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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title En Colombia se baila así: Intersectional Bodies, Race, Gender, and Nation Building in the Barranquilla Carnival Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/16m7h33x Author Tamayo Duque, Ana Maria Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE En Colombia se baila así: Intersectional bodies, race, gender and nation building in the Barranquilla Carnival A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Ana Maria Tamayo Duque March 2013 Dissertation Committee Dr. Marta E. Savigliano, Chairperson Dr. Priya Srinivasan Dr. Anthea Kraut Copyright by Anamaria Tamayo Duque 2013 The Dissertation of Ana Maria Tamayo Duque is approved: ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to the professors of the Dance Department of the University of California, Riverside. To Jacqueline Shea- Murphy, the first one to believe in me, Anna B. Scott for blowing my mind, Toby Miller, Freya Schiwy and Sally Ness for their generosity and friendship. To my wonderful committee who I admire and respect profoundly, I thank you for your support. I want to express special gratitude to my wonderful advisor Marta E. Savigliano a source of awe and inspiration. This dissertation is a huge collective effort. I would not have been able to finish my doctoral studies nor finish this investigation with the dedication, love and persistence of my family. My mother and father, my wonderful grandparents who continue to light my path even from far away, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends old and new made the difference in my life and supported me throughout this journey. My two wonderful sons and their father Oscar were always there for me in this process. Manu and Tommy: thank you guys for cheering me up! Every time I wanted to give up you reminded me the reasons to continue. I have no words to express my love and gratitude for your presence in my life. iv For Roberto and Reina I carry you in my heart v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION En Colombia se baila así: race, gender and nation building in the Barranquilla Carnival by Ana Maria Tamayo Duque Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Critical Dance Studies University of California, Riverside, March 2013 Dr. Marta E. Savigliano, Chairperson In this dissertation I look at the construction of a Colombian mestizo identity on discourses on and around female bodies in the Barranquilla Carnival. I interrogate the roles of the cumbia dancer and the Carnival queens and the way in which these bodies are portrayed in printed media (magazines, newspapers), advertisements (for the Carnival and for other companies at Carnival time) and the Carnival´s TV broadcasting. I analyze their performances and the rules and regulations regarding their participation in Carnival festivities. Through the analysis of these dancing bodies I trace the processes of creation of national identity and regional identity and look at the conflictive discourses (bodily and otherwise) that create raced and gendered nation building theories for the Caribbean Region of Colombia and for the consolidation of Colombian identity abroad. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT v TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF TABLES viii 1. EN COLOMBIA SE BAILA ASÍ 1 1.1 Mestizaje, hybridity, and cumbia colombiana 7 2. ANTHROPOLOGICAL FICTION IN THREE SCENES 23 2.1 Scene one 25 2.2 Scene two 36 2.3 Scene three 48 3. CUMBIA MYTH OF A NATIONAL FORMATION 60 3.1 Cumbia caribe 89 3.2 Origins 98 3.3 (h)Histories 41 3.4 Cumbia rebelde 112 3.5 Cumbia Independiente y mestiza 115 3.6 Cumbia carnavalera 123 3.7 Cumbia caribe, Colombia caribe 127 4. BEAUTY, SKIN AND CARNVAL QUEENS 134 4.1 The Popular Queen and “The” Carnival Queen 134 4.2 A question of linguistics 137 4.3 Beauty, skin and public space 142 4.4 Reina de reinas or popular queen? 150 vii 5. MY HIPS DON’T LIE. SHAKIRA, COLOMBIANNESS AND THE BARRANQUILLA CARNIVAL 157 5.1 Hips don’t lie 161 6. REFERENCES 177 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Fig.1 Mexico’s cast system 9 2. Fig.2 Cumbiamba la Revoltosa 55 3. Fig.3 Album cover, Leonor González Mina, La Negra Grande de Colombia 60 4. Fig.4 Cumbiamba la revoltosa 71 5. Fig. 5 La Pollera Colorá videostill 89 6. Fig. 6 La Pollera Colorá videostill 96 7. Fig. 7 Efrain Cepeda and family 148 8. Fig. 8 Popular queen dances to non-paying audience 150 9. Fig. 9 Popular queens at the Parada de Flores 153 10. Fig. 10 Dancer Monica Lindo, Comparta el Torito 174 LIST OF TABLES 1. Ethnic composition in Nueva Granada…………………………………..13 2. Cartagena vs. Antioquia…………………………………………………………………….14 viii 1. EN COLOMBIA SE BAILA ASI This dissertation started as a critical view of my undergraduate research in anthropology, especially