Remapping and rescaling the religious world from below: The Case of Santo Toribio and Santa Ana de Guadalupe in Mexico

Abstract

Most discussions about scale are largely silent on religion. They sidestep the issue of a subjective understanding of geography. But places are scaled and rescaled on the basis of their changing importance within imagined and remembered religious landscapes. This article shows how Santa Ana de Guadalupe in Jalisco, Mexico, and the devotions to Santo Toribio that are based there, became a religious hotspot within a transnational religious landscape connecting specific parts of Mexico and the USA. The authors argue that its heightened religious significance rescaled Santa Ana but that religion did not act alone. Santa Ana also lies at the intersection between multiple economic, religious, and political projects that, taken together, greatly enhanced its position within the transnational religious map it helped create.