies in a symbiotic relationship. The human attends to the needs of their

orisha, and the orisha does the same for their humans.

Lindley, an Australian-born practitioner from Adelaide, shares a similarly personal relationship

with her Eleguá, who has a bottle of Havana Club rum on his altar. When her non-practitioner

son asked if Eleguá would mind if he had a sip, she responded, “Ask him”. Her answer implied

that respect and good faith, not rigid rules, govern interactions with the orisha, and Eleguá’s

acceptance would depend on the sincerity of the gesture. Lindley’s religious and life journey

profoundly shapes her understanding of her orisha. For Lindley, Eleguá is a partner with whom

she shares mutual goals, including the well-being of her son. This intimacy contrasts with her

Catholic upbringing. Australian practitioners with a Catholic background often report that the

closeness of the orisha, the embodied experiences, and the relationship with the sacred are

the main attractions of the religion for them.

This dynamic relationship with the orisha was familiar to me as a child in Cuba, watching my

grandmother’s interactions with Babalú Ayé. Renowned for her devotion, my grandmother

revered him as a strict enforcer of promises. While offering coins at his altar was customary,

and my grandmother’s devotion was deep and sincere, I recall a day when I had no money for

school lunch. A farmer with limited resources, my grandmother knelt before Babalú Ayé’s altar,

rang the bronze bell I still treasure, and knocked on the floor three times. After a whispered

prayer, she took coins from his plate and handed them to me, saying, “He knows I’ll pay him

back as soon as I can. He understands”. Her faith resided not in abstract dogma but in a

relationship grounded in reciprocity, trust and mutual recognition of good intention.

Mariesly Paradelo is Cuban practitioner and dance instructor currently living on the Gold Coast.

She laments the difficulty of obtaining aguardiente (a strong sugarcane-based spirit) and the

prohibitive cost of cigars in Australia—two of Eleguá’s favourite offerings. Back in Cuba, she

would present these to him every Monday, a ritual steeped in tradition. In Australia, she

substitutes Cuban rum, such as Havana Club or Bacardi, as part of her weekly offering. While

finding solace in her belief that the orisha understands, still, she wistfully remarks, “What

Eleguá really likes is aguardiente”.

As a child of Olokun, the enigmatic orisha of the ocean depths, Mariesly occasionally makes

offerings to him as well, and to Yemayá, the orisha of the sea. In Cuba, it is common to offer

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[to Yemayá or Olokun or both] nine types of fruit, accompanied by prayers and songs, tossing

them into the ocean or leaving them on the shore. In Australia, the context necessitates

adaptation. Mindful of how bystanders or authorities might misinterpret her actions if she were

to toss fruits into the sea, she places the fruits gently on the sand at the water’s edge and, with

prayers, pours water over them with her hands. Afterwards, she retrieves the offering and

brings it back to her apartment, where she arranges it on Yemayá’s altar for nine days. “Then

she is happy”, she explains, her voice warm with conviction.

Proudly, she pulls out her phone to show me a photograph of her altar, adorned in Yemayá’s

traditional blue and white. The careful arrangement reflects her devotion and creativity in

maintaining these practices far from their Cuban origins. “Ella me entiende” (“she understands

me”), she adds, expressing the reciprocity of her relationship with Yemayá.

A Cuban babalawo living in Queensland recounted the precautions he took during Australia’s

heightened alert for potential terrorist attacks between 2014 and 2016. During this period,

public vigilance over suspicious behaviours and abandoned packages was at an all-time high.

“You must be discreet here because people don’t know what you’re doing”, he explained.

“People may misunderstand you. If someone saw you placing a package somewhere and

leaving it behind, you could get into serious trouble.”

In certain ceremonies, specific ritual items or offerings must be taken to the abode of an orisha,

such as a crossroads, a river, a beach, a hill or a bush. At that time, however, the religious

expectations surrounding such practices conflicted with a heightened sensitivity to national

security threats, when leaving an unattended object could raise suspicions or trigger alarms of

terrorism.

“What did you do?” I asked. “I disposed of it as I could”, he replied. “Maybe I placed it discreetly

close to the indicated place, as long as it would not cause me any trouble. He then added:

“Los santos entienden” (Sp. “the saints understand”). Practitioners “know” their orisha will be

lenient because they know their intentions. Intentions are posed as “visible” to the orisha. The

orisha “knows” that their heart is in the right place. They are doing the best they can within

constraints imposed by the new context and their need to adapt.

8.2 The “inter” in intersubjectivity

Humans depend on intersubjectivity—commonly defined as “a shared perception of reality

between two or more individuals” (Munroe, 2023)—to collaborate, navigate their world and

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understand themselves. Gillespie and Cornish (2010) define intersubjectivity as “the variety of

possible relations between perspectives of individuals, groups, or traditions and discourses,

which can manifest as both implicit (or taken for granted) and explicit (or reflected upon)”.

Where intersubjectivity, as summarised by Gillespie and Cornish (2010), can be defined as

agreement, shared understanding, attribution of intentionality, feelings and beliefs, implicit or

automatic behavioural orientations, interactive performance within a situation, shared and

taken-for-granted background assumptions, it can be applied to the way people describe their

relations with the orishas.

Particularly in hybrid spaces where cultural perspectives collide, monitoring and adapting to

Others’ perspectives—including the orishas’—is integral to negotiating both sacred and social

dynamics. Hybrid spaces—where Santería practices intersect with outsider perceptions—

demand constant negotiation. In such spaces, practitioners navigate dual sets of relations

between perspectives. They simultaneously monitor both the metaperspectives of other

people and those of the orisha with whom they interact in the rituals. The next chapter will

provide more details on this double relation between perspectives. The point here is to highlight

the relation-based approach to modifying rituals as a way of adapting behaviours according to

metaperspectives.

Drawing from Laing et al. (1966), Gillespie and Cornish (2010) developed a methodology

based on three levels for the analysis of intersubjectivity:

• Direct perspective: What I think about X. This may be explicit, such as “I might get in

trouble if I leave an unattended package in a public place”, or implicit, as demonstrated

by simply not leaving the package.

• Metaperspective: What I think Others think about X. This could be explicit, as in “The

orisha understands”, and in “You must be discreet here because people don’t know

what you’re doing”. It can be implicit, as in the behaviour during rituals or in expressions

like “If someone saw you placing a package somewhere and leaving it behind, you

could get into serious trouble.”

• Meta-meta perspective: What I think Others think that I think about X. For example,

“The orisha knows that I have the best intentions”. They can also be implicit or explicit.

These layers are not abstract; they shape everyday interactions and the sense of Self.

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These definitions of intersubjectivity have been honed to analyse interactions between (two or

more) humans. However, the methodology can be applied to our analysis of expressions like

“the orisha understands”, which presupposes the interaction with a nonhuman metaperson.

Social psychologists (Aveling et al., 2015; Gillespie & Cornish, 2010) claim that the

methodology does not necessarily require the interviewing of more than one party of the

intersubjective relationship, as the Other can be traced through the speaker’s “inner Others”.

In that sense, we could consider the orisha a practitioner’s “inner Other” to elicit instances of

intersubjectivity during my interviews. In applying this framework, however, there is a risk of

considering intersubjectivity as an abstract relation between two abstract mental entities.

Another approach would be to consider the role of embodiment in intersubjective processes.

Proponents of embodied cognition highlight the role of the body in intersubjective relations.

Csordas (2008), for example, describes intersubjectivity as intercorporeality. He cites

examples like the laying on of hands during a Pentecostal faith healing, the expectation, in

Brazilian culture, that guests leave when the host reaches for the doorknob, the grim smile of

European-American men when they greet each other in the street, or a Navajo chanter’s

argument that apprentices must learn the chants while being close enough to see the lips of

the master moving. Csordas quotes Weiss (1999, p. 5) and argues that “the experience of

being embodied is never a private affair but is always already mediated by our continual

interactions with other human and nonhuman bodies” (cited in Csordas, 2008, p. 119). The

point here is that, because bodies are situated in relation to one another, intersubjectivity is

much more than abstract relations.

According to Csordas, taking this approach avoids thinking of intersubjectivity as an abstract

relation between two abstract mental entities. In this way, he addresses “the gulf between the

objective and subjective dimensions of culture, such that to consider meaning as subjective

abstraction renders it entirely mentalistic, and to consider interaction as objective, is to treat it

as mere behaviour” (Csordas, 1993). In recognising the simultaneity of subjective meaning

and objective interaction as the dual locus of culture, it is possible to reconcile or perhaps

necessarily collapse them upon one another.

My challenge in using these methodologies is that orishas do not have human bodies, although

in many cases, they share the body of the practitioners. Furthermore, their bodies are stones,

iron objects, palm seeds, dolls, or disembodied entities like the spirit of the dead. Nevertheless,

the orishas and spirits of the dead move and are sensed by the practitioners. Taking seriously

practitioner reports of their experiences means not reducing them to ideas or opinions, or the

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“inner Others” of a solipsistic mind—in fact, Edmund Husserl first proposed the notion of

intersubjectivity to solve the problem of the implicit solipsism in his phenomenology. At the

very least, orishas cannot be considered less “inner Others” than any other human Other might

be to any of us. Santería scholars have sufficiently reported on how these nonhuman others

contribute to a practitioner’s personhood (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015; Espirito Santo, 2015, 2019;

Pina‐Cabral, 2019; Sahlins, 2023).

My point here is that while the methodologies for studying intersubjectivity help me identify

metaperspectives, this does not imply an abstract relationship between two discrete entities.

Again, my primary unit of analysis is not the practitioners or their minds, but the

assemblage where the sense of Self arises, entangled with Others. These relations are

better understood as arising from the assemblages rather than from discrete subjects.

8.2.1 Assemblages of the Self

The utterance “the orisha understands” emerges from the dynamic interplay of forces within

an assemblage—a convergence of humans, spirits, materials and contexts. This assemblage-

oriented perspective invites us to take practitioner accounts seriously. How else could we

interpret claims that orishas awaken “forces” of the sacred, not as metaphors but as entities

capable of “mechanically producing physical effects” (Durkheim, 1995, cited in Lussier, 2002)?

I argue that the practitioner–orisha relationship emphasises conjunction rather than

separation. Here, the emphasis is on the “inter” of intersubjectivity. The phrase “the orisha

understands” does not describe the Other as an external, discrete entity, nor does it reduce it

to an imaginary Other. Instead, it articulates the relationship itself as it arises from and

responds to the assemblage of circumstances: the orisha understands me, and/in this

particular configuration of reality.

