Locating and Connecting Latin America and the African Diaspora

Thursday, April 30th – Friday, May 1st, 2015

UNC Charlotte

Space plays a fundamental role in the study of the African Diaspora in the Atlantic world. Be it in Africa, in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the United States, or in Europe, scholars from all disciplines have always discussed the role played by spatial dislocations during the era of the transatlantic slave trade in spreading African culture throughout the globe. Long after that era was gone, and well into the present, diasporic ideas and practices have bridged and re-interpreted spatial dislocations by tracing connections between seemingly disparate regions in the Atlantic basin, while formulating multiple political, economic, social, and religious linkages between those regions.

In this conference, community activists, entrepreneurs, scholars, students, and film directors will interrogate the importance of ‘space’ in understanding the African Diaspora, with a special focus in Latin America – the region with the largest number of Afro-descendants outside of Africa. How does the study of particular regions in the Atlantic world benefit from considering its diasporic connections? Conversely, how can the study of the African diaspora be challenged by studying the experiences of its members in specific spaces? How do these questions apply to the study of Afro-Latin America?

This two-day event is the result of the joint efforts made by the Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund; the 13th Annual Africana Studies Symposium, organized by the Department of Africana Studies; the 2015 William Wilson Brown Jr. Conference, organized by the Program in Latin American Studies; the 6th Río de la Plata Workshop, organized by the Department of History and the Graduate History Association.

1 Conference Program Thursday, April 30th, 2015 – UNCC Student Union

8:00 – 8:30am – Breakfast (Room 340)

8:30 – 8:45am – Welcome Remarks (Room 340): Akin Ogundiran (Chair of the Department of Africana Studies)

8:45 – 10:00am – First Session

Panel 1: Visualizing Blackness in the Nation (Rm 261)

a. Dan Cozart, University of New Mexico: “Afro-Peruvian Creoles and the Deconstruction of National Dualism”

b. Prisca Gayles, University of Texas at Austin: “Maximizing Citizenship with Minimal Representation: An Analysis of Afro-Argentine Civil Society Organizing Strategies”

c. Brian Jackson, University of California at Santa Cruz: “Afro-Latinidad and the Denial of Blacks in El Salvador: Defining Racial Identities in a Country Where Racism Makes up the National Discourse”

d. Judith Lantigua, Pennsylvania State University: “A Look at Transnational Afro-Cultural Identities in the Dominican Diaspora: A Perspective on the Impact of Spatial Relationships, Migrations and Memory”

Chair: Felix Germain, Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte

Panel 2: The Arts as Spaces of Identity: Literature, Music, and Painting (Rm 263)

2 a. Horacio Castillo Pérez, University of Georgia: “Santa lujuria: exceso y genealogía en la identidad cubana en dispersión”

b. Alexandra Combs, University of North Carolina at Wilmington: “La manifestación de una nueva identidad en Los Cuatro Espejos de Quince Duncan”

c. Angela Rajagopalan, UNC Charlotte: “A Devil in the Details: Depicting Mexica Rites of Kingship in a Colonial Context”

d. Petra Rivera-Rideau, Virginia Tech: “Imagining Loíza: Tego Calderón’s African Diasporic Interventions”

Chair: Honoré Missihoun, Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte

10:00 – 10:15am Coffee Break (Rooms 262 and 266)

10:15 – 11:30am – Second Session

Panel 3: Of Maroons and Other Fighters: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives (Rm 261)

a. Sean Gerrity, City University of New York : “Slave Marronage in Latin America and the United States: A Comparative Analysis”

b. Brandon Hill, Independent Multimedia Artist: “Black Power, Marcus Garvey, and the Necessity for transformational Pan-Africanism throughout the African Diaspora”

c. Joseph F. Jordan, UNC Chapel Hill: ““Aswarm With the Spirits of All Ages Here”: The Great Dismal Swamp and Space, Place and Freedom in the Slave Imaginary”

d. T.J. Desch Obi, Baruch College: “Combative Connections: The Transnational Linkages in Afro-Colombian Martial Arts”

Chair: Tanure Ojaide, Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte

Panel 4: Diaspora Conversations in the U.S. (Rm 263)

a. Luciana Brito, Universidade de São Paulo: ““We are Africo-American People”: Building Transnational Identities in the 19th Century United States”

