Challenging Mestizaje: A Gender Perspective on Indigenous and Afrodescendant Movements in Latin America

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, Social Science, Women on 2010-01-23 20:40Z by Steven

Challenging Mestizaje: A Gender Perspective on Indigenous and Afrodescendant Movements in Latin America

Critique of Anthropology
Vol. 25, No. 3
pages 307-330
(2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X05055217

Helen I. Safa, Professor Emerita of Anthropology/Latin American Studies
University of Florida

This article compares the contemporary movements for cultural autonomy and social legitimation organized by the indigenous and Afrodescendant populations of Latin America. These movements are challenging the concept of blanqueamiento or whitening embedded in the process of mestizaje in Latin America. Whitening proclaimed the superiority of white European culture over indigenous and black culture, a concept these movements are challenging by proclaiming their own cultural autonomy. In particular, the article will examine the increasing role of women in both these movements, and how women are reconciling the tension between ethnic/racial and gender consciousness.

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Danzas Nacionalistas: The representation of history through folkloric dance in Venezuela

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Arts, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Media Archive on 2009-12-30 02:08Z by Steven

Danzas Nacionalistas: The representation of history through folkloric dance in Venezuela

Critique of Anthropology
(2002)
Vol. 22, No. 3
pages 257-282
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X02022003758

Iveris Luz Martínez
Johns Hopkins University

In this article I argue that the nation is not only invented or imagined, but depends on activities and practices in order to be invented and imagined. Here, the focus is on dance in Venezuela, where a number of groups use what they call `folkloric dance’ to construct and depict the national `culture’. This article considers the case of Danzas Típicas Maracaibo (DTM), a dance company founded in 1976 under the auspices of the government of the state of Zulia in Venezuela. DTM presented a carefully crafted and selective stylized repertoire of `folk’ dances from throughout the country. These re-created dances are called danzas nacionalistas, although the dances are often interchangeably referred to as `folkloric’. They are used to make statements about ethnic and cultural authenticity, and in their own way contribute to the discourse of mestizaje. In Venezuela, as in much of Latin America, there is entwined in nationalist rhetoric the idea of `race’ and cultural mixing, or mestizaje. Here, mestizaje does not only or necessarily imply a `racial’ mixing or a mixing of `blood’, but it also refers to `culture’. History, and discourses of the past generally, are especially implicated in these activities and representations.

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