As counterintuitive as the concept of “Self-systems” or assemblages of the Self (Beliso-De

Jesús, 2015; Espirito Santo, 2018, 2019) might initially appear, it offers a more parsimonious

explanation than the Cartesian notion of intersubjective relations between discretely

independent minds. The assumption that the utterance arises from the assemblage, not as a

reflection of pre-existing subjects but as a relational event, avoids the intractable dichotomy of

subject–other or subject–object inherent in Cartesian frameworks.

Materiality and unconscious or pre-personal forces also circulate within these assemblages,

infusing human–orisha biographies. As explained in other chapters, practitioners describe the

interactions occurring in rituals as “energies”, while scholars might term them “energetic

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affectivities” (Beliso-De Jesús, 2015, p. 78). To the consideration of these forces or affects

(Espirito Santo, 2019), we must add the social life of objects and spirits (Espirito Santo &

Blanes, 2013; Wirtz, 2014). Objects are not passive elements but active participants. They can

also be understood as “things-power” (Bennett, 2010) or “things-as-affects” (Espirito Santo,

2019). To study practitioner–orisha relations without acknowledging this dynamic would

impoverish our understanding, reducing the assemblage to a collection of discrete entities

rather than an interwoven network of energetic affectivities. It also reduces religion to symbolic

belief systems expressed in language and rituals, rather than a way of being in the world.

Deleuze’s claim that there are no individuals, only assemblages (Deleuze & Parnet, 1987, p.

51) clarifies/supports/explains the claim that utterances like “the saints understand” arise from

the assemblage and transform it. His notion of “collective assemblages of enunciation”

describes statements like “the orisha understands” as arising from material and immaterial

forces, embodied sensing, and actants’ relational biographies, instead of what we classically

understand as “subjects”. In this sense, the expression is not so much describing the Other as

the relation itself.

Experiences of intersubjectivity in Santería are not evenly intense during the practitioner’s life.

Understanding assemblages as events is particularly useful in capturing the shifting intensities

of various/different experiences. Practitioners are not constantly immersed in events where

they interact with the orishas or navigate hybrid sacred-social spaces. Most of the time, they

lead everyday lives—working, studying, shopping, and spending time with their families.

Moments of ritual celebration, possession, or what Wirtz (2007) refers to as Santería’s ‘telling

moments’ represent points of peak intensity. While times of personal or communal crisis often

lead to more intensive practices, in other periods, relations with the orishas may become more

routine and less central to daily life.

People live in what Duranti calls an “intentional continuum”, a “range of graded ways of being

disposed or mentally (and sensorially) connected with some entity in the world, from a basic

relationship between our consciousness and some entity that attracts our attention” (Duranti,

2015, p. 239). This intentional continuum is a spectrum of mental and sensorial “connections”,

ranging from basic awareness to deep immersion, like in possession. According to Duranti,

people “alternate between different states of mind, embodied attitudes, and projected courses

of action, in a temporal unfolding where certain goals and plans are (often a posteriori)

recognised and evaluated as ‘meant’ and as such qualify as ‘intentions’” (p. 238).

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8.3 The priority of relations for adaptations

Various explanations of how rituals are modified with the acquiescence of the orishas also

influence the perceptions of other practitioners, including what advice they seek for their own

personal adaptive practices. When new practitioners are trained, they learn about the orishas

and how they are allies for solving the problematic ambiguities and contradictions of everyday

life, which includes adapting to the constraints in hybrid social spaces. Again, practitioners live

and “resolve” life problems in pragmatic and embodied engagements with the orishas, not

through deontological/teleological debates.

Perhaps, the expression “the orisha understands” also operates as an “ordering” of

experiences a posteriori, where experiences are recognised and evaluated as meant and, as

such, qualify as “intentions” (Duranti, 2015, p. 238). For the ethnographer, who relies on

people’s reports of themselves, these “a posteriori” mappings are the only data available. In

any case, if we take these reports seriously, it is clear that relations are deep entanglements

between the practitioner and the orisha that, in adapting to the Australian context, are favoured

over rules-driven behaviour.

In this thesis, the priority of the relations and the respect for boundaries and hierarchies of

participation confirm the central argument of homeomorphism that sees Santería

assemblages as continuous despite adaptations. No practitioner in Australia would disrespect

these constraints and claim “the orisha understands”. They would not assume the

understanding of the saints where a practitioner who is not a priest offers animal sacrifices, or

where someone not qualified attempts to initiate new practitioners. While practices and

“ingredients” may be adapted, replaced or improvised upon, the relational affects they create

remain consistent. These enduring relational dynamics sustain the efficacy of ritual power, or

aché. The relational ontology of aché assemblages ensures the continuity of Santería’s sacred

worlds while creatively responding to diverse contexts.

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Chapter 9 Living at the crossroads

Aloy Junco is a Cuban practitioner living in Melbourne. He embellishes his casual and jovial

demeanour with a splendid smile, one inherited from his father, Tito Junco, a beloved Cuban

actor from my youth and childhood.

Aloy is a child of Eleguá, orisha of the crossroads, and his life, like the deity he honours, unfolds

at the threshold of worlds. Between Cuba and Australia, ritual and performance, tradition and

improvisation, Aloy makes me think that perhaps it is possible to inhabit tension without

needing to resolve it.

Too “yuma” to be Cuban, too Cuban to be a “yuma”

Aloy recounts how each year he returns to Havana for three months—his old neighbourhood,

his “libreta de abastecimiento”

, his family collecting rations on his behalf. But the return is

never seamless. “I met a girl back there,” he says, “and she was all about money. I was like,

‘Girl, what’s up with you?’ But I realised—I’ve been living outside. That changes you.”

There’s a moment in his voice, a pause before he continues. “The first two, three weeks, you

feel it. Like you don’t fit anywhere. But then you reconnect. Still…” He shrugs. “Coño a lo mejor,

o soy muy yuma para ser cubano o soy muy cubano para ser yuma” (Sp. “Shit, maybe I’m too

much of a foreigner to be Cuban, or too Cuban to really be a foreigner”).

This tension between places, ways of life, and sensibilities runs through Aloy’s diasporic

experience. The past and the present, Cuba and Australia, artistic performance and religion,

faith and reason.

Tradition and change

Aloy also reflects on the contrast between the religious norms he grew up with in Cuba and

the more permissive or hybridised practices he encounters today. “There’s a very fine line,” he

says repeatedly, referring to the shifting boundary between what is considered sacred and

what is now exposed or performed publicly. He recalls a time when taking photographs inside

The libreta de abastecimiento (literally “supply booklet”) is the Cuban government’s ration

book system, introduced in 1962 to ensure equitable distribution of basic food and household

goods. Every Cuban household is assigned a libreta, which records entitlements to subsidised

products such as rice, beans, cooking oil, coffee, and soap, to be collected monthly at local

distribution points.

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the Cuarto de Santo (the room where the orishas live and new initiations are performed) was

strictly forbidden, when ceremonies were entirely closed to non-initiates, and when staging

certain ritual gestures was unthinkable. Today, however, many of these prohibitions have

softened. “You can watch Abakuá ceremonies on YouTube,” he notes with both surprise and

resignation. What once required guarded secrecy is now selectively visible, mediated, and

even stylised. In performance, dancers may imitate states of trance or represent scenes drawn

from initiation rites. For Aloy, this is not necessarily disrespectful, but it marks a profound

change. He underscores that the boundary “hasn’t disappeared,” but it is “very, very, very fine.”

The line between what is ritually lived and what is theatrically rendered is no longer fixed. It is

constantly negotiated across stages, screens, and diasporic pedagogies.

When I ask Aloy whether he brought his orisha from Cuba, he doesn’t hesitate. “Of course,

asere

. My Eleguá is always with me. I received my Eleguá and my Mano de Orula when I was

seventeen. This here”—he raises his wrist—“this is my Mano de Orula from back then.” He

shows me the bracelet, frayed and visibly worn, modestly made, as it was traditionally created

in Cuba before the current tourist boom, and the popularity of Santería. “People now, they

don’t change theirs either,” he says, “but it’s different. You can buy a *Mano de Orula* made

of gold these days. All gold. But I won’t trade mine, asere. This is mine.” His voice is not defiant

or judgmental. He speaks from a place of belonging and connection to roots.

He tells me it was given to him by one of Cuba’s most respected dancers, choreographers,

and musicians, Juan de Dios Ramos - the founder of Raíces Profundas, a renowned folkloric

company. “He was my padrino,” Aloy says. “So, thanks to that, I learned to sing, to play music,

to dance…you know what I mean? So, I received those teachings thanks to him.”

In this gesture—the refusal to replace a worn bracelet with a shinier one—Aloy affirms

something deeper than appearance. His bracelet is not a fashion piece, not a commodity. The

thread that runs through the green and yellow beads holds the bracelet together, just like it

holds together the diasporic Self that wears it.

Asere is a Cuban colloquialism commonly used among friends or peers, roughly equivalent

to “bro,” “mate,” or “dude” in English. While its tone is informal and familiar, it also carries

cultural depth, often signaling solidarity, camaraderie, or shared Cubanía. Though widespread

in popular speech, its affective resonance can vary depending on context, speaker, and

intonation.

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Connection and disconnection

For Aloy, the connection to his ancestors is not just tradition—it is a vital source of orientation

and strength. When I ask about his daily practice, he answers with quiet conviction. “When I

shower every day,” he says, “I mention all my dead by their names. My father, my little cousin,

my uncles, my godfather. Every single day.” The bathroom becomes a ritual space, shielded

from distraction. “That’s my moment,” he explains. “No girlfriend, no noise. Just me. I talk to

them. I give thanks.” He doesn’t pray for wealth or luck. “I ask for health, love, strength… The

rest, I’ll provide myself.” Afterwards, he says, he feels renewed. “I feel better. Healthier. Nice.”

Living so far from Cuba, the need to remain grounded is acute. “There are a lot of Cubans who

drink the Coca-Cola of forgetfulness,” Aloy tells me. The phrase is as cutting as it is familiar:

Coca-Cola as the symbol of global capitalism and cultural erasure; forgetfulness as the slow

erasure of familial memory, language, and cubanía. “They lose the connection,” he says. “They

forget who they are, how they think.” For Aloy, the religion—his relationship with the orishas

and the dead—keeps that erosion at bay. It is not merely spiritual; it is a living archive, a

structure of memory, a way of remaining Cuban while living with the dislocations of diaspora.

“Many of us live here,” he says. “But our thoughts are still over there.”

