Title When the Devil knocks : the Congo tradition and the politics of blackness in twentieth-century Panama / Renée Alexander Craft

Published Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2015] ©2015

Click on the following:
Project Muse Open Access eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiv, 240 pages) : illustrations Series Black performance and cultural criticism Black performance and cultural criticism. Contents Prologue. Playing (with the) Devil -- Introduction. Between the Devil and the deep blue sea -- "Una raza, dos etnias" : the politics of be(com)ing "Afropanameño" -- Christ, the Devil, and the terrain of blackness -- Baptizing the Devil : circum-local transmission and translation of culture -- "¡Los gringos vienen!" : "The gringos are coming! : race, gender, and tourism -- Dancing with the Devil at the crossroads : performance ethnography and staging thresholds of difference -- Dialogical performance, critical ethnography, and the "digital present." Summary "Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called "Congo" as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama--the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans' triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging. When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines "Congo" within the history of twentieth century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 212-226) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Congos (Panamanian people) -- Rites and ceremonies Congos (Panamanian people) -- Ethnic identity Black people -- Panama -- Rites and ceremonies Black people -- Panama -- Ethnic identity Carnival -- Social aspects -- Panama LITERARY CRITICISM -- Caribbean & Latin American. Black people -- Ethnic identity Black people -- Rites and ceremonies Carnival -- Social aspects Manners and customs SUBJECT Portobelo (Panama) -- Social life and customs Subject Panama Panama -- Portobelo Genre/Form Ethnographies Ethnographies. Études ethnographiques. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780814273722 0814273726 0814293751 9780814293751

  Permalink