The worship of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela: saint, exceptional or mighty dead?

Abstract

This article corresponds to an ongoing research that aims to describe and analyze the practices of sacralization around the figure of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, to understand the different forms of devotional expression established by popular urban sectors with beings considered exceptional. In this sense, after a four-month visit to the sector January 23 in the city of Caracas, it was evidenced ethnographically the support of a cult that has its own prayers, a chapel and a whole reconfiguration of icons of Catholicism adapted to this religious manifestation. In addition, from the relationship established by the natives with Commander Chávez, it is observed that we are facing a polysemic entity, that is, for certain devotees it is a saint, for the guardian of the chapel it is a “ser vergatario” that is seated with God, while for a sergeant of the Bolivarian Militia that maintains a relationship of trust with the former president, he is a powerful dead man. Santo Hugo Chávez del 23, as he is known, already has a list of miracles that strengthen his presence and power in terms of Peter Brown (1982), in addition, many of his devotees express commitments to the Bolivarian revolution that merge with their ways of living the religious, which gives indications of a strong isomorphism between politics and popular religiosity that is of interest to the social sciences.