Ex-voto: Folk, Outsider, Transnational-Debating Definitions

Ex-votos are the representation of a struggle and also a spiritual practice. Historically, pictorial ex-votos depict an alleged miracle in an iconic manner. When the struggle is migration, "place" is of paramount importance, since these artifacts address distance, places left, new places to be explored, and places where one wishes to be. Usually, we find ex-votos within churches or museums. However, these cultural products have lately come into contact with phenomena such as globalization and diasporic flows, spreading among transnational spaces. As a result, the ways of production and their relation with the viewer have changed, transforming the ex-voto into more than a folk custom. In my study, I focus on pictorial ex-votos, analyzing how they have been studied in relation to the category "art" and what their current place among the definitional debates is. I show how Mexican migration ex-votos can be considered a transnational product that articulates specific discourses of identity. Through theoretical concepts from art history and visual, cultural, border, and migration studies, I demonstrate how ex-votos have transformed as a result of the contemporary flows of people and information we live in and how these pieces of art and material culture create place within migrant communities.