Copyright by Jennifer Allan Goett 2006
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Copyright by Jennifer Allan Goett 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Jennifer Allan Goett certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Diasporic Identities, Autochthonous Rights: Race, Gender, and the Cultural Politics of Creole Land Rights in Nicaragua Committee: Edmund T. Gordon, Co-Supervisor Charles R. Hale, Co-Supervisor Kamala Visweswaran João H. Costa Vargas Juliet Hooker Diasporic Identities, Autochthonous Rights: Race, Gender, and the Cultural Politics of Creole Land Rights in Nicaragua by Jennifer Allan Goett, B.S. M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December, 2006 Dedication For Emily and Koybi Acknowledgements This project began the first summer I went to Nicaragua in 1998 and continues to evolve today. This evolution has been shaped by two principal forces. One has been my political engagement with land rights struggles in Nicaragua and the other has been the mentorship I have received from my dissertation committee members here at the University of Texas. So much of the thought that went into this dissertation has been influenced by the work of those that precede me, particularly my co-supervisors Edmund T. Gordon and Charles R. Hale and committee member Juliet Hooker. I count myself lucky to have worked closely with mentors who are themselves so invested in my topic due to their own political allegiances and years of research on the Coast. My activist research experience in both Nicaragua and Honduras has in large part unfolded under their direction through the auspices of the Caribbean Central American Research Council (CCARC). I remain committed to the political principles they have cultivated within this context and thank them for the example they set in their own research and pedagogy. A special thanks to Ted Gordon who has generously shared his knowledge of Costeño history and politics with me along with documents and manuscripts from his personal collection. Likewise, Charlie Hale’s detailed readings and commentary of my chapter drafts provided invaluable feed back for the development of this project. I also give my thanks to my committee member Kamala Visweswaran who has provided much needed v advice and direction over the years as well as a roof over my head in times of financial hardship. Her unsolicited generosity has helped me through some difficult times. I owe the same debt gratitude to friends, colleagues, and community members in Nicaragua who have also truly educated me over the years. When I first went to the Atlantic Coast to begin pre-dissertation research, I was humbled by how difficult it was to make sense of things. That which I know today is in large part due to their guidance and tutelage. They have given me a sense of community and camaraderie that has sustained this project for many years. First and foremost, I wish to thank the community of Monkey Point for welcoming me with open arms, particularly the leadership for their wisdom, humor, and enduring commitment to a struggle that can at times seem Herculean. The women of that community opened their homes and hearts to me as a daughter, sister, and compañera in struggle and for that I remain forever grateful. Having worked in Nicaragua for nearly a decade now, I am indebted to many friends and colleagues. In Bluefields, I would like to thank Bridget Budier, Sydney Francis, Candis Hamilton, Deborah Grandison, Rodolfo Chang, Nora Newball, Alberto Espinoza, Karl Tinkam, Wilfredo Jarquín, Hugo Sujo, Marvin Ramirez, Lloyd Forbes, Melbourne Jackson, Edna Bent, Faran Dometz, and Zarifeth Bolaños. I wish to extend a special thanks to the women at CIDCA-Bluefields: Paula, Julia, and Helen Fenton for her friendship and guidance with the rich archival resources under her charge. I also owe thanks to Andrés Gomez for making sure I did not get lost on my way to El Coco. In Pearl Lagoon, my respect and appreciation goes out to Eduardo Tinkam, Oswaldo Morales, Betty Anderson, Byron Theophile, Ingrid Cuthbert, Benito Morales, Adolgah Hebbert, Marcelino Sambola, and Santos Murillo. In Bilwi, I would like to acknowledge the support of Lottie Cunningham, Melba McLean, Jorge Matamoros, and Marcos Williamson. To my friends and colleagues in Managua, special thanks go to Galio vi Gurdián, Maricela Kauffmann, Fernanda Soto, David Bradford, Anfer López, Brenda Rocha, and María Luisa Acosta. Also I express my appreciation to the outstanding editorial and translation team at WANI, including Alvaro Rivas, Arlene Clair, and Danilo Salamanca. Lastly, I thank my dear friends and confidants Carla James, Carla Chow, Thavia James, Carla Sinclair, and Sarita Fagoth for their companionship and