Las que te tienen temblando de noche y de día: A (social) media analysis of IRL #Brujas (not witches) of Instagram

Abstract

Over the last several years there has been a growing interest in popular culture on the modern-day witch. The focus, however, has leaned towards whiteness, in almost complete erasure of Afro-Indigenous spiritual perspectives. This paper looks at how digital sacredness is enacted by four Instagram accounts of self-identified brujas, who exist in the United States as part of the Caribbean diaspora. Their spiritual work is not just rooted in the creation of sacred digital spaces, but it becomes the basis for their activism. The social media presence they create acts against larger hegemonic structures, such as white supremacy, colonialism/imperialism, racism, and homophobia, opening up discourses for a wider digital audience to look at and engage with. By enabling the divine via social media it becomes a way for brujas to have a voice in the world that would seek to silence them — what is especially powerful about their platforms is how their voices can be easily amplified (read: go viral) in ways that did not exist before. Ultimately, this paper seeks to begin conversations on how digital media has transformed newer generations to engage with the cosmologies of Afro-Indigenous religiosity.