School of Social and Political Science

Dr Alejandro Escalante

Job Title

Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Photo
Alejandro with his dog, Bramble, at the Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Room number

Chrystal Macmillan 4.10

Building (Address)

15a George Square

Post code (Address)

EH8 9LD

Research interests

Research interests

Anthropology of religion; Black Atlantic religions; Black radicalism; Caribbean theory and philosophy; Caribbean and Latin American anthropology; critical ethnography; decoloniality; feminist anthropology; gender and sexuality studies; human-animal relations; performance studies; race and racialisation; and ritual theory.

 

Background

I am an ethnographer interested in the performances of gender and race, and their co-imbrications. My work draws from Black studies, Caribbean theory and philosophy, and queer theory to trace the various ways we make, re-make, and can unmake ourselves. Aspects of this research have been published in Transforming Anthropology, Transgender Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Africana Religions, and a forthcoming chapter, "Playful Masculinity" in Religion in the Americas: Transcultural and Trans-hemispheric Approaches (University of New Mexico Press).

My current research project explores these themes through the costumes and personages that appear during las fiestas tradicionales en honor a Santiago Apóstol (las fiestas). In my fieldwork, which is ongoing, I focus my attention on ritual cross-dressing seen in one festival character in particular: la loca (the madwoman). "Loca" indexes a range of meanings beyond madwoman, including the presumably effeminate man and overly sexual woman. La loca is a bawdy and ribald personage that simultaneously entices and vexes festival goers through their flirtations and lewd gestures. Though I start with la loca within las fiestas, I also explore other manifestations of gendered madness to develop a theory of deliberate incongruity as a method of disruption and creation, which negotiate the histories of anti-blackness in Puerto Rico. This research forms the foundation for my first monograph, tentatively titled "Madness: Gender, Race, and Religion in Loíza, Puerto Rico." 

I am also part of the multidisciplinary research collaborative TERA Collective (Technology, Ecology, Religion, and Art) based at McGill University. This was a project started in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic that brought together artists and scholars to re-create and re-imagine North American naturalist societies's method of knowledge creation and curation. Together, we have a forthcoming article in Holotipus, which is an autoethnographic critique and examination of methods of archive and taxonomy. We are also currently working on an edited volume that is an excerpt of our proceedings.

I completed my PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), where I was a Teaching Fellow from 2019–2021. During that time, I was also an Adjunct Instructor at Elon University (USA). Prior to moving to Edinburgh, I was Lecturer in Social Anthropology at King's College London.

Works within

Staff Hours and Guidance

Please email me to schedule a meeting.

Publications by user content

Publication Research Explorer link
Escalante A. ¡Que Ricky Renuncia! Protest-as-care and saintly devotion in Loíza, Puerto Rico. Transforming Anthropology. 2024 Oct;32(2):109-116. Epub 2024 Oct 23. doi: 10.1086/731718
Escalante A. [Review of] Experiments with power: Obeah and the remaking of religion in Trinidad. Reading Religion. 2022 Jun 17.
Escalante A. [Review of] Passages and afterworlds: Anthropological perspectives on death in the Caribbean. Anthropology Book Forum. 2021 May 3;7.
Escalante A. Sacramental sex/uality. In Isherwood L, von der Horst D, editors, Contemporary theological approaches to sexuality. New York: Routledge. 2020. p. 313-323
Escalante A. [Review of] Escenas Transcaribeñas: Ensayos Sobre Teatro, Performance y Cultura. sx salon. 2019 Oct 31;32.
Escalante A. [Review of] The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make. Reading Religion. 2019 Sept 25.
Escalante A. Trans* Atlantic religion: Gender ideology and spirit possession in Cuban Santería. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (TSQ). 2019 Aug 1;6(3):386-399. doi: 10.1215/23289252-7549484
Escalante AS. [Review of] Biblical porn: Affect, labor, and pastor Mark Driscoll’s evangelical empire, by Jessica Johnson. Religion and Gender. 2019 Jul 24;9(1):115-118. doi: 10.1163/18785417-00901004
Escalante A. [Review of] Addicted to Christ: Remaking Men in Puerto Rican Pentecostal Drug Ministries. Reading Religion. 2019 Mar 19.
Escalante A. The long arc of Islamophobia: African slavery, Islam, and the Caribbean world. Journal of Africana Religions. 2019 Jan 15;7(1):179-186. doi: 10.5325/jafrireli.7.1.0179
Escalante A. [Review of] Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean. ASAP Journal. 2018 Dec 13.
Escalante A. [Review of] Cachita’s streets: The Virgin of Charity, Race, and Revolution in Cuba. Journal of World Christianity. 2018 Dec 12;8(2):198-201. doi: 10.5325/jworlchri.8.2.0198
Escalante A. [Review of] Anatomically Speaking: Ungendered Flesh and the Science of Sex,” in Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Black Perspectives. 2018 Dec 4.
Escalante A. [Review of] Jihad in West African During the Age of Revolutions. Reading Religion. 2018 Jul 6.
Escalante A. From Argentina to Scotland to Mexico: Indecent theology and erotic phenomenology at the Mexico-US Border. Feminist Theology. 2018 May;26(3):213-228. Epub 2018 Apr 20. doi: 10.1177/0966735018756248
Escalante A. [Review of] Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies. Reading Religion. 2018 Mar 19.
Alejandro Escalante's Research Explorer profile