Abstracts Womens Studies

“Not Like Your Abuelos”: A (Fe)minist/Autoethnographic Approach to Vernacular Religious Belief and Traditionalization

by Ciara Bernal

In this thesis I explore how vernacular Mexican Catholicism is practiced, explained, and passed down within my family. I look at vernacular religious belief and traditionalization as an integrated process that impacts the practices, beliefs, and stories of my family. I include myself as a subject of this research, conducting autoethnography within each chapter. I utilize reflexive and vulnerable writing practices to accomplish this. My overarching research questions for this thesis are: How has Mexican-Catholicism shaped the relationships, stories, and beliefs of my family members? What can Chicana feminist perspectives add to the study of vernacular religious belief and family folklore? What can vulnerable writing practices offer studies of religious belief and what is the impact of doing it? How is vernacular religious belief impacted by the process of traditionalization? To answer these questions, I utilize ethnographic interviews with multiple family members. I reflect on my own experiences and memories of my family as well as conduct secondary research on topics like family folklore, narrative scholarship, religious studies, Chicana feminisms, Latinx folklore, and autoethnographic practices. The results of this research have demonstrated the complicated and vast possibilities of utilizing family folklore and autoethnography in folklore scholarship. Looking at vernacular religious belief as impacting and being impacted by traditionalization opens new doors to understanding the complicated nature of changing religious belief and practices. This research can speak to the ways in which people inherit religious belief, but also actively change those beliefs and practices based on their lived experiences.