laughter. Your families have become my family; your sorrows and joys are mine as well. Friends and family in the US have also provided the encouragement and intellectual inspiration that made this undertaking possible. In particular, I wish to thank Juanita Sundberg, Margaret Talev, Mark Anderson, Diya Mehra, Melissa Forbis, Chris Loperena, Nick Copeland, Cale Leighton, Shaka McGlotten, Christine Labuski, Edwin Matamoros, Melesio Peter, and Ajb’ee Jimenez. I give my final and most profound gratitude to my family. Without their love, encouragement, and unlimited faith in my potential as an individual and an academic, I would be lost. Early on, my mother ignited my literary and intellectual passions. She fought to give me a place at the table when few others would. Through her example, she has shown me that determination and perseverance can make a difference. Likewise, my father’s humility, kindness, and dedication to family have been an unending source of strength for me. Thank you for your prayers, love, and support. Harry, you are my sibling, my partner-in-crime, my friend. vii Diasporic Identities, Autochthonous Rights: Race, Gender, and the Cultural Politics of Creole Land Rights in Nicaragua Publication No._____________ Jennifer Allan Goett, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisors: Edmund T. Gordon and Charles R. Hale This dissertation explores how afro-descendent Creoles from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua engage the politics of femininity and masculinity, indigeneity and blackness, tradition and modernity, and autochthony and diaspora in their struggles for communal land rights. The historical part of the project examines successive waves of mobilization within the Creole community for access to land under colonial and post-colonial regimes, demonstrating that Creole land politics have played out by relatively distinct political logics over time. Following the armed conflict of the 1980s, communal land rights gained a new source of authority through their codification as multicultural citizenship rights, initially under the Sandinista revolutionary state and later within the context of neoliberal democracy. In both cases, rights to communal lands have been imagined as fundamentally indigenous rights. For Creole communities that actively identify as part of a transnational Black Diaspora, the challenge of reconciling an African and Caribbean past with autochthonous constructions of rights has had a profound impact on their negotiations with both the Nicaraguan state and their indigenous counterparts for land. viii My ethnographic research shows how race, gender, and class (as mutually constitutive identity categories) differentially condition the avenues of mobilization available to Creole women and men within this ideological and political terrain. By focusing on gendered idioms of struggle, the dissertation rethinks the relationship between race, gender, and class in Creole politics, exploring how women and men negotiate, accommodate, and contest their new found multicultural citizenship rights. But despite these limited political openings, the post-revolutionary state continues to be unable to imagine and construct a national identity in which afro-descendent peoples legitimately figure. Instead, post-revolutionary transformations linked to neoliberal globalization have led to the emergence of transnational forms of racialization in Nicaragua that associate blackness with criminality and the drug trade. Even though Creoles are no longer explicitly denied citizenship on the basis of their racial and cultural difference, emergent racial hegemonies work to make them implicitly unworthy of full citizenship due to their assumed criminality, which has come to represent a new counter- national threat to state power and social order. ix Table of Contents List of Illustrations ............................................................................................ xii Chapter 1: Revolutionary Transformations.................................................... 1 Dissertation Statement ..................................................................... 10 Leaving the Margins: Fieldwork in Monkey Point............................ 24 Encounters between National and Transnational Racisms................. 35 Chapter 2: Negotiating Modernity: Race, Gender, and Nation.................... 43 Old Fault Lines and the New Left .................................................... 43 The Race to Nation .......................................................................... 52 The Cultural Politics of Creole Identity............................................ 71 Chapter 3: Originary Histories.....................................................................101