Creative Continuity. Ritual Adaptations of Santeria in Australia.

Abstract

Santeria, 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 Santeria's tradition. This thesis argues that Santeria'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 Santeria'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 Santeria, 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 Santeria 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 Santeria 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 and offers a novel conceptualisation of immanent forms of religious transnationalisation. Show more