EVENTALIZING BLACKNESS in COLOMBIA Eduardo Restrepo A
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EVENTALIZING BLACKNESS IN COLOMBIA Eduardo Restrepo A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Arturo Escobar Marisol de la Cadena Lawrence Grossberg Walter Mignolo Peter Redfield ABSTRACT Eduardo Restrepo: Eventalizing Blackness in Colombia (Under de direction of Arturo Escobar) This dissertation illustrates from four concrete moments the relevance of eventalizing the analytic categories with which we usually think the past and present of blackness: 1) the ethnicization of blackness at the end of last century where a anthropological and culturalist discourse prevails; 2) the medicalization and racialization of the society at the beginning of twentieth century when hygienic and biological assumptions prevail; 3) the national construction of a literate elite (letrados) and the first experts by the middle of the nineteenth century from the imaginary of the progress tied to the disciplination of labor and the scrutiny of wealth; and 4) the technologies of salvation for the slaves introduced to Cartagena of Indies deployed in the first half of seventeenth century from the Christian theopolitics. My argument consists in identifying these concrete problematizations to show their singularity and density in which they emerged and transformed through different articulations of blackness. Therefore, there is not adequate to subsume nor to collapse in analytic models, more or less sophisticated, those appeals to ‘race’ or to ‘ethnicity’ as principles of historical intelligibility that cross all and each one of these articulations of difference. This dissertation is not about the conventional description of ‘cultures’ or ‘pasts’ from ‘the native’s point of view’; but, it is an eventalization of blackness that ii refers to rethinking an object (or objects in plural) that has emerged in thought through specific games of truth associated with certain modalities of power. iii A Katherine, inspiración y compañía irreemplazable iv “[…] what human beings fear more than anything is not their own death nor the suffering, in which several times refuge has been found, but the anxiety produced by the necessity of questioning oneself […]” Estanislao Zuleta ([1980] 1994: 12). v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are several people that made this dissertation possible. Arturo Escobar, my adviser and friend, has been monumentally generous since we met several years ago in Bogotá. I would not have even gone to the United States if he were not there – just in the belly of the beast. I was able to go through my seminars and classes, especially in the most dark of times for me, because of Arturo´s unconditional support. I deeply admire his intellectual humility and his faith in the political importance and value all kinds of struggles for thinking otherwise. And I had learned so much from him that it is often hard for me to identify what of my own thought comes from his influence and teachings. Laurence Grossberg, the best intellectual interlocutor ever, showed me the relevance of a particular way of understanding and practice cultural studies. I could visualize the magnitude and importance of Stuart Hall work just because of Larry. Without his seminars and presence, my stay in Chapel Hill would not have been so productive and exciting. Marisol de la Cadena always encouraged me to think as an intellectual partner about issues that interpelled us such as theory, power and difference. Her criticism of my papers were always very insightful, especially her emphasis on the concrete and on ethnography. vi Phyllis Howren, who died January 26 2007, was an amazing friend and supported me in several ways during the time that I lived in Chapel Hill. She helped me with my papers to try to make my broken English somehow understandable – an impossible achievement because very often the apparent confusion in my writing was actually in my mind, which has the tendency to think differently than those of most people. I will be always in debt with her kindness and generosity. Katherine Thornton, my angel, always gave me everything. Without her company and unconditional solidarity, this dissertation could not be written nor even conceived. Also, she did the final edition of the whole dissertation to make it less plagued by grammatical mistakes. I want to thank María Luisa Valencia because she translated the last two chapters form Spanish to English. And I also need to thank Roosbelinda Cardenas and Eric Karchmer for their kindly edition of chapters four and five. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................................. xi INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter I. THEORETICAL STAKES................................................................................................... 8 Eventalizing as principle of historical intelligibility............................................... 8 Problematizations, programs and games of truth..................................................... 25 On Articulation.............................................................................................................. 34 II. ETHNICIZATION.............................................................................................................. 36 Emergence of ethnicization......................................................................................... 39 The Special Commission for the Black Communities Negotiating Black Ethnicity.................................................................................. 51 The AT 55 in the Pacific nariñense............................................................................ 60 Law 70 of 1993: juridical inscription of ethnicization............................................ 70 Disputes over Law 70.................................................................................................. 73 Regulation of Law 70: institutionalizing the representation of black communities ................................................................................................. 79 Mediations in the Production of the Black Community......................................... 82 The Church: empowering local organizations................................................. 83 The State: Special Commission, Biopacífico Project and PMNR.................. 94 Techniques of invention and forms of visualization................................................ 105 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 118 viii III. RACIAL ARTICULATIONS AT THE BEGGINING OF TWENTIETH CENTURY................... 120 1. Hermeneutics of the degeneration.......................................................................... 122 Therapeutic techniques and the ‘men of science’................................................... 129 2. Articulations of blackness....................................................................................... 137 Images of Blacks........................................................................................................... 137 Miscegenation............................................... ................................................................ 147 Omnipresence and ambiguities of the notion of race .............................................. 152 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 165 IV. ABOLITIONISTS, COROGRAPHERS AND ESSAYISTS: ARTICULATION OF BLACKNESS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY........................................................... 168 1. The abolitionist debate............................................................................................. 172 2. The Chorographic Commission.............................................................................. 199 Images of ‘blacks’ in Cauca State............................................................................... 204 The category of ‘race’................................................................................................... 209 A Narrative of Progress................................................................................................ 219 3. Ethnographical zones............................................................................................... 229 ‘Mestizo civilization’.................................................................................................... 231 ‘Races’, ‘castes’ and ‘types’........................................................................................ 234 ‘Ethnological promiscuity’ as a ‘physiology’ of politics........................................ 239 ‘Ethnographic zones’ in New Granada ..................................................................... 243 The ‘Mulatto’ and the ‘sambo’: two ‘Granadine types’.......................................... 249 Conclusions.................................................................................................................... 256 V. DE INSTAURANDA AETHIOPUM SALUTE: THECNOLOGY OF SALVATION IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY........................................................................................... 259 ix 1. On Ethiopians and other black nations: