Being La Dominicana: Race and Identity in the Visual Culture of Santo Domingo (Dissident Feminisms)

With this book, Rachel Afi Quinn makes the case for a transnational feminist cultural studies lens of analysis and an ethnographic approach to the study of race, gender, and visual culture in the Dominican Republic. This book provides a new window into contemporary life in Santo Domingo through which surrealist cultural productions reflect the social climate. Quinn theorizes the ways that the racial meaning of Dominican women’s mixed-race bodies “see/saw” in the viewing moment, as they are read visually in relation to others and informed by particular narratives of identity. Drawing on some forty interviews conducted by the author, this text centers these voices as it reveals the ways that the mixed-race bodies of Dominican women and girls signify within a racial schema tied to an economy in which they are commodified. Queer identities and fluid sexualities intersect with racial ambiguity and Dominican whiteness, Quinn argues, while incorporating public art, digital images, and Dominican film and music videos that are circulated transnationally, including performances by Rita Indiana Hernández and Michelle Rodriguez. Numerous other works by Dominican women artists and activists including print and online publications, documented live performances, photographic images, and social media discourse compose this text. Transnational political organizing is also considered here as part of a legacy of Dominican feminist activism against patriarchal oppression Rachel Afi Quinn investigates how visual media portray Dominican women and how women represent themselves in their own creative endeavors in response to existing stereotypes. Delving into the dynamic realities and uniquely racialized gendered experiences of women in Santo Domingo, Quinn reveals the way racial ambiguity and color hierarchy work to shape experiences of identity and subjectivity in the Dominican Republic. She merges analyses of context and interviews with young Dominican women to offer rare insights into a Caribbean society in which the tourist industry and popular media reward, and rely upon, the ability of Dominican women to transform themselves to perform gender, race, and class. Engaging and astute, Being La Dominicana reveals the little-studied world of today's young Dominican women and what their personal stories and transnational experiences can tell us about the larger neoliberal world. | Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Transnational Feminist Cultural Studies, Visual Culture, and the Ethnographic Project 1. Sites of Identity: Facebook, Murals, and Vernacular Images 2. Me Quedo con la Greña: Dominican Women's Identities and Ambiguities 3. Whiteness, Transformative Bodies, and the Queer Dominicanidad of Rita Indiana 4. A Thorn in Her Foot: The Discomfort of Racism and the Ethnographic Moment 5. The Camera Obscura: Teatro Colectivo Las Maleducadas' Production of La Casa de Bernarda Alba 6. Feminist Rage and the Right to Life for Women in the Dominican Republic Notes Works Cited Index Back cover |"Rachel Afi Quinn's first monograph is an exceptional interdisciplinary study of how Dominican women in Santo Domingo theorize mixed-raceness and fashion themselves in response to the transnational flow of images." — Transforming Anthropology "A unique and timely examination of the significance and cultural strategies of Dominican women in the contemporary era marked by neoliberal economic structures, (post) colonial geopolitical arrangements, heteropatriarchal beauty standards, and global anti-blackness. It is an important work of feminist ethnography."—Nicole Fleetwood, author of On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination | Rachel Afi Quinn is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies and the Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Houston. "This book investigates the ways Dominican visual culture portrays Dominican women and how women represent themselves in their own creative endeavors in response to existing stereotypes. Delving into the dynamic realities and uniquely racialized gendered experiences of women in Santo Domingo, Quinn reveals the way racial ambiguity and color hierarchy work to shape experiences of identity and subjectivity in the Dominican Republic. She merges analyses of context and interviews with young Dominican women to offer rare insights into a Caribbean society in which the tourist industry and popular media reward, and rely upon, the ability of Dominican women to transform themselves to perform gender, race, and class"-- Provided by publisher