The Negritude Movements in Colombia

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses October 2018 THE NEGRITUDE MOVEMENTS IN COLOMBIA Carlos Valderrama University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Folklore Commons, Other Political Science Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Valderrama, Carlos, "THE NEGRITUDE MOVEMENTS IN COLOMBIA" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1408. https://doi.org/10.7275/11944316.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1408 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE NEGRITUDE MOVEMENTS IN COLOMBIA A Dissertation Presented by CARLOS ALBERTO VALDERRAMA RENTERÍA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SEPTEMBER 2018 Sociology © Copyright by Carlos Alberto Valderrama Rentería 2018 All Rights Reserved THE NEGRITUDE MOVEMENTS IN COLOMBIA A Dissertation Presented by CARLOS ALBERTO VALDERRAMA RENTERÍA Approved as to style and content by __________________________________________ Agustin Laó-Móntes, Chair __________________________________________ Enobong Hannah Branch, Member __________________________________________ Millie Thayer, Member _________________________________ John Bracey Jr., outside Member ______________________________ Anthony Paik, Department Head Department of Sociology DEDICATION To my wife, son (R.I.P), mother and siblings ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I could not have finished this dissertation without the guidance and help of so many people. My mentor and friend Agustin Lao Montes. My beloved committee members, Millie Thayer, Enobong Hannah Branch and John Bracey. My sincere special thanks to Santiago Arboleda, radical black intellectual in Colombia, who has opened so many avenues of critical thinking. To every one of the black activists, intellectuals, folklorists, musicians, poets, that contributed to my dissertation. To my wife, Leidy J Hurtado, for her support and love during this complex process of writing a dissertation. I am in great debt to my mother, Luz Rogelia Renteria, who has dedicated her entire life to support and cultivate my dreams. To my sister, Isabel Valderrama, and brother, Andres Valderrama. To my siblings from my father’s side whose words has comforted me in difficult moments. To my friends and colleagues of GAUV (Afro-Colombian group of the University of Valle), with whom I cultivated and nurtured my critical thinking. To my 2009 cohort. To the black, brown and international collective in Sociology Department. And to my dear friends Dario Velasquez, Castriela Hernandez, Celeste Vaughan Curington, Julieta Chaparro, Diego Leal, Martha Balaguera, Andres Fabian Henao, and Andres Jiménez. v ABSTRACT THE NEGRITUDE MOVEMENTS IN COLOMBIA SEPTEMBER 2018 CARLOS ALBERTO VALDERRAMA RENTERIA, B.A., UNIVERSIDAD DEL VALLE. M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Agustin Lao-Montes Black politics is a diverse range of social practices, actions and thoughts through which subordinate groups, political figures, activists and artists negotiate power relations and propose alternatives to their forms of oppression. Negritude was the framework which facilitated the emergence of sites and forms of black politics in Colombia during the 70s. While the founders and leaders of the negritude movements -among them, Étiene Léro, Jules Monnerot, René Menil, Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas, Léonard Sainville, Aristide Maungée, the Achille brothers, Léopold Sedar Senghor, Osmane Sosé and Dirago Diop, from French colonies-, were thinking of “It is time for good Cuban Coffee and to say goodbye to negritude” and “to say hello to our Mother America and to the revolution that it has started here.” Afrocolombians were organizing, appropriating and re-articulating old and new sites and forms of black politics to mobilize, display and re- fashion negritude discourses, not limited to black literature. This dissertation examines how sites and forms of black politics, that emerged during the 70s, developed and proposed anti-racist agendas by using negritude discourses. I call them a. black in the left; vi b. the mestizo negritude; c, the liberal negritude; and d. de-subjugating black culture. Each of these sites and forms of black politics created and developed individual interpretative and explicative tools to reveal racial dominance and affirm blackness in Colombia. Each of these brought up conflicts and tensions by mobilizing agendas of the negritudes. From these dynamics of black politics, I conclude that although culture is a crucial tool for black liberation, culture by itself does not necessarily reconcile the tensions between class, political and gender differences. On the other hand, I conclude that politics should be understood as a contingent and relational ensemble of actions and discourses through which actors in difference positions negotiate power relations. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................vi LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................xi ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ......................................................................xii CHAPTER 1. THE SITES AND FORMS OF BLACK POLITICS ………………............………1 1. Introduction.............................................................................................................1 2. Decentering Social Movement Theories and Perspectives ……………………….7 3. Black Counterpublics: Sites and Forms of Black Politics …………………........16 4. On Data and Methodology ………………………………………………...…….29 5. Chapter Organization ……………………………………............……....………37 2. COLOMBIA; A SOCIETY STRUCTURE IN RACIAL DOMINANCE..........…39 1. Publically Denied, Daily Practiced: Racial formation in Colombia...……...........39 2. Race is not the Modality in which Class is Lived…..........………………………59 3. The Negritude Movements…………...................................…………………….69 3. THE HISTORICAL EMERGENCE OF BLACK COUNTERPUBLICS….........76 1. Forming the Black Counterpublics....................................……....………………77 2. Black Politics in the Political Realm………………………………………....….84 3. A Form of black Marxism…………………………………..................…………92 4. Black Politics in the World of Oral Tradition……………………………....……95 5. Black Literature………………………………………………….......…………106 6. Black Politics of folklore………………………………………….............……108 4. THE WEB OF RELATIONS OF THE BLACK COUNTERPUBLICS..............110 1. Assembling Black Counterpublics………………………………………...…....111 2. The Political Violence and the De-assembling of the Black Counterpublics......124 3. The Resurgence of the Black Counterpublics…………......……………………129 5. BLACKS IN THE LEFTS………….………………………...................…………140 1. The Presence of Blacks in the New Left……………………………..........……141 2. Class or Race…………………............…………………………………………146 3. The Left in Black Communities……………………………………...........……149 4. Folklorizing Black Culture………………………………………………..........163 viii 6. THE MESTIZO NEGRITUDE………………………………………...............….167 1. The Radical Mestizaje…………………………………………………......……168 2. The Web of Relation and Collaboration…………..........………………………173 3. Making the Mestizo Negritude Public…………………………………….........187 7. THE LIBERAL NEGRITUDE.................................................................................222 1. A Liberal Black Organization for the Black Population......................................224 2. Movimiento de las Negritudes y el Mestizaje de Colombia................................240 3. A Popular Black Presidential Candidacy.............................................................245 4. The Sellout of the Black Candidacy and The Black Political Disappointment...255 8. DE-SUBJUGATING BLACK CULTURE AND BLACK IDENTITY................258 1. Centro para la Investigación de la Cultura Negra en Colombia. Black Cultural Movement............................................................................................................258 2. Avasallamiento Cultural.......................................................................................265 3. De-avasallamiento Cultural.................................................................................273 4. Affirming Blackness............................................................................................276 9. TENSIONS AND CONFLICTS ON NEGRITUDE...............................................293 1. De-folklorizing Black Culture.............................................................................293 2. The Project of Mestizo Negritude under Scrutiny...............................................305 3. Class Struggles is not more Important than Race Struggle..................................311 4. Black Oligarchy...................................................................................................314 5. Negritude-centrism..............................................................................................317

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