When I ask Aloy why people in Australia are interested in Santería, he doesn’t answer with

claims of truth or promises of salvation. He begins with a story.

“Look, Australia is a country with a lot of connection… to flora, fauna… The Australian has that

in them,” he says. “Once, I had to work with an Aboriginal man at a ceremony. He was meant

to bless the beginning of the ceremony, or something like that. We were in the dressing room

talking about religions, and he told me something that stuck with me.”

Aloy leans forward, recalling the moment. “He said that when the British came in their ships

and took the land, the Aboriginal people cast a kind of curse, so that the white man would

never feel at ease on this land. So, they would always be unhappy, disconnected.” Aloy shrugs,

as if to say, “I don’t know if it’s true”, but then adds, “But it made me think. Because back then,

fifteen years ago, I remember Australia had one of the highest suicide rates. And I used to

wonder—shit, why? It’s such a beautiful country. It has everything—nature, opportunities…

but something was missing.”

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That missing thing, he says, is connection. “People want to connect, asere. That’s what they’re

looking for.” He’s seen it firsthand, not just in Australia but in places as far as Germany, Finland,

Taiwan. “Everywhere I go, there are people into the religion. People playing batá. You say to

yourself, shit, what’s going on here?”

He is not surprised anymore. “This gives people something spiritual. It opens a path. It touches

hearts—you don’t even realise it until people message you, from places like Dubai, saying, ‘It’s

not the same without you.’” Aloy continues to explain:

And you really don't realise it, do you? And that's what they're looking for,

they're looking for connection, dude. Connections are what you're looking

for. And to have some hope of... what do you want to be human in general,

hope...

“Hope for what?” I ask. “Hope for peace,” he answers. “For spiritual peace. Because, between

the phone, the bills, everything, your heart gets pulled away. You lose your footing. You lose

your connection.” He pauses. “That’s why people turn to yoga—to learn to breathe again.

Because people don’t even breathe these days.” Aloy believes that Santería provides people

with the peace and connection they yearn for.

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9.1 Living between worlds

The concept of the crossroads an enduring metaphor in Afro-Cuban religions. The crossroads

symbolises a site of encounter, decision and transformation; a space where possibilities

emerge and where practitioners are called to integrate sacred and social dimensions of their

lives creatively.

Practitioners of Santería often find themselves at a crossroads—both literally and

metaphorically—where sacred and social worlds converge. These crossroads are not merely

physical locations; they are ontological spaces where multiple realities overlap. This chapter

examines how practitioners manage this coexistence, adapting their rituals, practices and self-

perceptions to contexts where their spiritual frameworks are not always understood or

recognised. This negotiation highlights the juxtapositions of ontological perspectives that

practitioners navigate in these spaces.

Eleguá is one of the most prominent orishas in Santería. The ruler of crossroads and

beginnings, Eleguá dictates the path forward: “Nothing can be done without Eleguá’s

permission”. Known as the guardian of crossroads, he is also a cunning trickster. As the

proverb goes, “He throws a stone today and kills a chicken yesterday”. It highlights his ability

to confound time and logic in his mischievous ways. Cabrera learnt from her informants,

“friendship or the truest love, Eleguá turns them into hatred, confusing two people who love

each other well” (Cabrera, 2015, p. 110). A well-known pataki (sacred story) vividly illustrates

Eleguá’s mischievous yet profoundly instructive nature.

In the story, two close friends vow never to quarrel. Overhearing their promise, Eleguá, ever

the trickster, decides to teach them humility. He dons a hat that is black on one side and red

on the other and walks between them. Later, as the friends recount the mysterious figure, one

insists the hat was black, while the other swears it was red. Their disagreement escalates into

a heated argument, ending in a fight. Eleguá reappears, laughing, to reveal his two-coloured

hat and chastise them for allowing appearances to fracture their bond.

Social psychologists might interpret this pataki as an illustration of Eleguá subverting the

friends’ reliance on shared perception, or what is often termed intersubjectivity. By juxtaposing

seemingly mutually exclusive perspectives, Eleguá destabilises their assumptions, forcing

them to confront the fragility of shared realities.

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This narrative resonates deeply with the lived experiences of immigrants navigating cultural

differences. For those living between worlds, borders are no longer merely geographic but

manifest in the gaps between contrasting expectations, values and perceptions. Immigrants

develop what might be called a “double vision”, constantly monitoring the perspectives of

Others and adapting their behaviours to align with shifting cultural norms. Only in their case,

they seek agreement or at least not to be perceived as a threat by nationals or other migrants.

Santería practitioners experience a similar dynamic. Like Eleguá, they metaphorically wear a

double-sided hat, embodying the trickster’s capacity to navigate and mediate between multiple

perspectives. This duality allows them to reconcile contradictions, bridge ontological divides

and adapt their practices to the complexities of transnational life, all while maintaining their

connection to sacred traditions. Even Eleguá himself continues to wear a metaphorical two-

sided hat to fit contrasting perspectives and expectations.

9.1.1 Eleguá at the ontological crossroads

In January 2021, the annual Afrekete festival took place at the Tugun Village Community

Centre on the Gold Coast in Queensland. As usual, the festival began at sunset on Friday and

continued through the weekend. Arriving half an hour early, I had time to explore a small art

exhibition set up by the festival organisers.

The room’s walls were adorned with colourful paintings that reflected a heterogeneous mix of

themes: Aboriginal Australian and Native American motifs, New Age and ecological messages

with captions like “stay grounded in the abundant earth” and “radiate your own true light”, and,

naturally, Afro-Cuban religious themed imagery. Some of the artwork had quotes from Kent

Windress’ research on Afro-Cuban ethnomusicology, while others depicted quintessential

Cuban scenes—classic American cars, dancers, or an old Black man smoking a cigar against

a backdrop of colonial architecture. A photograph of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and other

revolutionary leaders at the 1960 memorial for victims of the La Coubre sabotage hung in a

corner. Much of the artwork was for sale.

This eclectic mix of dance, music, pan-Indigeneity, New Age philosophies, politics, academic

scholarship and commercialisation typifies the rich blending of perspectives that coexist in

Santería, especially since the island opened to tourism. For a Cuban like me, such a blend is

unsurprising. Yet as I turned to leave, something caught my attention: two familiar cowry eyes

stared up at me from the floor near the doorway. Eleguá, the guardian of thresholds, had

stopped me in my tracks.

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The Eleguá was a conical or semi-oval head crafted from cement, with cowry shells for eyes

and a mouth, sitting on a terracotta plate. Coins and toys adorned the plate. These are typical

offerings to the orisha, who is often represented as a child. A large seashell embedded in the

side of the head led me to suspect it belonged to Christina, a priestess of Yemayá, the sea

orisha.

Standing before Eleguá’s cowry eyes, I found myself at my own crossroads. What was this

Eleguá doing by the door of an art exhibition at a multicultural festival in Australia? Was he a

consecrated orisha or merely an artistic representation of the trickster? Was he performing a

religious function or just serving as another exhibit—or perhaps both? And more pragmatically,

what was the protocol I should follow in this case? I was new to my fieldwork and keen to avoid

beginning my research under the shadow of a potential misstep. Eleguá, known for his childlike

playfulness, does not take disrespect lightly.

Cuban-born anthropologist Mercedes Cross-Sandoval aptly described Cubans as místicos

pragmáticos (Sp. “pragmatic mystics”). As she explained, Cubans seek the spirits when in

need and, regardless of personal beliefs, show respect for them “por si acaso” (Sp. “just in

case”). Her insight rang true in my case. I crouched before Eleguá, knocked on the floor three

times, kissed my fist, and asked for his blessing, “just in case”. Nevertheless, another voice in

my multivoiced head—the researcher this time—wanted explanations.

9.1.2 Art and religion in hybrid spaces

The following day, I arrived before the festival workshops began and encountered Israel Ortiz,

a practitioner and dancer I had known for over a decade. I had first met him in Brisbane after

his initiation in Cuba when he returned dressed in white. In Spanish, I asked Israel how the

mix of art and religion worked in Afrekete and, more broadly, in Australia. The question was a

familiar debate among practitioners.

With his distinct eastern Cuban accent, he replied: “I am going to answer you the same way I

answer others who ask about religion. Afro-Cuban culture is one of the few religions that is

presented on stage as art”.

I put the religion in the position of art, and when I dance—for example, if I

dance Eleguá—I do it as an artistic representation. At that moment, I am not

religious; I am an artist, or [I am] the religious one turned artist.

When I asked about the difference between dancing on stage and in a bembé (a religious

celebration), Israel elaborated:

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If you go to a bembé in the countryside [in Cuba], things change … the

energies are different, and the energies change the person, the energies

change you. Because when you are in a bembé, you are, as we say, in the

root, in the raw. When you are on stage, your mentality changes.

In an interview conducted for this research, I asked Moro—the dancer and priest of Shango,

introduced in Chapter 5—about the difference between dancing on stage and in a religious

ceremony. Moro explained that when performing in a show, his primary goal is to communicate

with the audience, focusing on style, precision and the mastery of his craft. In contrast, dancing

in a religious context for him allows for greater freedom of expression, as the performance is

directed toward the orisha. The “who” being addressed and the intention behind the

performance fundamentally shape the “energies”, moods and becomings of each space.

In Spanish, Moro elaborated:

If I dance for Shango, I dance for him. I tell him: “Look at me, look at what I

think you are or how you dance. Tell me if you like it”. It’s like dancing in front

of your dad … giving him joy … [and saying] “Look at your son, celebrating

something you taught me”.

The different “energies” or intensities practitioners describe correspond to the relational

dynamics of each context. The “I” position (perspective) of the dancer aligns with the “You”

being addressed (metaperspective), creating a relationship shaped by the intentions of the

performance. In artistic performances, the “You” is the audience and fellow artists on stage,

while in ritual contexts, the “You” is the orisha, and the intention is deeply religious. These

perspectives influence the dancer’s interpretation of what Others expect of them and guide

their subsequent actions.

On stage, the intention is to craft an aesthetic experience, which invokes a becoming-artist

distinct from the becoming (Chapter 5) that occurs during ritual performance. In ritual, Moro’s

performance is directed toward his papá (Spanish for “dad”), Shango, and the same

movements evoke a profoundly different intensity and connection. Moro described this as a

shift in “energy” and intention: “Look at what I think you are” and “Tell me if you like it” are not

literal words he speaks but ways of illustrating, in answer to my question, his intentions and

emotional orientation during the rituals. This relationship reflects how Moro orients himself to

become a mirror or expression of Shango in the world, aligning his perspective with that of the

orisha.

