Remitting faith practices.Comparing the experiences of two indigenous towns in Oaxaca, Mexico.

For many years it was assumed that the characteristics of indigenous people - e.g. permanence and immobility (Weber 2008, Cadena and Starn 2007, Yescas Angeles 2008) - made them irrelevant to the study of migration. Indigenous people in Mexico were portrayed as related to the country side, with folkloric traditions and remaining in their community of origin due to their lack of human capital. However, indigenous people have always been in motion and their experiences of migration have undoubtedly reshaped their communities of origin. This work compares the socio-cultural remittances related to the establishment of different faith or religious practices and their impact at the individual and institutional level in two indigenous towns in Oaxaca, Mexico: the Mixtec town of Santiago Cacaloxtepec and the Zapotec town of San Bartolomé Quialana. By looking at the migrants’ communities of origin as well as their different migratory experiences, this work shows how the transformative quality of religious remittances has led to the questioning and reorganisation of pre-established conceptions of religious, ethnic and gender identity at the local level.