Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Unimaginable Homelands? "Africa" and the Abakuá Historical Imagination

2008; Wiley; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/jlca.2005.10.2.370

1548-7180

Kenneth Routon,

Caribbean and African Literature and Culture

Journal of Latin American AnthropologyVolume 10, Issue 2 p. 370-400 Unimaginable Homelands? "Africa" and the Abakuá Historical Imagination Kenneth Routon, Kenneth Routon Southern Illinois University CarbondaleSearch for more papers by this author Kenneth Routon, Kenneth Routon Southern Illinois University CarbondaleSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1525/jlca.2005.10.2.370Citations: 17AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Este articulo analiza los recientes esfuerzos por parte de una serie de grupos dispares para reunificar la sociedad cubana Abakuá con la nigeriana Efik Ekpe, la cual supuestamente hubiera dado origin a la cubana. Lo que me interesa dilucidar es en qué medida estos esfuerzos reflejan el deseo genuino de los abakuá cubanos por reconectar con sus raíces africanas, y en qué medida responden a los intereses del regimen revolucionario por monopolizar esa nostalgia para de ese modo obtener apoyo social durante un periodo de crisis económica. Es possible que en este caso, proyectos académicos tales como los relacionados con identidades transnacionales tan de moda no permitan que emerjan los intereses reales de aquellos sujetos que la etnografía trata de representar. Este articulo explora estas cuestiones de modo crítico a través de un análisis de la conciencia histórica y de la organización espacio urbano en la memoria colectiva de los abakuá. La identificación abakuá con Africa sugiere que aún cuando exista una conciencia de pertenencia a la diáspora africana, ella responde no tanto a una nostalgia por un pasado mítico como a la necesidad actual de legitimizar una identidad de grupo y reivindicar una autonomía religioso-ritual frente al estado revolucionario cubano. References Apter, Andrew 1991 Herskovit's Heritage: Rethinking Syncretism in the African Diaspora. Diaspora 1(3): 235–2601. 10.1353/dsp.1991.0021 Google Scholar Argyriadis, Kali 2000 Des Noirs sorciers aux babalaos: analyse du paradoxe du rapport à l'Afrique à la Havana. École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales 160: 649–674. Google Scholar Ayorinde, Christine 2000 Regla de Ocha-Ifá and the Construction of Cuban Identity. In Identity in the Shadow of Slavery. Paul E. Lovejoy, ed. Pp. 72–85. London : Continuum. Google Scholar Bilby, Kenneth 1999 Neither Here Nor There: The Place of "Community" in the Jamaican Religious Imagination. In Religion, Diaspora, and Cultural Identity. John Pulis, ed. Pp. 311–335. Amsterdam : Gordon & Breach. Google Scholar Bronfman, Alejandro 2004 Measures of Equality: Social Science, Citizenship, and Race in Cuba, 1902--1940. Chapel Hill , NC : University of North Carolina Press. Google Scholar Brown, David H 2003a The Light Inside: Abakuá Society Arts and Cuban Cultural History. Washington D.C. : Smithsonian Books. Google Scholar Brown, David H 2003b Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar Cabrera, Lydia 1969 La sociedad secreta abakuá. Miami : Ediciones C.R. Google Scholar Cabrera, Lydia 1975 Anaforuana: ritual y símbolos de la iniciación en la sociedad secreta abakuá. Madrid : Ediciones R. Google Scholar Cabrera, Lydia 1983 El monte. Miami : Colección de Chicherekú. Google Scholar Cabrera, Lydia 1988 Lengua sagrada de los ñáñigos. Miami : Colección del Chicherekú. Google Scholar Casey, Edward S 1996 How to Get From Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time. In Senses of Place. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, eds. Pp. 13–52. Santa Fe , N.M. : School of American Research Press. Google Scholar Clarke, Kamari 2004 Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. Durham : Duke University Press. 10.1215/9780822385417 Google Scholar Clifford, James 1988 Identity in Mashpee. In Predicament of Culture. Pp. 277–346. Cambridge : Harvard University Press. Google Scholar Duany, Jorge 1988 After the Revolution: The Search for Roots in Afro-Cuban Culture. Latin American Research Review 23(1): 244–255. Google Scholar DuMoulin, John 1962 The Participative Art of the Afrocuban Religions. Abhandlungen und Beritchte des Staatlichen Museums fèur Vèolkerkunde 21: 63–77. Google Scholar Ebron, Paulla A. 2000 Tourists as Pilgrims: Commercial Fashioning of Transatlantic Politics. American Ethnologist 26(4): 910–932. 10.1525/ae.1999.26.4.910 Web of Science®Google Scholar Fernández Robaina, Tomás 2001 Hablen paleros y santeros. La Habana : Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Google Scholar Frazier, E. Franklin 1939 The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar Gilroy, Paul 1993 The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge : Harvard University Press. Google Scholar Hagedorn, Katherine J. 2000 Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería. Washington D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press. Google Scholar Harris, Rosemary 1976 Efik History Reconsidered. Africa 46(3): 285–231. 10.2307/1159400 Web of Science®Google Scholar Hernandez-Reguant, Ariana 2002 Radio Taino and the Globalization of the Cuban Culture Industries. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago. Google Scholar Hernandez-Reguant, Ariana In press Havana's Timba: The Macho Sound of Black Sex. In Globalization and Race Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness. Kamari Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas, eds. Durham : Duke University Press. Google Scholar Herskovits, Melville J. 1941 The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston : Beacon Press. Google Scholar Hintzen, Percy C. 2004 Imagining Home: Race and the West Indian Diaspora in the San Francisco Bay Area. