Niyi Afolabi

Quilombismo and the Afro-Brazilian Quest for Citizenship

Between the radicalism of Black Brazilian movements of the 1980s, an aftermath of the negation and rejection of the myth of “racial democracy” that denies Brazilian subtle racism, the rise of re- Africanization sensibilities among Afro-Carnival groups, and the current ambivalent co-optation that has been packaged as “affirmative action” in the new millennium, a missing link to the many quests for Afro-Brazilianness lies in the (dis)locations that permeate the issues of identity, consciousness, and Africa-rootedness. Recent studies have remained invested in the polarity between the rigidity of “race” (one-drop rule) from the North American perspective and the fluidity of identity as professed by the South American miscegenation thesis. Regardless of the given schools of thought, or discourses, that have not resolved the oppressive sociopolitical realities on the ground, one must face the many levels of (dis)locations that define Afro-Brazilian identities. This essay draws upon the cultural productions of five Afro-Brazilian poets from various regions of Brazil, namely, Oliveira Silveira, Lepê Correia, Jamu Minka, Abelardo Rodrigues, and Carlos de Assumpção. Beyond exposing the marginalized poets to a wider readership in English, the essay also engages the current debate in the shift from racial democracy to affirmative action in Brazil and the implications for continued racial tensions and contradictions in the Brazilian state.

Re-envisioning the Afro-Latin American Woman

In the field of Afro-Latin American studies, broadly defined, intellectual critical labor as well as its corresponding creative production continues to be marred by a subtle divide between canonicity and marginality, between gendered focus and racial concern, between national and transnational dialogue, and ultimately between colonized and decolonized paradigms. In view of its ability to synergize and challenge these artificially compartmentalized units, Dawn Duke’s Literary Passion, Ideological Commitment should be welcome. A lasting oeuvre of critical initiation into the hitherto colonized world of criticism in which hegemonic critical voices have not only dominated critical responses to works by Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian women writers, but have often marginalized and resisted counter-hegemonic alternatives such as that of Dawn Duke. The fact that she was able to place this with a university press alone is already an accomplishment for visibility. Indeed, in the reality of limited critical outlets for what has been termed ‘marginal’ literature, many seminal works end up in ambivalent academic and trade presses due to what publishers call ‘marketing considerations’. For the world of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian women can only be marketable if the subjects are ‘objectified’ as in samba, carnival, and other stereotypical representations or roles. The challenging feat of contesting colonial, sexist, and racist criticism has a far-reaching impact than could be measured within the immediate accomplishments of this monograph. Ultimately, as her subtitle captures in ‘toward a legacy’, this work is only the beginning of a much-needed focused, scholarly, and unapologetic treatise on Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean women writers. Duke’s thesis can be summed up in the following mix of cogent arguments that not only historicize but provide the framework for a better understanding of the import of these writers to female self-empowerment and ideological commitment. (i) That due to the legacy of colonialism, patriarchy, and slavery, women were historically locked into stereotypical images that are also predicated on racial and

Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization (review)

not queer and whose position within the dominant vision of the Algerian nation was nothing if not marginal. One the whole, however, Queer Nations presents an engaging discussion of Maghrebian national and sexual identities. Hayes’s work is very readable, and even those not specialized in the Maghreb should find Queer Nations both interesting and accessible. In the Maghreb (as elsewhere) nationalism has been a two-edged sword—an affirmative, unifying force used to liberate the peoples of the Maghreb from the colonizing French, and an oppressive, divisive force used in turn by the new national elite to exile to the margins those who are not male, heterosexual, Arab, and Muslim. Hayes’s study, in its contrast of inclusive and exclusive visions of the nation, reminds the reader that the feminist and the queer can be nationalist as well, and without compromise. —Douglas L. Boudreau