some issues encountered during fieldwork. My own work was part of a larger project comprising five researchers, each working on different themes related to the Colombian carnivals of Riosucio and Barranquilla.1. My topic focused on the processes of teaching and learning cumbia in the cumbiambas (cumbia dancing groups) of the Barranquilla Carnival. The idealistic goal I set up for myself was to engage in the bodily practices of the cumbiambas so as to experience, observe and participate in the processes of learning cumbia (in my case) and teaching cumbia. The fieldwork was scheduled following the 1998 Carnival events: first, a period of three months during the preparations for the festivity; then, the participation in the Carnival itself; and finally, a short stay of two weeks after the festivity. During the rest of the year, we conducted short visits, every two or three months, to check up on the carnival 1 See “Carnaval de Riosucio y Carnaval de Barranquilla: Perspectivas de la antropología teatral de dos fiestas religiosas en Colombia” (Riosucio Carnival and Barranquilla Carnival: Theatre anthropology ‘s perspective of two religious festivities in Colombia), INER, Instituto de Estudios Regionales Universidad de Antioquia and Colciencias, 1999 1 preparations for the celebrations of 1999. The last part of the fieldwork was undertaken three months before, during and after the 1999 carnival. The experience that had the most profound impact in my commitment to anthropology, that questioned my confidence as a researcher, and even my self- esteem, was the first long visit (specially the two weeks prior to the carnival and the actual carnival celebration). During the course of my doctoral studies, I had the opportunity to go back and revisit this experience from an informed critical perspective, and I was left with the sense of not having reached any-body during the undergraduate work. The research focused on bodily practices and tried to address corporeal issues that connected to larger ones in Barranquilla society, but the bodies kept disappearing, even my own body. Relying on one's bodily experience as a primary source for conducting research was timidly addressed by us, if at all. The challenge that this dissertation presented began with my geographical displacement. Since I was no longer in Colombia, how could I trace the carnival dancing bodies? My point of departure is to revisit the experiences lived during the 1998-1999 fieldwork in Barranquilla, and to analyze the thoughts and sensations so as to locate my body 2 among the array of other bodies present at the carnival. This process of remembrance is constructed as a story that began in Barranquilla but brought me to this doctorate in California and is addressed in “Anthropological Fictions”, chapter 2 of this dissertation. The second place I revisited looking for the dancing bodies of the Barranquilla Carnival is the cumbia dancing bodies, with a special focus on the female dancer, the cumbiambera. Legends, mythical stories, poems and song lyrics situate the cumbia couple as the union that created the mestizo nation and the cumbiambera as the vessel and perfect combination of the three "races" that together founded the republic. In the chapter of “Cumbia, myth of national formation,” I look for the traces left by those dancing bodies in written archives, audiovisual productions, and stereotypes commonly shared in Colombia. The visibility of the dancing bodies in Barranquilla is also an important issue to discuss in this work, connecting the resources and opportunities given to certain bodies to become the standards by which other bodies are judged and classified. Racial and class categories intersect to create dynamic meanings with very concrete economic and social results. The ways in which beauty is constructed and idealized in 3 Barranquilla and the whole Caribbean region is addressed in the chapter “Beauty, skin and carnival queens”. To end this exploration of the actual bodies in Barranquilla from a distanced point of view, I locate an international artist as a member of the collective participating in the Carnival and as an important voice. Given her visibility and influence, Shakira creates, re-creates and interprets concepts, myths and stereotypes of the Colombian Caribbean. The music video "My hips don't lie" performed by Barranquillera singer Shakira and Haitian singer Wyclef Jean inserts, in a definitive way, Barranquilla and the Colombian Caribbean into circuits of the "black Atlantic" that open to the whole region economic, political and social venues to develop in the future. The Colombian state and private corporations are making use of the Colombian Carnival and related artistic expressions to develop Colombia as a registered brand, as a corporation that operates with the same logics and purposes of a private enterprise.