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 10(1): 289–318. Google Scholar Ingold, Tim 2000 The Perception of the Environment. New York : Routledge. 10.4324/9780203466025 Google Scholar Jackson, Michael 1995 At Home in the World. Durham : Duke University Press. 10.1215/9780822396123 Google Scholar Larose, Serge 1977 The Meaning of Africa in Haitian Vodu. In Symbols and Sentiments: Cross-Cultural Studies in Symbolism. Edited by Loan Lewis. Pp. 85–116. New York : Press. Google Scholar López Valdés, Rafael L. 1966 La sociedad secreta "abakuá" en un grupo de obreros portuarios. Etnologia y Folklore 2: 5–26. Google Scholar Martínez Furé, R. 1979 Diálogos imaginarios. Havana : Editorial Arte y Literature. Google Scholar Matibag, Eugenio 1996 Afro-Cuban Religious Experience: Cultural Reflections in Narrative. Gainesville University of Florida Press. Google Scholar Matory, James Lorand 1999 The English Professors of Brazil. On the Diasporic Roots of the Yoruba Nation Comparative Studies in Social History 41(1): 72–103. 10.1017/S0010417599001875 Web of Science®Google Scholar Matory, James Lorand 2001 The "Cult of Nations" and the Ritualization of their Purity. The South Atlantic Quarterly 100(1): 171–205. 10.1215/00382876-100-1-171 Web of Science®Google Scholar McCarthy Brown, Karen 1999 Staying Grounded in a High-Rise Building: Ecological Dissonance and Accommodation in Haitian Vodou. In Gods of the City. Robert Orsi, ed. Pp. 79–104. Bloomington : Indiana University Press. Google Scholar Merleau-Ponty, M. 1962 Phenomenology of Perception. London : Routledge. 10.2307/1134498 Google Scholar Miller, Ivor 2000a A Secret Society Goes Public: The Relationship Between Abakuá and Cuban Popular Culture. African Studies Review 43(1): 161–188. 10.2307/524726 Google Scholar Miller, Ivor 2000b Religious Symbolism in Cuban Political Performance. The Drama Review 44(2): 30–55. 10.1162/10542040051058690 Web of Science®Google Scholar Miller, Ivor 2001 Nigerian Efiks and Cuban Abakuá Re-Unite. Electronic document, http://arrocubaweb.com/efik.htm, accessed April 15. Google Scholar Miller, Ivor 2005 Cuban Abakuá Participate in the Ekpe Festival, December 19--26, 2004, Cross River State, Nigeria. Electronic document, http://afrocubaweb.com/abakwa/cubanscrossriver.htm, accessed April 25. Google Scholar Moore, Carlos 1988 Castro, the Blacks, and Africa. Los Angeles : University of California Center for Afro-American Studies. Google Scholar Olwig, Karen Fog 1999 Caribbean Place Identity: From Family Land to Region and Beyond. Identities 5(4): 435–467. 10.1080/1070289X.1999.9962626 Web of Science®Google Scholar Orozco, Román and Natalia Bolívar 1998 Cubasanta: Comunistas, santeros y cristianos en la isla de Fidel Castro. Madrid : El País Aguilar. Google Scholar Ortiz, Fernando 1951 Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el foclore de Cuba. La Habana, Dirección de Cultura. Google Scholar Otero, Solimar 2002 Orunile, Heaven is Home: AfroLatino Diasporas in Africa and the Americas. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Folklore, University of Pennsylvania. Google Scholar Palmié, Stephan 2002 Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition. Durham : Duke University Press. 10.1215/9780822383642 Google Scholar Palmié, Stephan 1993 Ethnogenetic Processes and Cultural Transfer in Afro-American Slave Populations. In Slavery in the Americas. W. Binder, ed. Pp. 337–364. Weurzburg : Keonigshausen and Neumann. Google Scholar Price, Richard 1983 First Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press. Google Scholar Price, Richard 1998 The Convict and the Colonel. Boston : Beacon Press. Google Scholar Rahier, Jean Muteba 1999 Introduction. In Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identities. Jean Rahier, ed. Pp. xiii–xxvi. Westport : Bergin & Garvey. Google Scholar Roche y Monteagudo, Rafael 1925 La policía y sus misterios en Cuba. Havana : La Moderna Poesía. Google Scholar Scott, David 1991 That Event, This Memory: Notes on the Anthropology of African Diasporas in the New World. Diasporas 1(3): 261–284. 10.1353/dsp.1991.0023 Google Scholar Serracino, Rodolfo 1988 Los que volvieron a Africa. Havana : Ciencias Sociales. Google Scholar Sosa, Enrique 1982 Los ñáñigos. Havana : Ediciones Casa de las Américas. Google Scholar Sosa, Enrique 1984 El Carabalí. Havana : Editorial Letras Cubanas. Google Scholar Sosa, Enrique 2001 ñáñigos en Key West (1880?--1923?). Catauro 2(3): 159–171. Google Scholar Teresa Vélez, Maria 2000 Drumming for the Gods: The Life and Times of Felipe Garcia Villamil, Santero, Palero, and Abakuá. Philadelphia : Temple University Press. Google Scholar Thompson, Robert Farris 1983 Emblems of Prowess: Ejagham Art in Two Worlds. In Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. Pp. 227–268. New York : Random House. Google Scholar Trouillot, Michel-Rolph 1992 The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier in Anthropological Theory. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 19–42. 10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.000315 Web of Science®Google Scholar Weekend Chronicle 2005 Efiks of Cuba Write Obong of Calabar: We're Coming Home. Electronic document, http://afrocubaweb.com/abakwa/cubanscrossriver.htm, accessed May 5. Google Scholar Yelvington, Kevin A. 2001 The Anthropology of Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean: Diasporic Dimensions. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 227–260. 10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.227 Web of Science®Google Scholar Citing Literature Volume10, Issue2November 2005Pages 370-400 ReferencesRelatedInformation