By contrast, during a stage performance, Israel and Moro’s focus is attuned to the

metaperspectives of the audience and fellow performers. These differing relational dynamics

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underscore how intention, addressivity and perspective shape the energies of performance,

transforming not only the act of dancing but also the identity and experience of the dancer.

9.1.3 Compartmentalising intentions: the principe de coupure

This capacity to navigate between artistic and sacred realms echoes Roger Bastide’s concept

of the principe de coupure—or the “principle of compartmentalization” (Sudre et al., 2019).

Bastide proposed that Afro-Brazilian practitioners alternated between two distinct systems of

thought: Western “modern and rational” logic and African “traditional and mystical” logic.

However, this alternation does not produce tension; rather, practitioners “live between two

distinct and incompatible worlds without experiencing any tension” (Capone, 2008).

The principe de coupure explains the coexistence of seemingly incompatible logics within

individuals and cultures. For Bastide, this framework highlighted juxtaposition rather than

syncretism, allowing him to describe Brazil’s cultural heritage without reducing it to a singular

hybrid form (Pereira de Queiroz, 1979). I see a parallel pattern in Australia.

What dancers “compartmentalise” between artistic and sacred performance are not physical

spaces or movements but intentions and relational dynamics. The “cut” is not between “modern

and rational” and “traditional and mystical” modes of thought (Bastide, 1955). Rather, it maps

a process for navigating a juxtaposition of intentions and metaperspectives, a necessary

adaptation for practitioners living between worlds as they do in Australia.

Ethnographers have documented instances where this “cut” or compartmentalisation fails or

collapses—such as when performers experience spirit possession during folkloric

presentations (Hagedorn, 2001; Wirtz, 2004). While some performers frown upon such

incidents, they recognise that they may be involuntary. Israel stressed the importance of

monitoring “those two energetic forces” and separating them depending on the performance’s

purpose—whether dancing for the public or for the orisha:

There are many people, many artists who go into trance, and [the spirits]

possess them. But when you are on stage, you know you are dancing for the

public; you cannot reach that point. There are times when it is unavoidable,

and they [the orishas] come. It is a time when you must determine and

separate those two … how to say? ... Those two energetic forces.

Like other dancers, Israel maintains a dialogue with the Others who share his intentions and

spaces. As an artist, he monitors the audience, musicians and fellow performers, aiming to

meet their expectations for an artistic event. In these moments, he is “the religious one turned

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artist”. Yet, as a religious practitioner, the orishas’ unpredictable agency means they may

“come” regardless of his intentions, requiring him to negotiate and separate the “energies”.

The “cut” Israel describes does not divide sacred and secular spaces or realities but navigates

affective states and intersubjective positions. These shifts occur at the level of intentions and

attunement, with ritual and artistic performances sharing semiotic and embodied similarities

but different “energies” or attunements to them.

9.2 Juxtaposed ontological perspectives

As described above, the Eleguá I encountered at the exhibition featured a large seashell

encrusted on its side, leading me to suspect it belonged to Christina, priestess of Yemayá. As

I was leaving the room that night, I spotted Christina coordinating performers and volunteers

for the festival’s opening act. After exchanging a warm hug, I seized the moment to ask, “Hey,

why is that Eleguá there? Is it part of the exhibition or … ‘something else’?” (I punctuated my

question with air quotes.) Christina responded with a knowing smile, “Both!” Before I could

probe further, she was called away, leaving the mystery unresolved.

How can Eleguá be both a sacred entity and an exhibit, simultaneously performing as an “it”

and a “him”? This dual role invites reflection on how sacred objects are perceived differently

depending on context and perspective. For instance, visitors to the Sistine Chapel may

approach Michelangelo’s frescoes in various ways: as tourists marvelling at their artistic

grandeur, as art critics analysing technique, or as devout Catholics experiencing spiritual awe.

Pope Paul III reportedly fell to his knees before The Last Judgment, overcome by its divine

power, while Goethe famously declared that no one could fully grasp human achievement

without seeing the Sistine Chapel. Despite these diverse interpretations—religious, artistic or

cultural—the frescoes remain objects and representations, never crossing the ontological

threshold to become a person, a sacred “you”.

Eleguá, however, straddles this threshold. His duality as both sacred being and artistic exhibit

reflects the complexity of Santería’s ontological framework. Unable to find Christina the next

day, I turned to Israel for insight. He confirmed Christina’s assertion: Eleguá was indeed

playing a dual role:

As the guardian of your house (…) he takes care of everything happening—

who enters, who leaves—watching so that nothing bad happens, opening

and welcoming everyone who passes by.

Israel elaborated on this duality, offering an analogy for how Eleguá’s presence is perceived:

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The one who enters [the room] and doesn’t know who Eleguá is sees him

and says, “Ah, look at what a beautiful sculpture!” A sculpture … They see it

from an artistic point of view and call it a sculpture, but they don’t know who

Eleguá is. For someone who knows who Eleguá is—hell! You must at least

greet him!

With a smile, Israel added a cautionary note: “You know what he does …”—referring to

Eleguá’s capacity to punish those who disrespect him.

Israel’s explanation extended to a metaphor:

Ah, but if you’re innocent … It’s like children playing with snakes. The snake

may not bite them, perhaps because nature recognises their innocence. But

if an adult comes along and starts messing with the snake … well, the snake

knows what they’re doing, and it bites. If someone passes by who doesn’t

know [Eleguá], they don’t have to greet him; they don’t know what Eleguá

will do. But the one who knows the objective [of Eleguá’s presence] must

greet him—for respect, if nothing else.

This account fascinated me, particularly how Israel attributed states of mind to Eleguá that

mirrored his own in similar contexts and juxtaposed perspectives. His explanation revealed a

form of intersubjectivity, where Israel “put himself in Eleguá’s shoes”—or, more fittingly, his

two-coloured hat. Eleguá’s duality as both sacred being and artistic exhibit mirrors how

practitioners like Israel navigate intersections of sacred and social realms.

This interplay of perspectives highlights the relational essence of Santería practices, but also

the role of ontology in these relations. Respect for Eleguá arises not only from mere ritual

obligation, like showing respect for a representation of the sacred such as the Sistine Chapel,

but from a shared understanding of his (ontological) presence and agency. To an unknowing

outsider, Eleguá might appear as a beautiful or not so beautiful sculpture, a cultural artifact

integrated into the exhibition. To the initiated practitioner, however, Eleguá is alive—an active

participant whose awareness demands acknowledgement and respect. This dual role is not

an ontological contradiction—for the practitioner, Eleguá is always the orisha—but a reflection

of the layered realities inhabited by practitioners, where the sacred and the profane are in

constant dialogue, continuously shaping one another. This dynamic underscore the fluid

positioning of Eleguá, and therefore the sacred, mirroring Israel’s dual roles as artist and

practitioner. Both roles are rooted in intentionality and metaperspectives.

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9.3 Respect

In a conversation, Brisbane babalawo Kent Windress remarked that “respect” was the most

important lesson he learned from his padrino in Cuba. It is very common to use the word

“respect” to describe the right attitude toward the sacred. The notion of “respect” (respeto) is

a pervasive yet understudied concept in Cuban religious and cultural life. The phrase “yo no

creo pero respeto” (Spanish for “I don’t believe, but I respect”—often with the addendum “just

in case”) is commonplace among Cubans who may not practise Santería but express this sort

of fear-respect toward the spirits.

Durkheim’s concept of crainte (fear) provides a useful framework here. Unlike “awe” in the

sense of wonder or reverence, Durkheim describes crainte as a feeling of fear associated with

respect—a sui generis mix of reverence and caution (Lussier, 2002). This reverential fear

signals the sacredness of objects: “the objects are sacred because of the feelings they cause”

(Lussier, 2002). For Durkheim, crainte reflects a recognition of the sacred as a force capable

of producing tangible effects, not as a metaphor but as a material reality.

Israel illustrated this when he explained that if someone who “knows” Eleguá fails to show

respect, they might leave the room and, for example, “trip and break a leg”. In Israel’s account,

such an event would not be interpreted as a random accident, but rather a consequence of

disrespecting Eleguá. This mix of fear and respect also carries a moral imperative: “He must

greet him”. Durkheim might interpret this obligation as rooted not only in fear of sacred forces

but also in a moral sense of duty: “if he [sic] behaves in a certain way towards the totemic

beings, it is not merely because the forces residing in them are physically dangerous to

approach, but rather that he [sic] feels himself morally obliged to behave in this way; he [sic]

has the feeling he [sic] is obeying an imperative as it were” (Durkheim, 1995, cited by Lussier,

2002). Respect, in this sense, is not merely a cognitive judgement but an affective state—a

becoming-respectful mood of the practitioner, distinct from the aesthetic mood of the artist.

This realisation crystallised, for me, into a metonym for the Afrekete festival and similar hybrid

spaces. The opening ceremony on the beach was as real and sacred as any other Santería

ritual, but it also “showcased” Afro-Cuban spirituality and culture to festival goers and casual

onlookers. Such “crossroads” moments, triggered by the presence of outsiders, require

practitioners to juggle ambivalent ontologies, shifting intentions and overlapping perspectives.

Like Eleguá, practitioners embody the trickster’s duality, navigating the complexities of respect

and performance in these spaces. Through their adaptive practices, they ensure that their

traditions remain vibrant, accessible and meaningful across boundaries.

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Scholars have long noted the complexity of practitioners’ identity formation, describing it as

“straddling two (or more) realities” (Carr, 2016). In the United States, practitioners inhabit

multiple spaces simultaneously (Mason, 2004). On the island of Cuba, the influx of tourism

and growing interest in Afro-Cuban religions has introduced new juxtapositions between

religious and secular stances. Practitioners who are also scholars often navigate double binds

“between professional folkloric and sacred imperatives” (Wirtz, 2004). Economic hardships

exacerbate these tensions, as practitioners balance sacred obligations with the

commercialisation of their practices—a dynamic encapsulated in the Cuban trope of la doble

moral (Sp. “double morality”) (Wirtz, 2004). Kristina Wirtz has further explored how

practitioners manage juxtapositions of the religious traditions of speech registers (2007a,

2011, 2013) and chronotopes in dialogue (Wirtz, 2016). Hagedorn (2001) described how

folkloric artists in Cuba negotiate and sometimes collapse the distinctions between sacred and

artistic performance.

Finally, this juxtaposition or double vision is not unique to Australia. I experienced it firsthand

while living in Cuba, where my grandmother would often offer advice along the lines of, “If

someone asks you…” to pre-emptively justify why I was wearing white or a religious object.

