Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identities

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Description

The essays gathered in this volume deal with representations of blackness and the performance of black identities in various historically determined societal contexts of the Americas, Benin, and Spain. The book is grounded on the premise that representations constitute, in part, the world in which we live. An important aspect of the struggles of dominated people consists in more or less overtly challenging, manipulating, combatting, negating, and sometimes inverting representations of themselves reproduced in the dominant discourse of their national society. The contributors approach various forms of blackness within the fluctuation of political, economic, and social processes embedded in particular time/space contexts, which are constituted within local, regional, national, and transnational dimensions. Identities, whatever they may be, cannot be defined once and for all in fixed or essentialist terms as if they were unchanging or frozen in time and space. If, as this book proposes, identities are fluid, it is because they are constantly enacted and reenacted, performed anew within specific situations, and within changing socioeconomic and political contexts that provide sites for their negotiations and renegotiations, definitions and redefinitions. Thus, the book approaches black identities as performances.

Reviews

"The collection adds much needed balance to the current discussion of race in the academy by moving beyond mainstream United States and United Kingdom race politics, and by examining a range of performance contexts from the festival to the quotidian. I predict that the volume will prove a valuable scholarly resource and classroom text for courses on performance, race, and the African Diaspora."-Felipe Smith, Director African and African Diaspora Studies Department Tulane University
[T]his collection offers thoughtful and detailed examination of the performativity of black identities...of particular interest to scholars and upper-level students of Africana and African-American studies and cultural studies. Recommended for college libraries.-MultiCultural Review
"This collection offers thoughtful and detailed examination of the performativity of black identities...of particular interest to scholars and upper-level students of Africana and African-American studies and cultural studies. Recommended for college libraries."-MultiCultural Review
"[T]his collection offers thoughtful and detailed examination of the performativity of black identities...of particular interest to scholars and upper-level students of Africana and African-American studies and cultural studies. Recommended for college libraries."-MultiCultural Review

Author Bio

JEAN MUTEBA RAHIER is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African-New World Studies at Florida International University.