3 b. Gregory Mixon, UNC Charlotte: ““African Descendant People in the Space of Militia Service: The Case of Georgia in the late Nineteenth Century”

c. Nicholas Rinehart, Harvard University: “Enslaved Testimony And Religious Institutions In Colonial Latin America”

Chair: John David Smith, History Department, UNC Charlotte

Río de la Plata Workshop Session 1 (Room 264)

Commentator: Alex Borucki, University of California-Irvine

9:00-10:00am Sylvain Poosson, Thomas Nelson Community College, ‘Sarmiento el africano: a game of dislocation of memory and selective culture”

10:00-11:00am Judith Anderson, College of New Rochelle, “Rita Montero: Linking Black Identity in Argentina and the United States”

Coffee Break 11:00-11:15am

11:15-12:15pm Edith Moss Jackson, Independent Scholar “Re-Imagining Afrodescendants’ Contributions to Argentine Literature & Culture”

11:45 – 1:00pm – Lunch Break (Room 340)

1:00 – 2:15pm – Third Session

Panel 5: Connecting the Spaces of Slavery (Rm 261)

a. Henry Lovejoy, University of Texas at Austin: “West Africa GIS and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Theoretical Approaches and Methodological Considerations”

b. Carolina González Undurraga, Universidad de Chile: “Slavery, Justice and Rights: A Comparative Proposal for Santiago de Chile and Mexico City, 1770-1830”

c. K. Russell Lohse, Penn State University: “Looking for the Congo in Costa Rica: Africans and Creolization in Latin America”

Chair: Dorothy Smith-Ruiz, Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte

Panel 6: Saints and Voduns Across National Borders (Rm 263)

4 a. Michael Iyanaga, College of William and Mary, “Tracing the African Diaspora through Saints, Rosaries, and Antiphonal Song”

b. Bertin Louis, The University of Tennessee: “Haitian Protestant Views of Vodou nd the Importance of Karacktè within a Trnasnational Social Field”

c. James Padilioni Jr., College of William and Mary: “Three Faces, Three Diasporan Places: Locating Refractions of Africa the Americas in Atlanta’s Cult of Saint Martin De Porres” Chair: Christopher Cameron, History, UNC Charlotte

2:30 – 4:30 pm – Roundtable with Guest Speakers Space and Region in the African Diaspora and Latin America: Connections, Comparisons, and Dialogues Across National Borders (Room 340)

 Michele Reid-Vazquez, University of Pittsburgh

 Jason McGraw, Indiana University at Bloomington

 Mariana Dantas, Ohio University

 Reid Andrews, University of Pittsburgh

 Moderator: Oscar de la Torre

 The Audience

4:30-5:00pm Coffee Break (Rooms 262 and 266)

5:00 pm: Keynote Address (Room 340):

George Reid Andrews

Distinguished Professor and Chair, University of Pittsburgh

“To Count or Not to Count: The Census in Afro-Latin America, 1776- 2015”

A specialist in Afro-Latin America, prof. Andrews has made a series of pioneering and path-breaking contributions to the study of Latin American Afro-descendants, such as The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900 (1980), Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988 (1991), Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay (2010), and his masterful synthesis Afro-Latin America,

5 1800-2000 (2004). In addition to holding a distinguished record of service and teaching in national and international organizations, he is the recipient of multiple awards, such as the Arthur P. Whitaker Prize (2005 and 2011), the Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship (2001), the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1996-97), and many others. His current research deals with the study of racial impacts of social policies in Brazil, from 1990 to the present.

Friday, May 1st – UNCC Student Union

8:00 – 8:30am – Breakfast (Room 340)

8:30 – 8:45am – Welcome Remarks (Room 340): Carlos Coria (Director of the Latin American Studies) and Jürgen Buchenau (Chair of the Department of History)

8:45 – 10:00am – First Session

Panel 7: Social Movements, Labor, and Politics in the U.S. and Mexico (Rm 261)

a. Jeffrey Bortz, Appalachian State University: “The Evolution of the Rules of Work on Mexican Railroads, 1884-1923”

b. Nicholas Ortiz, UNC Charlotte: “Civilismo, Personalismo, and Militarismo: José Vasconcelos and the Presidential Election of 1929 in Mexico”

c. Diamond Ray, Bryn Mawr College, and Jamie Thomas, Swarthmore College: “Locating Womanism and Activism in the U.S. and the African Diaspora from 1969 to #BlackLivesMatter”