Wirtz (2004) examines how Santería occupies an ambivalent space in Cuban national

consciousness, shaped by the concept of doble moral (double morality). She argues that while

Santería is widely practiced and culturally significant, it is often publicly disavowed or

downplayed due to historical, racial, and political factors. The Cuban state's secular and

revolutionary discourse has framed Santería as superstitious and backward, yet it remains

deeply embedded in everyday life and national identity. This paradox results in a dual

discourse, where practitioners navigate between private devotion and public denial, reinforcing

both Santería’s resilience and its contested legitimacy within Cuban society.

Other studies contrast sacred religious practice with commercialised folkloric performances in

hotels, cabarets, and cultural events (Hagedorn, 2001; Hearn, 2003; Wirtz, 2007c). Some

practitioners see these performances as diluting Santería’s spiritual integrity, while others view

them as necessary economic opportunities in Cuba’s expanding tourism sector. The rise of

religious tourism has led to new market-driven practices, where ritual performances and

initiations cater to foreign visitors. This shift has sparked debates among practitioners—some

resist commodification by emphasising traditionalist approaches, while others strategically

negotiate authenticity to maintain religious legitimacy while benefiting financially.

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In any case, rather than being a new development, living between worlds has been a defining

characteristic of Santería since early colonial times. The orishas were given the names of

Catholic saints and celebrated during Christian festivities, blending traditions in a way that

ensured their survival. Later, in the early 19th century, this fluidity again became essential for

negotiating the religion’s status with authorities following the United States' intervention. Like

the trickster orisha, the ability to navigate between worlds and embrace paradoxes is yet

another gift of aché. In hybrid spaces like Australia, practitioners live at the crossroads of

juxtaposed relations. They manage intentions and ontologies on one side of their “hat”—

cultivating relationships with Santería copresences—while on the other, they navigate the

expectations of outsiders in their social lives. Practitioners adapt, compartmentalise and

create, ensuring their practices remain vibrant and meaningful in dynamic contexts.

9.4 When the line blurs

In 2025, I could not attend the Afrekete festival. That year, it was held on Magnetic Island, just

off the coast of Townsville in tropical north Queensland—a land of eucalyptus, coral reefs, and

ancient stone. Even the name “Magnetic” felt fitting: a place of unseen forces, of attraction, of

thresholds. Though I could not be there in person, I wanted to contribute, so I sent music. I

had made a series of arrangements of traditional chants dedicated to Obatalá, my orisha of

peace, clarity, and luminous stillness. These were not traditional chants but meditative

soundscapes: layered chants, spacious harmonies, quiet breath-like rhythms, ethereal voices

and gentle drumming.

Two months later, Christina visited me on the Gold Coast. As always, she greeted my Eleguá

after entering our home, knocking three times on the floor in front of the altar. She commented

that we had not seen each other for a while, but my music was a way for me to be present at

Afrekete.

She told me about the sunrise yoga-fusion class Lynley facilitated on the beach with the

Obatalá music I sent playing through portable speakers. As participants lay in stillness, the

atmosphere shifted, stilled, heightened. Then Adrian Medina, who had come to observe, began

to recite a mojuba, quietly, reverently, offering the litany of orishas and ancestors. Without plan

or cue, he picked up a batá drum and began to play softly, in resonance with the track. “I was

in tears”, Christina told me.

Later, Lynley messaged me to say the music had opened a “sacred field.” It held something

still, something full. But this moment was not isolated. That year, Afrekete brought together

African drummers, Caribbean dancers, and First Nations Elders. One video circulated showing

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my field collaborators dancing on the sand alongside Aboriginal Australians—bodies

mimicking birds, water spirits, sea winds. “It was all about connection,” Christina told me. “Real

community.”

What community celebrations like this reveal is that the juxtaposition of worlds that

practitioners navigate, and the distinctions they draw between them, are not rooted in

protective or distrustful impulses. Rather than policing the boundaries of authenticity,

practitioners demonstrate an openness to the unexpected, an ability to engage with the

unfamiliar without losing grounding. In these encounters at the crossroads, precisely through

such layered, intercultural moments, Santería in diaspora shows its capacity to stretch, fold,

and recompose itself without severing its roots.

This is the ajiaco practitioners live in: plural, layered, intellectually unresolved but pragmatically

“resolving” life at the crossroads. It is not a fusion that smooths over difference, but a thick

stew where contradictions simmer side by side; Cuban and Australian sensibilities, inherited

ritual and embodied improvisation, ancestral devotion and contemporary doubt, orisha

possession and yoga breathing. What practitioners demonstrate is not a coherent cosmology,

but a practical intelligence that allows them to inhabit multiple registers at once without

demanding resolution.

And at the heart of it all is connection. Connection with the sacred, with nature, with ancestral

roots, with each other, with the moment and the memory. At these crossroads, the logics that

circulate are not made to align, yet they are made “to work” through relation, through timing,

through affective attunement.

9.5 It works

Another interesting question worth exploring would be about how it is possible that highly

educated people from such different cultural backgrounds, including scholars, come to be

practitioners of this religion. It seems that there is also a paradoxical duality in this. However,

the very question itself suggests a bias that assumes Santería is fundamentally a matter of

ideas, theology, or intellectual argumentation. On the contrary, Santería is about resolver, in a

broad sense.

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I asked Aloy about how an Australian, or any Western-educated person, including a Cuban,

might come to adopt these “primitive” practices. He answered me with an anecdote.

Aloy’s Australian non-practitioner partner asked him once: “Why do you give sweets to a

stone?” Aloy’s answer to this question is as simple as it is deep: the religion is part of who he

is, and it works. It cuts straight to the core of this thesis: creating alliances, assemblages of the

Self, “taking part in”, “part of me”, to resolver with aché, the power to make things happen,

blessings, all the good things in life. “It works”, not as a belief system but as a becoming; the

asymptotic movement toward that excess that we cannot express. It works - or like it is said

in Finjian culture about mana: Mana, e dina! (Effective! or, mana is true!).

Aloy does not have a theological or metaphysical answer for his partner. Like many Cubans

formed by a materialistic educational system, he juxtaposes faith and questions about it. But

like many everyday Cubans, he is more concerned with resolver than reconciling worldviews.

Aloy continued sharing his reaction to his girlfriend's question:

And really, it is a stone. Do you understand me? Yes, but I can’t be different

because that’s how I grew up …

Then, later I realised that … hell … it’s also a psychological thing, although

I can’t change it. I know it can also be a psychological thing. But man (…) I

have seen some things …, you realise there is something stronger than us.

There is an “energy”, you know? Every man wants to believe in something.

Every man believes in something to cling to, an idea that there is an afterlife

and that … that is … there is something that … that you feel more … pure,

right?

I have seen old ladies …, what do I know? ... 80 years old, carrying two

buckets of water and spinning, spinning and spinning and not spilling them,

do you understand me?

And I have seen a Shango putting a coal ember in his mouth, do you

understand? I have seen people at a misa [Santería “mass”] …, women who

change, start to speak like men. And their voice changes, the countenance

changes, do you understand me?

So, mate, you realise that there is something. There is something.

So, okay …, my girlfriend says:

“Are you giving candy to stones?”

“Hey, but the stone gives me wellbeing … I have faith in my stone”.

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Conclusion

This thesis set out to answer two interrelated lines of inquiry: How do practitioners of Santería

in Australia adapt rituals, materials, and relationships to their new environment while asserting

continuity with the Afro-Cuban tradition? And how can we theorise transnational adaptations

symmetrically with practitioners’ views and without reducing them to either conservative

replication or cultural rupture? These questions are significant because they address broader

debates about how religious minorities navigate cultural legitimation and adaptation in the

context of displacement and globalisation. In answering these questions, the thesis also

responds to the need for theorising transnationalism from the perspective of ontologies of

religions centred on immanent forms of transnationalisation, rather than the common

anthropological model centred on transcendence. Combining ethnography, a topological

notion of homeomorphism and Deleuzean assemblage theory, the thesis theorises

transnational religion in a way that avoids both reifying tradition as static and celebrating

change for its own sake. Instead, it recognises adaptation as the very means by which the

tradition's continuity is achieved. What endures is not a static set of forms and cosmologies

but a network of relations and capacities that can be actualised through rituals and theorised

using a topological approach.

The analytical concept that emerges from this ethnography is creative continuity. It redefines

cultural continuity as a dynamic process of actualising latent potentials within a relational

ontology. This concept resonates with UNESCO’s understanding of intangible heritage

(adopted 17 October 2003) as something “constantly recreated by communities … in response

to their environment and history.” However, the contribution of this thesis is that it grounds

creative continuity in emic ontological commitments of Santería, establishing creativity as a

form of continuity. An interesting finding in this regard is that the distinction between

understanding intangible heritage as dynamic and tangible culture as static is notably blurred

in Santería.

Synthesis of findings

Throughout this thesis, each chapter adds to a collective picture of how Santería practitioners

in Australia practice creative continuity. The ethnography draws on participant observation

during initiations, plant-gathering trips, divination sessions, and musical performances, along

with unstructured interviews and informal conversations, to demonstrate that change is central

to how tradition persists without compromising Santería’s foundational tenets.

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The chapters of the thesis describe different aspects of the processes of continuity and change

in ritual practices of Santería in Australia. The thread that runs through the chapters is the two

research questions set in the introduction of the thesis

1) How do practitioners adapt their practices to the Australian natural and cultural

settings? This question is answered through ethnographic descriptions.

2) How can we theorise adaptations symmetrically with practitioners’ views and without

reducing them to either conservative replication or cultural rupture?

Each chapter contributes to answering these questions. In Chapter 1, I invoked the long-used

metaphor of ajiaco, a Cuban stew with ingredients that vary according to availability, to frame

the transplantation of Santería to Australia. Ethnographically, the chapter enriches our

understanding of Australia’s religious landscape, particularly among understudied groups such

as the Latin American and Cuban diasporas. The chapter highlights the central role of mobility

in establishing this religion. This perspective challenges the conventional understanding of

religious transnationalisation in Australia, in which immigrants simply import beliefs into their

adoptive country (Holmes, 2015). At a theoretical level, the chapter demonstrates that paying

close attention to practitioners’ own explanations can yield a more nuanced understanding of

how minority religions travel and transform.

Chapter 2 described my theoretical framework for studying immanent transnationalisation.

