Includes bibliographical references (pages 212-226) and index.
Contents:
Playing (with the) Devil -- Between the Devil and the deep blue sea -- "Una raza, dos etnias" : the politics of be(com)ing "Afropanameño" -- Christ, the Devil, and the terrain of blackness -- Baptizing the Devil : circum-local transmission and translation of culture -- "¡Los gringos vienen!" : "The gringos are coming! : race, gender, and tourism -- Dancing with the Devil at the crossroads : performance ethnography and staging thresholds of difference -- Dialogical performance, critical ethnography, and the "digital present".
Summary:
"Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called "Congo" as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama-the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans' triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging. When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines "Congo" within the history of twentieth century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.