Raquel Romberg currently teaches at Tel Aviv University in Israel. She taught previously at Swarthmore College and Temple University and was a Mellon Scholar in the Institute for Global Stdies in Culture, Power and History at Johns Hopkins University.

Overall, Witchcraft and Welfare is an excellent analysis of Puerto Rican Brujería and other African diasporic religions. This book, however, is not only useful for students and scholars of Puerto Rican or Caribbean culture and religion. It is also, through its ingenious analysis of the influences of 21st century globalization on the processes of syncretization, a window on the macrocosm of future trends in world religion. (The Journal of Latin American Anthropology) Witchcraft and Welfare is a delightful and insightful book, evocative and well-written, which unpacks the multilayered history of Puerto Rican folk beliefs and practices convincingly showing not only how brujería makes sense in people’s everyday lives, but also how it is becoming institutionalised as an integral part of official Puerto Rican society, and indeed how beliefs and practices of this kind can be complementary, not opposed, to bureaucratic rationality. (Anthropos)

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Ritual AlchemyPart I. Shifting Faces Chapter One. Gatekeepers and Heretics: Disputing Sacred TerritoriesChapter Two. Nation Building and the Secularization of SpiritualityChapter Three. Spiritual Laissez-Faire and the Commodification of FaithPart II. The Technologies of Cosmic and Worldly Success Chapter Four. Brujos, Saints or Brokers?Chapter Five. Spiritual Assets and the Entanglements of PowerChapter Six. The Global Bazaar of Spiritual EnterpriseChapter Seven. The Moral Economy of Bureaucratic ProvidenceChapter Eight. Advocates and Lawyers of Another OrderEpilogue: The Halloween ExtravaganzaNotesBibliographyIndex

Raquel Romberg currently teaches at Tel Aviv University in Israel. She taught previously at Swarthmore College and Temple University and was a Mellon Scholar in the Institute for Global Stdies in Culture, Power and History at Johns Hopkins University.

Overall, Witchcraft and Welfare is an excellent analysis of Puerto Rican Brujería and other African diasporic religions. This book, however, is not only useful for students and scholars of Puerto Rican or Caribbean culture and religion. It is also, through its ingenious analysis of the influences of 21st century globalization on the processes of syncretization, a window on the macrocosm of future trends in world religion. (The Journal of Latin American Anthropology) Witchcraft and Welfare is a delightful and insightful book, evocative and well-written, which unpacks the multilayered history of Puerto Rican folk beliefs and practices convincingly showing not only how brujería makes sense in people’s everyday lives, but also how it is becoming institutionalised as an integral part of official Puerto Rican society, and indeed how beliefs and practices of this kind can be complementary, not opposed, to bureaucratic rationality. (Anthropos)

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Ritual AlchemyPart I. Shifting Faces Chapter One. Gatekeepers and Heretics: Disputing Sacred TerritoriesChapter Two. Nation Building and the Secularization of SpiritualityChapter Three. Spiritual Laissez-Faire and the Commodification of FaithPart II. The Technologies of Cosmic and Worldly Success Chapter Four. Brujos, Saints or Brokers?Chapter Five. Spiritual Assets and the Entanglements of PowerChapter Six. The Global Bazaar of Spiritual EnterpriseChapter Seven. The Moral Economy of Bureaucratic ProvidenceChapter Eight. Advocates and Lawyers of Another OrderEpilogue: The Halloween ExtravaganzaNotesBibliographyIndex

Raquel Romberg currently teaches at Tel Aviv University in Israel. She taught previously at Swarthmore College and Temple University and was a Mellon Scholar in the Institute for Global Stdies in Culture, Power and History at Johns Hopkins University.

Overall, Witchcraft and Welfare is an excellent analysis of Puerto Rican Brujería and other African diasporic religions. This book, however, is not only useful for students and scholars of Puerto Rican or Caribbean culture and religion. It is also, through its ingenious analysis of the influences of 21st century globalization on the processes of syncretization, a window on the macrocosm of future trends in world religion. (The Journal of Latin American Anthropology) Witchcraft and Welfare is a delightful and insightful book, evocative and well-written, which unpacks the multilayered history of Puerto Rican folk beliefs and practices convincingly showing not only how brujería makes sense in people’s everyday lives, but also how it is becoming institutionalised as an integral part of official Puerto Rican society, and indeed how beliefs and practices of this kind can be complementary, not opposed, to bureaucratic rationality. (Anthropos)

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Ritual AlchemyPart I. Shifting Faces Chapter One. Gatekeepers and Heretics: Disputing Sacred TerritoriesChapter Two. Nation Building and the Secularization of SpiritualityChapter Three. Spiritual Laissez-Faire and the Commodification of FaithPart II. The Technologies of Cosmic and Worldly Success Chapter Four. Brujos, Saints or Brokers?Chapter Five. Spiritual Assets and the Entanglements of PowerChapter Six. The Global Bazaar of Spiritual EnterpriseChapter Seven. The Moral Economy of Bureaucratic ProvidenceChapter Eight. Advocates and Lawyers of Another OrderEpilogue: The Halloween ExtravaganzaNotesBibliographyIndex