The topological notion of homeomorphism enables us to view continuity not as the persistence

of identical forms, but as the preservation of connections. The chapter lays the groundwork

for a much-needed methodological approach to studying immanent forms of religious

transnationalisation, as an alternative to approaches that predominantly focus on belief, faith,

cosmology or transcendence. It does so by applying insights from the ethnography of the

substitution of the ikines de Orula in Australia.

Chapter 3 focuses on narratives of creativity, connection and selfhood as grounded in the

notion of aché. Such narratives illustrate how creative continuity operates at the level of

personal experience. The chapter offers a fresh approach to understanding experiences of

mana-like notions, such as aché. In this way, it responds to the need for moving beyond the

linguistic and historical constraints that have stalled mana debates in the past (Tomlinson &

Tengan, 2016). In the context of my research questions, this chapter provides ethnographic

evidence to explain creativity as the activation of already existing potentials, rather than “ex

nihilo” invention. Even for newcomers, what is new in Santería is perceived as the

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actualisation of the Self in connection with Santería metapersons, as expressed in experiences

and descriptions of aché. At a theoretical level, understanding change as the actualisation of

existing potentials allows for a view that it does not exclude continuity, as it could if the new

emerged ex nihilo.

In the next two chapters, I lay the ethnographic groundwork for the two topological axes of the

Santería assemblages that anchor my topological analysis of homeomorphic adaptations

examined in Chapter 6. Chapter 4 unpacks the rituals and discourses through which

Santería’s relational ontology is produced, treating the body itself as an assemblage and

showing how practitioners’ identities emerge from networks linking humans, ancestors, and

Santería metapersons. Chapter 5 turns to experiences of becoming within ritual contexts,

introducing a “topology of participation” that builds on over a century of anthropological work.

Rather than limiting participation to the body or mind, or to human actors alone, this approach

situates participation within the assemblage as a whole, encompassing the human and

nonhuman elements that co-constitute the ritual encounter.

Chapter 6 then builds on these chapters to analyse plant substitutions, a central site of creative

continuity in Australia due to significant differences between the two countries’ ecosystems.

Plant substitutions are not random; the plants’ capacity to enter the assemblage is evaluated

according to well-established hierarchical structures of participation. This process reveals the

locus of continuity as not in the particular species, but in the relational web connecting plants,

orishas and practitioners. Topologically, such ritual substitutions are a form of

homeomorphism. Despite obvious changes, key invariants—such as divination authority,

hierarchies of participation, the sequence of actions to establish and cross boundaries, the

constitutive character of the relations, and participatory experiences—remain intact.

The rest of the Chapter applies different analytical tools, together with Deleuzean concepts, to

various aspects of living as a practitioner of Santería in Australia. These are: experiences of

conversion (Chapter 7), other ritual adaptations performed in public places (Chapter 8), and

the disjunctions and juxtapositions that practitioners negotiate (Chapter 9)

Chapter 7 analyses conversion stories to show that what appears “new” is sensed and

described as already latent in practitioners’ sense of Self. Practitioners portray their

encounters with Santería as a recognition of “who they really are” in relationship with an orisha.

Personal transformation is for them the unfolding of a dormant, authentic Self rather than a

break with the past. The chapter presents a novel application of Deleuze’s notion of the Other,

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shifting the analysis of conversion away from ideological and individual change toward the

primacy of relations and becomings as a basis for creative continuity.

The rest of the thesis (Chapters 8 and 9) explores questions about how to live as a practitioner

at the crossroads of sacred and secular ontologies, change and continuity, Cuba and Australia,

the past and the present. Practitioners insist “the orisha understands” when circumstances

require adaptation—whether substituting ingredients or delaying a ritual because of work.

They navigate multiple ontologies simultaneously, articulating a “double vision” that allows

them to respect both their religious obligations and the norms of secular Australian society.

The pragmatics of resolver, and the emphasis on relationality, driven by emic understandings

of “respect”, guide creative continuity.

Broader Implications

The idea of creative continuity developed in this study has relevance beyond Santería. Many

traditions facing migration, urbanisation, or global media encounter the challenge of how to

stay recognisable and legitimate according to their ontologies while adapting to new

environments. Seeing continuity as a relational process, rather than simply preserving fixed

forms, offers a framework for understanding how Indigenous, migrant, and subcultural

communities manage change. Creative continuity thus shows how what makes a practice

traditional is not its unchanging nature but its capacity to adapt while keeping the elements

that practitioners see as central to their culture. In the case of Santería, it is a relational

ontology that is embodied and lived as a response to the need to solve life problems.

The theoretical approach of this thesis also aligns with scholars who caution against

essentialising minority cultures, and it offers a model for evaluating authenticity from within the

tradition’s own ontology. Recognising cultural forms of creative continuity encourages

policymakers to focus on protecting the conditions that enable relations—such as access to

gathering spaces, freedom to perform rituals, and intergenerational transmission— and dispel

the notion that “genuine” traditions are those untouched by change.

Given the recent emergence of Santería within Australia’s multicultural landscape, these

findings carry important implications for policy and public engagement. Santería is often

misrepresented in the media, framed through exoticizing or stigmatising narratives.

Meanwhile, practitioners navigate legal frameworks that do not always accommodate core

aspects of their religious practice, like animal sacrifice or the collection of wild plants.

Regulatory bodies would benefit from meaningful consultation with such marginal communities

to discern which elements are negotiable and which are essential to the integrity of the

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tradition. Public understanding could also be improved by framing Santería not as “witchcraft”,

imported by immigrants, but as a dynamic religion whose adaptability mirrors the pluralistic

ethos of contemporary Australia. More broadly, this perspective invites policymakers to

recognise the contributions of minority communities—not only in terms of cultural diversity, but

as sources of resilience, environmental connection to community cohesion. Supporting this

kind of adaptive creativity not as a departure from 'authentic' culture, but as its very lifeblood,

is essential to fostering a more inclusive and equitable society.

Limitations and further research

Like any ethnographic and theoretical endeavour, this study has limitations that influence its

findings and raise questions for future research.

The study offers a snapshot of the adaptation process of Santería in Australia, rather than a

comprehensive survey of the religion’s global diaspora. Santería practice is diverse even within

Cuba. In the United States, for example, some communities clearly differentiate between Ifá

and Santería and follow separate initiatory paths. The homeomorphic relations identified in this

thesis—such as the hierarchy of participation—are based on the Australian field sites and the

author’s own experience in Cuba, but they may be challenged or differently arranged

elsewhere. That said, the topological model risks being interpreted as relativistic if every

substitution is deemed equivalent and practitioners themselves insist that not all innovations

are acceptable. Applying the topological framework beyond the Santería communities

examined in this thesis—whether in other diasporic contexts or in religious traditions with

differing ontological commitments—would help clarify both its scope and its limitations.

Comparative and cross-cultural studies could further test the framework’s analytical

robustness and refine its theoretical contributions.

As this thesis prioritised practitioners’ emic perspectives, broader societal dynamics were not

systematically examined. For example, while the choice to perform animal sacrifice discreetly

was observed, it was not analysed in relation to wider public debates surrounding Afro-

diasporic religions. Future research could build on this micro-level focus by incorporating

analyses of the socio-economic conditions shaping practitioners’ experiences, and by

exploring how this relational model might be integrated with frameworks that address structural

power. Additionally, incorporating intersectional approaches—particularly those attentive to

gender and sexuality—would enrich new research. While the thesis draws on Deleuze’s

concepts of assemblage and becoming, it does not engage deeply with adjacent notions such

as deterritorialisation, reterritorialisation or lines of flight that could further illuminate how

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Santería moves across borders. This was not only a matter of word limit, but also a necessary

exercise in methodological parsimony. I continuously negotiated the balance between

theoretical framing and ethnographic detail. At times, theory was prioritised at the expense of

more extensive description—a trade-off driven by the thesis’s ambition to engage with modes

of theorising that are both unfamiliar and often contested.

It is to be noted that Deleuze’s philosophy provokes significant critical engagement from both

adherents and sceptics. In reflecting on this, I’ve come to question how much of what we call

parsimony in research relies on drawing from what an audience already recognises and

accepts as legitimate knowledge. A deeper engagement with Deleuzean thought—and with

other theoretical traditions—could contribute to the development of a more expansive and

versatile conceptual toolkit.

Finally, this thesis proposes innovations that are barely touched upon. Two of these, closely

intertwined, are the approach to studying conversion and participation.

By drawing on Deleuze’s concept of the Other, the thesis introduces a novel approach for

analysing continuity and change in religious experience. It positions transformative encounters

as openings to new worlds of possibility, where continuity and change coalesce. This

perspective offers an innovative approach to studying religious experiences in a way that does

not emphasise belief and worldviews, nor does it reduce the Other of religious experiences to

a merely psychological entity.

The topological analysis is a novel approach to participation not merely as symbolic or

psychological involvement but as an ontological event. Echoing Heidegger’s concept of being

as doing things in the world we could say that to be is to participate. Participation merges the

practitioner with their environment, the orishas and the ritual assemblage, producing profound

transformations in perception, identity and action. In Santería, the Self is better understood as

what Espiritu Santo (2019) called “Self-Systems”. The approach proposed here, centred on

the assemblages as the primary unit of analysis with a Deleuzean approach, opens up new

avenues for studying participation.

Deleuze and the anthropology of immanence

In his last book, published one year after his death in 2021, Sahlins (2022) argues that,

traditionally, ethnography has relied on conceptual tools shaped by transcendentalist

assumptions. “The effect is an anthropology that disfigures both the discipline and the culture

so described by maligning the people’s mentality as a mistaken sense of reality” (p. 11). While

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most anthropologists are well-intentioned and genuinely committed to the communities we

study, analyses frequently translate the meaningful, relational worlds of others into

fictionalised projections of Western norms, effectively distorting both the discipline and the

cultures under examination. “The ethnographic ‘believe’ is often an ethnocentric reality-check

on what the  people actually know” (p. 13). These assumptions struggle/are disinclined to

recognize/accept/consider that, metahuman powers are not only present in people’s

experiences, but are also the “decisive agents of human weal and woe” (Sahlins 2022, p. 2).

Responding to a similar concern, emerging/established (pick a suitable adjective) scholars

urge us to rethink prevailing models of transnational religion by taking seriously ontologies that

do not centre divine transcendence. Despite these challenges, a robust theorisation of

immanent transnationalisation remains underdeveloped. Advancing such a framework is

essential if we are to adequately engage with the ontological commitments of religions like

Santería in a globalised world.

