Kate Kingsbury

Dr. Kate Kingsbury is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (Faculty of Arts). She holds a D.Phil from the University of Oxford and has taught at McMaster University and the University of Alberta as an Adjunct Professor, winning the 2020 Arts Instructor Teaching Award. Her research focuses on Medical Anthropology and socio-cultural dynamics, particularly exploring Santa Muerte (Mexican folk saint of death), gender, power, and healing. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Mexico, West Africa, and Europe, examining religion, magic, and post-colonial intersections.

Her current work examines female followers of Santa Muerte, challenging reductive stereotypes about the figure through her forthcoming book *Daughters of Death* (Oxford University Press). She critiques Western narratives that frame Santa Muerte as linked to crime or witchcraft, emphasizing its role in women’s empowerment against systemic violence and poverty. Her research also encompasses Sufism in Senegal, spirit possession, and the interplay of religion with gendered power structures.

Awards include the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s 2019 Jack Shand Travel Grant and 2019 Bryan-Gruhn Research Grant for fieldwork on Santa Muerte. Her work appears in journals like *Anthropologica*, *Small Wars Journal*, and *Journal of Religion in Africa*, with interdisciplinary contributions to public health, religious bricolage, and decolonial epistemologies.