In this post Dr. Julia Martínez-Ariño explores the visual, material and embodied dimensions of Feminist protests in Latin America and Spain.
Keywords: collective apostasies, materiality, Catholic Church, feminism, Argentina, Spain,
A strong upsurge of feminist mobilizations has taken place in Latin America and Spain in the last five to ten years. Feminists protest against violence against women (#NiUnaMenos), for the legalization of abortion (#abortolegal, #seráley) and in general for women’s rights. In both contexts, and in Argentina and Spain in particular, these mobilizations have often referred to the role and responsibility of the Catholic Church in preventing the advancement of the recognition of women’s rights as well as the rights of LGBTQI+ people. To show their disagreement with the Church, some feminist groups have used collective apostasies as part of their mobilization repertoires, next to traditional demonstrations and marches. Collective apostasies are public performances that take place in streets and squares, usually in front of the bishopric of a city, where mostly (but not exclusively) women present their formal request to have their names removed from the Church’s register and stop being a member of the institution. They do so by handing in a form with the request to have their data removed, a photocopy of their baptism certificate and they often attach a feminist manifesto where they present their main points of disagreement with the Church. The collective dimension grants the action more visibility, higher media and public impact and a more confrontational character than apostasies requested individually. In what follows, I will explore the visual, material and embodied dimensions of these protests, that is, the images, objects and bodily aspects that are engaged in the performance of collective apostasies.
Apostasy as political action
In the study of non-religion, as well as in non-academic circles, apostasy is mostly understood as an act of rejecting one’s religious affiliation or faith. From the perspective of the religious group left behind, those who leave are often considered negatively as apostates. From a sociological perspective, “religious exiters” is often used to refer to those who end formally their affiliation to a religious organization[1]. However, to better grasp its complexity, apostasy must be understood in its specific socio-political and cultural context and not only as an individual act of defection. When we do so, we are able to grasp the many different meanings that apostasy may adopt and the variety of motivations from which it can emerge.
In contexts where the Catholic Church holds a very prominent position in society and in politics, as is the case of Argentina and Spain, apostasy from the Catholic Church is not only an individual act of leaving a religious institution behind. Rather, it is a political act, a political standpoint, with strong political connotations[2]. Apostasy is often understood as a form of rejecting the political power of the Church, its entanglements with the state and its influence over public policy decisions.
The visual dimension of apostasy
Feminist apostasies, like any other social or political mobilization, rely heavily on the visual performance of protest. Facebook and Twitter accounts, websites and blogs that call for collective apostasies use a wide range of visual elements to represent apostasy. This is also the case for feminist apostasies.
The example of this image, which draws on imagery from popular culture, represents evocative ideas about apostasy and the church. With an invitation to join “the witches club”, the organizers of this feminist apostasy in Spain draw on the collective imaginary of the Church as an institution that in the past burnt witches to proudly adopt that character of witches who rebel against the Church. The use of the purple color emphasizes the feminist nature of the event. The visual component of apostasy is particularly relevant in a mediatized world in which evocative images are central to attract the attention of potential publics.
Green, purple and orange scarfs: the materiality and embodiment of apostasy
Social movements are often identifiable by specific symbols, logos and colors that decorate material artifacts. Such is the case of protest movements in South American countries and Spain like the secularist movement for the separation of church and state, the social mobilization for the legalization of abortion and the feminist movement at large. These three mobilizations in particular are represented by three scarfs that serve as identity markers of the movements: the orange scarf is used by the movement which fights for the separation of church and state, the green scarf is the symbol of the movement for the legalization of abortion in countries like Argentina and Mexico, among others, and the purple scarf represents the whole feminist movement. In collective apostasies, these scarfs and these colors (often all being use simultaneously – see photo below), represent the three different fights and their specific demands.
The scarfs are worn around the neck and around the wrist, which highlights the raised fist as a sign of strength; covering nose and mouth, as a warrior sign; hanging in one’s backpack; and also held between the two hands raised. In all its uses, the scarf is a sign of rebelliousness[3].
This colored materiality of apostasy may take other forms different from the scarfs, such as the example of an orange cake with the logo of the separation of church and state campaign stamped on it or green-colored smoke cans used to symbolize the burning of church buildings. Just like the images used in social media, the material artifacts used in collective apostasies grant visibility and attract media attention as well as the gaze of passers-by who may otherwise not understand what is happening. Moreover, the use of uniformizing colors or symbology helps create a sense of community, in this case often explicitly described as sorority, which “refers to the solidarity among women and the necessity to support any women even when our first intuition is to distrust her”[4].
The material dimension of these mobilizations is also embodied. Two examples of these embodiments are the purple eyelashes and nail lack used by two of the feminist apostates that I came across in a collective apostasy organized in front of the bishopric of Madrid in 2020. For these women, their feminist struggle, which is one of the main drives behind their decision to apostatize, is part of who they are and they ingrain it in their body. Their female body, strongly decorated with feminist motives, serves as an element of disruption when entering the bishopric building, mostly inhabited by males (Church leaders of different levels) and where colorful dress is rare. The bodily dimension of protest, thus, refers to a disruptive presence in the Church’s local headquarters clearly marked not only by the presence of the female body but also by its feminist connotation
In conclusion, just like with the study of religion, we need to take into account the visual, material and bodily dimensions of different expressions of non-religion. As I have shown, the visual, material and bodily aspects of feminist collective apostasies organized in Argentina and Spain in the last 5 years are crucial to the performative dimension of apostasy as a political action. Just like other forms of protest, apostasy, as a public form of political mobilization beyond the mere rejection of faith or religious institutional belonging, draws on performative elements such as images, logos, symbols, colors, objects and decorated bodies to stage the protest against the Catholic institution and the state policies that support its prevalent position in society.
[1] Ryan T. Cragun and Joseph H. Hammer, “‘One Person’s Apostate Is Another Person’s Convert’: What Terminology Tells Us about Pro-Religious Hegemony in the Sociology of Religion,” Humanity & Society 35, no. 1–2 (2011): 149–75.
[2] “Apostasy: Between the Personal and Political,” University of Groningen, January 27, 2020, https://www.rug.nl/research/centre-for-religious-studies/religion-conflict-globalization/blog/apostasy-between-the-personal-and-political-27-01-2020; Hugo H. Rabbia and Juan Marco Vaggione, “The Mobilization of Religious and Nonreligious Imaginaries in Argentine Sexual Politics,” in Nonreligious Imaginaries of World Repairing (Springer, 2021), 59–74.
[3] Luciana María Bertolaccini, “Plazas Verdes. Estética y Política En Los Activismos Callejeros En Torno a Las Demandas Por Aborto Legal (Rosario, 2018),” 2020.
[4] Tamara Tenenbaum, El Fin Del Amor: Amar y Follar En El Siglo XXI (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2021), 152.
Dr. Julia Martínez-Ariño is an Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and the director of the Center for Religion, Conflict and Globalization at the same university. She is also an associate researcher at the ISOR research center (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain). Her research focuses on three main themes: 1) contemporary Jewish communities and their role in Jewish heritage making, 2) the governance of religious diversity in various institutional fields and national contexts, and 3) non-religion, in particular, the contemporary processes of apostasy from the Catholic Church in Argentina and Spain. She is the author of Urban Secularism: Negotiating Religious Diversity in Europe (Routledge, 2021) and the co-editor of Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces (Bloomsbury, 2021). You can follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JMartinezArino
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