In response to these challenges, this thesis demonstrates the utility of a topological framework,

integrated with Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory, in analysing immanent modes of

religious transnationalisation and exploring religious experiences beyond belief. Despite the

work of many scholars, the assumption in classical theories (from Weber and Durkheim to

Geertz) that religion is fundamentally tied to a vision of cosmic order is still pervasive in

religious studies (Michael Puett, 2011; Vasquez, 2020). It is also deeply embedded in Western

culture.

Towards a closer encounter of Anthropology with Deleuze

Deleuze's insights have been exceptionally valuable for this research, offering innovative

conceptual tools to rethink continuity and change as dynamic, relational processes rather than

fixed states. While I do not claim that my understanding of immanence in Santería is consistent

with Deleuze’s ontology, this thesis shares the same commitment to thinking with immanence

in mind. An anecdote from a conversation with my son helps me explain what this means to

me.

Now and then, I go for a walk in the beautiful natural surroundings of our home in Currumbin

Valley on the Gold Coast. I love discussing philosophical questions with him. One day, I served

the first shot of our philosophical racquetball by asking:

“If anybody asks you where you are right now, what would you say?”

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He sees a trap coming and prudently answers: “In Australia.”

“Ok,” I say, “but how would you know if nobody tells you that you are in Australia, for example,

if you are kidnapped and dropped here from an aeroplane?”

“I’d Google it!”, he responds with a mischievous grin.

Google uses Global Positioning System (GPS), which relies on coordinates to determine your

location. By connecting to an artificial satellite that constantly broadcasts the longitude and

latitude of any point on Earth, the antenna in your phone can determine with impressive

accuracy your position in relation to these coordinates –latitude, and longitude– and match it

to a map stored online or in the device.

Of course, I expected that answer. So, I reminded him:

“Yes, but remember, my condition is that nobody can tell you: not even Google. In fact, do you

know that the name 'Australia' means 'southern'? It was given to this island because it is south

of where Europeans lived and saw Europe as the centre of the world. Even the name

'Downunder' puts colonialist Europe ‘Up-above'.”

Finally, my son looked at me, pensive, and then around us, where kangaroos lay peacefully

on the green grass between our neighbours’ gardens. Then he says:

“I am on the land full of trees and flowers where kangaroos sleep and graze!” It was spring.

The story above serves as a metaphor for the methods of anthropology I employed in this

thesis. It does not rely on categorical generalisations commonly used in social theory (e.g., for

social structures, class, neoliberalism), which, like Google satellites, broadcast theoretical

‘coordinates’ used by the ethnographer to map their fieldwork. Instead, I focus on the local,

messy, heterogeneous, immanent and often unpredictable assemblages in which people live,

more creatively than social theories can predict.

Biehl and Locke, the editors of the book Unfinished, express a similar commitment to an

anthropology of becoming:

An anthropology of becoming demands more than the flat realism that

comes with standard practices of contextualization and historicization, and it

must not simply mimic or echo the dark determinisms that mark much of

social theory. The authors of Unfinished insist on the indispensable moral

and analytical value of the micro, the singular and partial, which requires a

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different, more fine-grained, and humble logic than that of a generality

subsuming all things into aggregates, repetitions, and models.

Like Biehl and Locke (2010) have done, I use Deleuze’s ideas to “uphold the rights of

microanalysis, bringing into view the immanent fields that people, in all their ambiguity, invent

and live by”. This allowed me to take people’s experiences seriously, rather than imposing

social theories that, like those of Google and Colonialism, originate from foreign contexts and

rely on different assumptions. Like my son did, I describe and map immanent relations and

happenings instead of positioning them within abstract generalisations.

Anthropologists often adopt Deleuzian concepts in ways that lose their original coherence with

the conceptual matrix in which they were created, as well as Deleuze’s steadfast commitment

to thinking with and through immanence. For example, the concept of assemblage is frequently

reduced to a description of contingent and heterogeneous gatherings (Marcus & Saka, 2006;

Ong & Collier, 2008). Taking assemblages as a mere collection of heterogeneous entities or a

“bundle of things”, instead of an event and a relational process of becoming, reproduces the

representational logic that Deleuze contested with this concept. It might only represent what

such “things” are instead of providing a powerful analytical tool to understand what they do.

This also applies to other concepts, like becoming. While useful for anthropology, this partial

adoption overlooks the full potential of these ideas when considering their internal and external

consistency with the rest of Deleuze’s work. Even more concerning, it risks reproducing the

epistemological assumptions that these notions critique and aim to transcend, such as

Western philosophy’s heavy reliance on transcendental models of thinking. This

misunderstanding of Deleuze’s philosophy, as an epistemology of events, contagions, and

becomings, rather than a representational ontology, hampers anthropology’s ability to use

Deleuze to shed light on alternative epistemologies and ontologies.

Moreover, the use of Deleuze’s concepts in a way that is consistent with the matrix from which

they emerge does not mean the exclusion of concepts that originated elsewhere. In this thesis,

I employed methodologies for discourse analysis that are not necessarily Deleuzean. This is

inevitable, considering the specific conditions of ethnographic research and the fact that

Deleuze did not devote much attention to topics central to our discipline. Agency and

intersubjectivity are two examples of concepts Deleuze never explicitly analysed. However, I

was able to use them without betraying the fundamental commitment of a non-transcendental

analysis or including caveats where necessary. See, for example, my clarification in Chapter

8, which states that my analysis of intersubjectivity does not assume it is confined to abstract

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entities or individual bodies and minds. Intersubjectivity arises from the assemblage. The

methodology, in this case, aids the analysis of interviews but does not compromise the

commitment to immanence.

For Deleuze, concepts do not represent the world, but they “link up with each other, support

one another, coordinate their contours, articulate their respective problems” (Deleuze &

Guattari, 1987, p. 18). Deleuze and Guattari’s view of philosophy as a “toolbox” (1994, p. 28)

emphasises the utility of concepts over their representational accuracy. Concepts are not

about mirroring reality but enabling new ways of seeing and understanding that disrupt

entrenched paradigms. “Tools only exist in relation to the intermingling they make possible or

that make them possible” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 90).

Closing words

William James (1958, p. 42) advised us: “If religion is to mean anything definite for us, it seems

to me that we ought to take it as meaning this added dimension of emotions, this enthusiastic

temper of espousal … the keynote of the universe sounding in our ears.” In that sense, there

should be more poetry in anthropology.

Lídice Megla is an accomplished Cuban poet who lives now in Canada but was born and raised

in my hometown, in the centre of the island. She wrote the following poem in response to my

request for her impressions of what aché means to her.

There was a black tree across the vastness of God.

A spiral of mirrors looking at the It upon the wave.

A hunt in an unmapped interior. And a lone man.

It was a matter of mountains, fur, and filthy rain. Darkness always falling …

There was a journal of distances approaching from the skies,

a formidable, celestial locomotive of meaning. The It and the man are no

longer alone.

The dance of a bolt of lightning across the primordial spine: Aché is

pronounced:

I was, and I no longer am, yet here I am.

A grand muse birthed its bold print and scattered it on earth. The muse fed

it its first colostrum: Aché: Mother’s Milk.

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Seeds of meaning for the soul: Aché, an unbound forest.

The history of one man is the history of the world. The man dances.

The hair on his neck raises a little: Aché! The volt crosses his vocal cords.

A message moves, neither thought nor sent: Aché! The memory of all fires

rises.

A landscape of man’s collective intuition: Aché!

All the circles where the man’s parts belong to no whole; within this circle,

he is whole: Aché!

The moon has a dark side and a bright side; still, it is all the same moon:

Aché!

Dance, dance, dance: Aché movement and sound, pore, and electrifying

core. Rod at the terminus. Compass needles. Aché: Messenger. Angel

Aché.

Aché magnetising towards the skin, invading the mind: look and feel of wood.

Aché: Knowledge, never known, only felt. Aché: Spirit Food. Aché: Totem.

Aché: The only part we see on the horizon. Sing it! Pass it on!

Aché: Formula. Enunciated: Equals: It.

Aché Language on the Move: The black tree at the end of the road has no

end.

Aché: Door. Aché: knock on wood.

Aché, plant your palm here, under, put the grain of the soul,

let it rise to your tongue! And bless a million hands further. Aché: Key.

Lídice Megla, 4 November 2024, unpublished poem translated by herself

David Whyte describes poetry as “language against which we have no defences”. In this spirit,

I will neither explain nor analyse Lídice’s poem. Instead, I aim to convey, through the vivid

imagery of her poetry, what analytical terms cannot capture: the creative possibilities for re-

interpretation that notions like aché afford. As Armstrong suggests about explaining what jazz

is: “If you have to ask, you’ll never know”.

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Working on this thesis presented the inherent challenge of articulating, through academic

discourse, experiences and intuitions I grasped at an embodied and intuitive level since my

childhood. I often experienced the sense that attempting to dissect these living practices

inevitably risked "killing" their vibrancy in the process, as you would kill any other living being

while dissecting it. Borges (1962), the master storyteller, reminds us that to think is to forget

differences, generalise, and make abstractions.

I do not possess the poetic talent of my friend Lidice, nor would I do her poem a disservice by

interpreting it. But like any other Cuban or Santería practitioner, I can see the black tree at the

end of the road. Across the shifting geographies, I see that the fruits and roots of Santería

endure not through dogmatic reproduction but “the primordial spine” of aché, “never known,

only felt”, a magnetising force that moves through bodies, plants, chants, and new mirrors. It

is creative continuity: I was, and I no longer am, yet here I am. I can only plant my palm here

and invite those who might benefit: “let it rise to your tongue. And bless a million hands further.”

202

Glossary

Aché (also spelled ashé, axé in Brazilian Portuguese): The spiritual force that “makes things

happen”, not only in ritual but in all areas of life. Aché is energy, grace, talent, and blessings

that can be possessed, given, and received through relationships with the orishas. Everything

that exists contains aché, but aché is not evenly distributed; it is most powerful in the orishas

and certain sacred places, animals, plants and objects.

Aché de Orula: A specific form of aché associated with Orula, the orisha of divination, wisdom,

and destiny.

Adimú: An offering made to the orishas, typically consisting of raw or cooked foods. Each

orisha has preferred offerings.

Atwon (also akpuón): The soloist singer who leads the songs during ceremonies with batá

drumming.

Añá: The orisha who resides within the sacred batá drums.

Asiento: Is a central initiation rite in Santería, marking a person’s full consecration as a priest

or priestess of a specific orisha. Literally meaning “seating,” the term refers to the ritual

“seating” or enthronement of the orisha’s aché (spiritual force) within the initiate’s head (ori).

