Agenda

CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LIVED RELIGION
Lecture Series Illicit Objects, Lived Religion: Materiality, Performance, and Power

Daisy Vargas, University of Arizona
Constructing the “illicit” religious other: Mexican Catholicism and the maintenance of the U.S.-Mexico border

Abstract: In post 9/11 United States, the enforcement of the U.S.-Mexico border extends beyond geographic location to include more informal mechanisms of surveillance. In this talk, Dr. Daisy Vargas traces how the presence of Catholic material religion helps construct the “illicit” religious other in the United States as a method of border control, and how these otherwise normative religious objects and symbols become signifiers of criminality and illegality. 

Bio: Daisy Vargas is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona (M.A. University of Denver; PhD University of California Riverside). She specializes in Catholicism in the Americas; race, ethnicity, and religion in the U.S.; and Latina/o/x religions. Her ethnographic and historical work includes on religion and material culture, religion in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands, and religion and the law. Her current book project traces the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the U.S.  Vargas serves on the advisory committee for the Lilly Endowment funded “Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st Century Museum” at the Fowler Museum of UCLA.  

Wednesday 18th February 2026, 3.00pm-4.00pm CET
Online - For online participation please register at this link Zoom

The event will not be recorded
For information please contact the Center for the Study of Lived Religion cslr@unive.it