Dr. Aisha Beliso De Jesús

Biography

Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús is a cultural social anthropologist who conducts ethnographic research on Santería practitioners in Cuba and the United States and police officers in communities of color affected by police violence. Her recent monograph, 'Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, Invention Disease' (Duke University Press, 2024), examines the medicalization of police violence, unraveling 'excited delirium syndrome,' a fabricated medical diagnosis used to justify and erase police violence against Black and Brown communities, and exposes the inextricable ties to the criminalization of Afro-Latiné religions. She co-edited the volume 'Anthropology and White Supremacy: A Reader' (Princeton University Press, 2025), which brings together anthropologists across the globe to interrogate and dismantle the colonial, political, and economic structures of white supremacy. Her work enriches Afro-Latiné transnational studies, policing militarization, anthropology of the African diaspora, religious studies, and transnational feminist theory. Her book 'Electric Santería: Racial Sexual Assemblages in Transnational Religion' (Columbia University Press, 2015) won the 2016 Albert J. Raboteau Award for Best Book in Africana Religions. Currently, she is completing a book titled 'Zombie Patrol: Policing African Diaspora Religions' which examines the criminalization of Black and Latiné religions, addressing issues like animal sacrifice, policing, race, and the constitutional question of religious freedom in the United States. Beliso-De Jesús has spearheaded ethnographic research on police use of force in New Orleans, LA, funded by the National Science Foundation. Her academic publications appear in prestigious journals such as American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, and Cultural Anthropology.

Research Interests

Experience