Paper short abstract:

Practices relevant to the matrix of Cuban religiosity of African origin are often gendered. This paper investigates the gendering of these religious traditions and the implications it has on practitioners across gendered lines.

Paper long abstract:

Practices relevant to the matrix of Cuban religiosity of African origin are often gendered. The gendering of these religious traditions has implications for their practitioners. Both practice and practitioners become gendered through technologies of spirit communication and gendered and racialized stereotypes relevant to the wider socio-historic Cuban imaginary. Espiritismo Cruzado, a religious tradition rooted spirit mediation, is generally associated with women and gendered feminine. This paper examines the way the practice's spirit and practitioner relationships interface with and generate tensions surrounding sexuality and gender via the use of the body. This, I have argued elsewhere, is due to the association between women's reproductive and procreative capacities mapped spiritual and creative capacities. Given that some technologies of spiritual communication are relegated to the feminine, how do practitioners negotiate femininity and masculinity? How is this different for women, the majority of practitioners, and men, the minority