Conducted over several days, the ceremony involves complex sequences of purification,

sacrifice, divination, drumming, songs, and dance, guided by an experienced ritual expert and

assisted by other initiates.

Guardian orisha: The tutelary orisha who "owns" a practitioner’s head (orí) and guides them

throughout life.

Babalawo: A priest of Orula and practitioner of Ifá divination within the Regla de Ifá tradition.

Batá: A set of three sacred drums used in ceremonies. Individually, they are called Iyá (the

largest, mother drum), Itótele (medium-sized), and Okónkolo (smallest).

Bembé: A drumming ceremony in honour of the orishas, also called tambor (Spanish for

"drum") in Cuba.

Caballo: Literally "horse". A person who becomes possessed by an orisha during trance.

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203

Camino (or avatar): The different paths or manifestations of an orisha. Each orisha can take

multiple forms, representing different aspects of their nature. During initiation, practitioners

learn which specific caminos of their orishas they must follow.

Cascarilla (also efún): A fine white powder made from ground eggshells, used for protection,

purification, and ritual cleansing.

Consultation (Sp. consulta): A divination ritual performed for a client, typically by a babalawo

or santero/a.

Ebbó (also ebó or trabajo [Sp. "work"]): A ritual sacrifice or offering, often determined through

divination. Some ebbós are prescribed for specific purposes, such as health, prosperity, or

spiritual protection.

Eleke (also ileke): A consecrated beaded necklace in the colours and patterns associated with

a particular orisha.

Ewe: Plants. Each orisha is associated with specific plants, used in rituals, medicine, and

cleansing ceremonies.

Funfun: The colour white, symbolising purity, coolness, and wisdom. Orishas associated with

water and peace are often considered funfun.

Fundamento: The physical receptacle where an orisha resides after initiation, containing

consecrated items that embody the orisha’s presence.

Iddé (also idé): A consecrated beaded bracelet worn by initiates for spiritual protection. The

Iddé of Orula is made of yellow and green beads and practitioners wear it in the left hand.

Ikú: Death. Also used to refer to the spirits of the dead.

Ilé: House, both in the literal sense and as a religious lineage (ilé ocha).

Iré: Blessings, good fortune, or positive energy. It is the opposite of Osogbo.

Itá: A comprehensive divination reading performed as part of an initiation. It serves as a

spiritual "roadmap" for the initiate’s life.

Ituto: A funeral ritual performed upon the death of a practitioner.

Glossary

204

Iyawó (also yawó): A novice priest undergoing their first year of initiation known as iyaboraje

or yaworaje.

Limpieza: Spiritual cleansing, which may involve ritual baths (baños), plant-based cleansings

(Sp. despojo), or other purification techniques.

Lucumí (also Lukumí): The ritual language used in Santería, derived from Yoruba. It is also

used to refer to the religious tradition itself.

Obatalá: The orisha of wisdom, purity, and creation. He is often associated with peace, mental

proudness, and wears white.

Ogún: The orisha of iron, war, labour, and technology. He is both a warrior and a protector.

Orula (also called Orunmila): The orisha of wisdom and divination, associated with the Ifá

system. Only babalawos are initiated into his mysteries.

Obi: Coconut used both as an offering (see Adimú) and for divination.

Ocha (also osha): Short for orisha, often used to refer to the religion (Regla de Ocha).

Odú (also oddun or letra): The patterns of divination revealed through casting shells or Ifá

tools. Each odú contains sacred stories (patakís), proverbs, guidance, and prescribed rituals.

Opele (also epuele or ekuele): A divination chain used by babalawos, consisting of eight

segments (traditionally shells or seeds).

Osain: The orisha of plants, medicine, and the wild forces of nature.

Osainista: A practitioner specialised in the knowledge of sacred herbs and their ritual

applications.

Oshun: The orisha of love, fertility, rivers, and sensuality. She is associated with sweetness,

beauty, and prosperity. Her colour is yellow, and her offerings include honey and are often also

yellow (e.g., sunflowers, pumpkin).

Oshé: The double-headed axe associated with Shango, representing divine justice and power.

Glossary

205

Omi: Water, an essential element in rituals.

Omiero: A sacred liquid made from water, plants, and other ingredients, used in initiations and

purification rituals. It is prepared through an elaborate ceremonial process.

Oba Oriate: A highly knowledgeable priest who serves as a master of ceremonies, directing

rituals and initiations.

Osogbo: Misfortune, negativity, or bad luck—the opposite of Iré.

Otá (also otán): Sacred stones that embody the presence of an orisha. These are consecrated

and kept in ritual vessels.

Oyugbona (also yugbona): The second godparent in an initiation ceremony, assisting the

padrino or madrina.

Padrino/Madrina: Godfather or godmother in the religion, responsible for guiding and

mentoring their godchildren (Sp. ahijados).

Patakí: A sacred story or myth that conveys lessons about the orishas, morality, and the

universe.

Ifá: A branch of Santería centred around the divination system of Ifá, practiced by babalawos

and dedicated to Orula. While distinct from Regla de Ocha, the two traditions share many

beliefs and practices.

Regla de Ocha: The formal name for Santería, meaning "Rule of the Orishas". It refers to the

system of worship, initiation, and rituals centred on the orishas.

Rogación de cabeza (also eborí or iborí): A head-cleansing ritual performed to strengthen,

calm, or protect a person’s orí (head).

Santo lavado: A consecrated orisha that has been ritually prepared and given to a practitioner

but not received through full initiation (kariocha). The recipient cannot function as a priest but

can honour the orisha privately.

Glossary

206

Warriors: A group of orishas—Eleguá, Ogún, Oshosi, and sometimes Osun—who are typically

received early in a practitioner’s religious journey.

207

Appendix 1

Coconut (Obí) Divination

Obí divination, also referred to as “dar coco” (Sp. “to give coconut”), is one of the simplest and

most widely used methods of divination in Afro-Cuban religions. This method uses coconut

rinds to communicate with the orishas or the dead, particularly to answer yes/no questions or

discern their desires regarding offerings, placement, or other ritual matters.

Preparation and procedure

The term Obí, meaning coconut in Lucumí, reflects the ritual’s central object. To begin, a

practitioner cuts a fresh coconut into five pieces using a machete or mallet, ensuring that four

pieces are roughly equal in size and shape for casting, while the fifth piece serves as a

“witness”. After offering prayers and performing specific preparatory rituals, the diviner casts

the four pieces to the ground, interpreting how they land—white (concave) side up or dark

(convex) side up—to determine the answer.

Diviners pose questions such as: “Is it X? Is it Y?” The sequence continues until a clear

response is obtained. The fifth “witness” piece remains near the diviner throughout the process

as a symbolic overseer of the consultation.

Interpretation of Obí configurations

The outcomes of Obí divination are determined by the orientation of the coconut pieces and

are classified into five primary configurations:

Table 2, Appendix: Responses of Obí divination

Configuration

Name

Meaning

Alafia

Yes. All four pieces land white side up. This signifies

blessings, peace, and a strong affirmative response.

Etawa

Three pieces land white side up, and one dark side

up. This is an unstable answer requiring another

throw.

Eyeife

Strong yes, as all is in balance.

Appendix: Coconut (Obí) divination

208

Okana

No. One piece lands white side up while the

remaining three land dark side up. This suggests a

negative response.

Okana Oyekun

Strong no. All four pieces land dark side up. This is

the most ominous response that is often interpreted

as an absolute “no”.

Nuances of the Configurations

• Alafia: This configuration is the most favourable and unambiguous “yes”. The term

alafia itself is a Yoruba salutation symbolising blessings and peace.

• Etawa: A result requiring further clarification. Practitioners often recast the coconut. A

second Etawa can signal the orishas’ annoyance or indicate that the question should

not have been asked, as captured by the phrase “vete al carajo” (Sp. “go away”). If

consulting Eleguá, a third throw may be required to confirm the answer.

• Eyeife: The most balanced and harmonious outcome, interpreted as a strong and

confident “yes”.

• Okana: While indicating “no”, this configuration allows for negotiation. The diviner might

ask if anything can be done to change the response.

• Okana Oyekun: This configuration is absolute and non-negotiable. Some diviners view

it as a warning of negative spiritual interference. In response, the diviner may “refresh”

the coconuts by pouring water on them and the ground to cool the situation, often

following up with a more complex divination method to understand the cause.

Uses of Obí divination

Obí divination is commonly employed for quick consultations, particularly when practitioners

need to determine if offerings or rituals are acceptable to the orishas. While it is less formal

than other divination systems, such as Ifá, Obí’s simplicity and accessibility make it an

essential tool for everyday decision-making within Santería.

Appendix: Coconut (Obí) divination

209

The method’s versatility, combined with its deeply relational approach, reflects the dynamic

interplay between practitioners, the orishas, and the spiritual world, ensuring continuity in

decision-making while respecting the orishas' guidance.

Pataki of Obi

A pataki is a sacred story or myth within Afro-Cuban religions, particularly in Santería (Regla

de Ocha), that conveys spiritual teachings, moral lessons, and the historical or cosmic actions

of the orishas that are origins, including of ritual practices.

A pataki recounts the story of Biagué, an Awo (diviner) with a son named Adiatoto, to whom

he entrusted his most sacred secret—the art of throwing coconuts for divination. This is why

de Obi oracle is also called oracle of Biagué or oracle of Adiatoto. Biagué had also taken in

many foster children, treating them as his own. These boys regarded each other as brothers,

though Adiatoto was Biagué’s only biological son and the youngest of them all. Before Biagué

passed away, he ensured that Adiatoto inherited his secret knowledge of coconut divination.

After Biagué's death, his adopted sons turned on Adiatoto, stealing everything he had and

leaving him destitute. Meanwhile, the Oba (King) of the town needed to determine the rightful

owner of Biagué's land. The foster sons claimed ownership but had no evidence to support

their claim, as the proof was a closely guarded secret.

The Oba declared publicly that anyone who could provide proof of ownership would be granted

the land. When Adiatoto heard about this, he came forward to present his case. Standing

before the Oba, he declared, “This is my inheritance. My father taught me his secret, and I will

prove it by casting coconuts”.

Adiatoto threw the coconuts from the dividing walls of the house into the square. When they

landed with their white faces up, the crowd responded with “Alafia!”—the affirmation of

blessings and peace. This confirmed that Adiatoto was indeed Biagué’s rightful heir. The Oba

restored the land to Adiatoto, returning what had been stolen by the false sons of Biagué.

210

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