Hazardous waste: the semiotics of ritual hygiene in Cuban popular religion

Abstract

Using a semiotic framework to examine different categorizations of ritually produced ‘hazardous waste’ in Cuban popular religions, I argue that the ways in which waste is produced and treated generate its social indexical value and its potential to act on people. I suggest a focus on the interactions between the materiality of ritual waste and its circulation as an object of discourse. In this view, subjectification and objectification processes are shown to be related, and the agency of subjects and objects is constituted within what Webb Keane calls the same ‘representational economy’. Ethnographically, I describe two different but overlapping explanatory frameworks in how religious practitioners and the Cuban state construe the dangers of ritual waste: a religious framework in which certain kinds of waste are spiritually charged, and an epidemiological framework based on long‐standing metaphors of racialized contagion. Résumé À partir de l'analyse, dans un cadre sémiotique, de différentes catégorisations de « déchets dangereux » produits par les rituels des religions populaires cubaines, l'auteure avance que la manière dont les déchets sont produits et traités génère leur valeur indexique sociale et leur capacité d'agir sur les gens. Elle suggère de se concentrer sur les interactions entre la matérialité des déchets rituels et leur circulation en tant qu'objet de discours. Selon cette approche, il apparaît que les processus de subjectification et d'objectification sont liés et que l'agencéité des sujets et des objets est constituée dans le cadre d'une même «économie représentationnelle », selon l'expression de Webb Keane. Du point de vue ethnographique, l'auteure décrit deux cadres différents, mais qui se recoupent, pour expliquer la manière dont les praticiens religieux et l'État cubain envisagent les dangers des déchets rituels : un cadre religieux dans lequel certains types de déchets portent une charge spirituelle, et un cadre épidémiologique, basé sur d'anciennes métaphores de contagion racialisée.

Sacred waste

“…Spiritually charged leftovers such as Thai spirit houses or Ndyuka sacrifices 2 are left to decay at dumping sites demarcated for the purpose (Figure 1). In Cuba, ritual experts of popular religions follow specific procedures to dispose of the hazardous waste produced in the ritual (Wirtz 2009 the Cuban ritual waste will be afflicted by its negative spiritual energy. In February 2012, the apparently unintentional burning of Qur'ans taken from Taliban prisoners with other waste by the US armed forces in Afghanistan evoked a sequence of violent protest, leaving over 40 people dead and 270 people wounded.…”

Toward an anthropology of plastics

“…She explains that a ritual item is sometimes only identified through its ritual biography and that they can appear to be almost identical to mundane garbage. Even though they can be difficult to identify, tampering accidentally with ritual offerings can cause ill effects to those who disturb them (Wirtz, 2009). Unable to break down, the items, even though they have been left on the side of the road, still carry with them hidden potencies.…”

“…Other anthropologists have written about how the plastics used in religious rituals can cause similar problems due to their materiality. In popular Cuban rituals, Wirtz describes how ritual offerings that include plastics, such as plastic bags, can be mistaken for ordinary rubbish on the streets, potentially causing problems for those who tamper with them (2009). She explains that a ritual item is sometimes only identified through its ritual biography and that they can appear to be almost identical to mundane garbage.…”

Plastic Asia

“…and how do they use, reuse and repurpose plastics? ethnographic research focusing on the use of plastics constitutes an emerging field that includes broad anthropological approaches to plastic (abrahms-kavunenko 2021; Pathak and nichter 2019) as well as highlighting understandings of colonialism, authenticity and modernity (Chao 2018;mcdougall 2021;xiaoyu 2021), affect andemotions (hawkins 2001;mckay et al 2020), hospitality (Steger 2021), gender andmasculinity (mckay andPerez 2018;meiu 2020) and the use of plastics in ritual life (abrahms-kavunenko 2022;bhutia 2022;bredenbröker 2020;brox 2022;Wirtz 2009).…”