Chair: Margaret Commins, Political Science, Queens University of Charlotte

Panel 8: Race and Education: Diasporic Dialogues (Rm 263)

a. Nana Brantuo, University of Maryland, College Park: “Examining the Migratory Experiences of African International Students in Cuba”

6 b. Andréia Lisboa de Sousa, University of Texas at Austin: “Political Struggle and Activism in Latin America: Building New Spaces and Networks”

c. Silvia Lorenso, UNC Chapel Hill, and Nirlene Nepomuceno, Universidade Federal da Bahia: “The Politics of Race and Education in Brazil: An African Diaspora Perspective”

Chair: Sonya Ramsey, History Department, UNC Charlotte

10:00 – 10:15am Coffee Break (Room 340)

10:15 – 11:30am – Second Session

Panel 9: Migrations Across Borders (Rm 261)

a. Thabisile Griffin, University of California at Los Angeles, “The Garifuna: Trans-Caribbean Memory, Imagination and Resistance”

b. Marissa Nichols, University of North Carlonia at Charlotte: “Women and Domestic Work Across the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1920-1960”

c. Paula Andrade, University of North Carolina at Charlotte: “Unaccompanied Alien Children and DACA: Reflections and (De)Constructions”

Chair: Greg Weeks, Political Science, UNC Charlotte

Panel 10: Racial Images and Identities in Women Spaces (Rm 263)

a. Vanessa Castañeda, Tulane University: “Making the Regional National: Baianas de Acarajé as Sites of Culture and Identity”

b. Wendi Muse, New York University: “Exported Women, Domestic Discontent: Mulatas de Exportação and Contestations of Racial Democracy in Brazil under Military Rule”

c. Mariana Irby, Leslie Tjing, and Jamie Thomas, Swarthmore University: “Protest, Memory, and Self in Brown and Black Diasporas at a Small Liberal Arts College”

Chair: Cheryl Hicks, History Department, UNC Charlotte

11:45 – 1:00 pm Lunch Break (Room 340)

7 1:00– 2:45pm – Documentary screening: Hip-hop in Argentina and the African Diaspora (Movie Theater)

 Documentary director Diane Ghogomu, Harvard University

 Christopher Dennis, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

 Charles Pinckney, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Chair: Debra Smith, Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte

Río de la Plata Workshop Session 2 (Room 264)

Commentator: Carolina Zumaglini, Flordia International University

10:00-11:00am Fabricio Prado College of William and Mary, “Hemispheric Connections: United States-South Atlantic Networks in the Age of Atlantic”

11:00-12:00pm Kris Jones, Independent Scholar, “Feeding the Plantation: Cimarrones, Charqui, and Indians in the early 1800s”

12-l:00pm Lunch

1:00-2:00pm Denise Soares de Moura, Universidade Paulista, “Trans-imperial agents in the Iberian Atlantic: the Case of Antonio da Silveira Peixoto”

2:00-3:00pm Enrique Cotelo, University of Mississippi, “The Slave Maria Does Not Understand What We Say:” Frontier Languages, Judicial Reforms and National Identity at the Bordered Lands of Uruguay and Brazil, 1870-1879”

3 – 5:00pm – Roundtable with Guest Speakers (Room 340): Space and Region in the African Diaspora and Latin America. Afro-Latino Identity: Brown, Black or In-Between

 Tiffany Joseph, Stony Brook University

 Andrea Queeley, Florida International University

 Ted Richardson, Independent Photojournalist

 Alejandro de la Fuente, Harvard University

 Moderator: Erika Edwards

8  The Audience

5:00-5:30pm Coffee Break (Rooms 262 and 266)

5:30pm – Keynote Address (Room 340):

Alejandro de la Fuente

Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics

Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Director

Harvard University

“Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latin American Studies: Connecting the Dots”

A historian of Latin America and the Caribbean who specializes in the study of comparative slavery and race relations, Alejandro de la Fuente is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2008), and of A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth- Century Cuba (University of North Carolina Press, 2001). He is also the curator of two art exhibits dealing with issues of race: Queloides: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art (2010-12) and Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba (ongoing). While currently Professor de la Fuente is working on a comparative study of slaves and the law in Cuba, Virginia and Louisiana, he is also the founding Director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard, as well as faculty Co-Chair, along with Professor Jorge Domínguez, of the Cuban Studies Program.