Spiritual Capital: On the Materiality and Immateriality of Blessings in Puerto Rican Brujería

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Research in Economic Anthropology

ISSN: 0190-1281
Series editor(s): Dr. Donald Wood

Subject Area: Sociology and Public Policy

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Document Information:
Title:	Spiritual Capital: On the Materiality and Immateriality of Blessings in Puerto Rican Brujería
Author(s):	Raquel Romberg
Volume:	31 Editor(s): Lionel Obadia, Donald C. Wood ISBN: 978-1-78052-228-9 eISBN: 978-1-78052-229-6
Citation:	Raquel Romberg (2011), Spiritual Capital: On the Materiality and Immateriality of Blessings in Puerto Rican Brujería, in Lionel Obadia, Donald C. Wood (ed.) The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches (Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.123-156
DOI:	10.1108/S0190-1281(2011)0000031009 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	This essay situates the significance of “spiritual capital” within Puerto Rican brujería (witch-healing) in relation to re-enchantment theories of modernity. It argues that the merging of spiritual and economic values has engendered a form of “spiritualized materialism” that has turned sheer economic prosperity into spiritually wrought rewards. Within this moral economy, matter does not simply function as a conduit for the sacred; it actually constitutes the very idea of the sacred. In comparison to recent work on corporate attempts to fuse religious ethics with business, this essay is noteworthy in that it unravels the logic and effect of such fusions at the vernacular religious level.