Identities in Flux: Race, Migration, and Citizenship in Brazil (SUNY series, Afro-Latinx Futures)

Drawing on historical and cultural approaches to race relations, Identities in Flux examines iconic Afro-Brazilian figures and theorizes how they have been appropriated to either support or contest a utopian vision of multiculturalism. Zumbi dos Palmares, the leader of a runaway slave community in the seventeenth century, is shown not as an anti-Brazilian rebel but as a symbol of Black consciousness and anti-colonial resistance. Xica da Silva, an eighteenth-century mixed-race enslaved woman who "married" her master and has been seen as a licentious mulatta, questions gendered stereotypes of so-called racial democracy. Manuel Querino, whose ethnographic studies have been ignored and virtually unknown for much of the twentieth century, is put on par with more widely known African American trailblazers such as W. E. B. Du Bois. Niyi Afolabi draws out the intermingling influences of Yoruba and Classical Greek mythologies in Brazilian representations of the carnivalesque Black Orpheus, while his analysis of City of God focuses on the growing centrality of the ghetto, or favela , as a theme and producer of culture in the early twenty-first-century Brazilian urban scene. Ultimately, Afolabi argues, the identities of these figures are not fixed, but rather inhabit a fluid terrain of ideological and political struggle, challenging the idealistic notion that racial hybridity has eliminated racial discrimination in Brazil. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction In Defense of Identity Defining Concepts Socioeconomics of Post-Abolition Migrating Identities Summary of Chapters Chapter 1 The Afro-Brazilian Diaspora: From Slavery to Migrating Identities Lusotropicalism as a Defining (Post)Colonial Concept Of Social Exclusion, Racism, and Identity Formations Gilberto Freyre and Anti-Freyrean Echoes Against Slavery and Colonialism Migrating Identities or (Trans)national Allegories? Chapter 2 Zumbi dos Palmares: Relocating History, Film, and Print Brazilian History, Slavery, and the Place of Zumbi Theater as Empowering Agency: Teatro de Arena, Boal, and Guarnieri Arena Conta Zumbi: From Colonial Myths to Dictatorial Realities Quilombo, Carnivalization, and Zumbi Mythology Relocating History, Film, and Fiction Chapter 3 Xica da Silva: Sexualized and Miscegenated Body Politics Historical Context Literary Adaptations Cinematic Adaptation Versions and Revisions of History Allegory of Brazilian National Identity? Chapter 4 Manuel Querino: African Contributions to Brazil Of Preambles and Dislocations Reversing (Dis)locations From African Contributions to Querino’s Legacy Conclusion Chapter 5 Jorge Amado’s Poetic License: Fictionalizing History The Creative Construction of Pedro Archanjo Parallels in Social History Challenges to Fictional Adaptation Pedro Archanjo in Film and Fiction Racial Democracy as Historical Fiction Chapter 6 Black Orpheus: Regeneration of Greco-Yoruba Mythologies Conceptualizing Orpheus or Obatala in Ifá Divination Ritual, Myth, and Cosmic Forces: The Imprisonment of Obatala Orphism, Ritual Vision, and the Carnivalesque: From Orpheus and Orfeu da Conceição to Cinematic Adaptations Features of the Grecian Orpheus Dramaturgic Adaptations of Orpheus: Vinícius’s Orfeu da Conceição Jorge de Lima’s Invenção de Orfeu Cinematic Adaptation of Orfeu Negro Cinematic Adaptation of Orfeu (1999) Comparative Analysis and Conclusion Chapter 7 City of God: The Ghettoization of Violence Introduction Theorizing Social Marginality Globalizing the “Ghetto” through Cultural Dynamics Cidade de Deus and Desde Que o Samba é Samba: Between Exu and Xangô in the Neo-Favela World Capão Pecado: Bound to Social Violence Conclusion Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index "Reevaluates the significance of iconic Afro-Brazilian figures, from slavery to post-abolition"-- Provided by publisher