Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance by Gail A. Bulman (review)

Abstract

Afro-Brazilian culture and identity in those authors’ works. Part III, “Hybridities in Afro-Brazilian Culture,” examines how Afro-Brazilian community organizations, such as Filhos de Gandi and Cortejo Afro, have provided models of building social capital and societal transformation. Interestingly, as Afolabi notes, cultural manifestations that have often become associated with Afro-Brazilians, such as carnivalesque parades, are both exploitative and celebratory in their essence: that is, both “sacred” and “profane.” But these ironically garner needed promotion and funding for their socio-cultural projects. Lastly, Afolabi closes the work with a fascinating chapter on the role of acarajé (e.g., the Brazilian recreation of a Yoruba beancake) as an “ancestral food” or “(sacred) daily bread,” which has become an integral part of Afro-Brazilian identity and culture across Brazil. Overall, the book provides a thorough scholarly analysis, particularly in terms of literature. It is extensively researched, documented, and annotated—the endnotes alone comprise another chapter in and of itself. It also contains some rather interesting personal anecdotes, which read at times like a memoir from someone encountering “a home away from home” in Brazil, and what it feels like to live in and navigate around Brazil as a person of African descent. However, the book’s shortcomings are twofold: first, outside of students of Brazilian Studies and/or African Diaspora Studies generally, the work may feel tedious, even arcane, to general readership. As a remedy, a glossary of Afro-Brazilian terms used in the book would have been helpful. Secondly (and relatedly to the first point), while the book’s major focus is Bahia, it doesn’t explain well that this is not the only State with significant populations of Afro-Brazilians or of Afro-Brazilian cultural manifestations. That is, States such as Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, São Paulo, for example, also have significant populations of African origin, and where Afro-Brazilian traditions have rooted and are still practiced to some extent. Bahia, by contrast, is in a unique position with its higher per capita Afro-Brazilian population; its capital city, Salvador, is the “Black Rome”; and is, moreover, one that is highly—and rather uniquely—influenced by Yoruba culture. Historically speaking, the region of Congo/Angola was the most prevalent source for African slaves destined to Brazil, and hence the cultural source for much of what is identified as “Afro-Brazilian” in terms of religion, music, dance, foods, language, etc. As such, other forms of Afro-Brazilian history and culture—and hence other forms of “cultural hybridity”—exist outside of Bahia, and despite Bahia. Due to this complex, complicated, and diverse sociohistorical reality, the book would have profited by having a historical overview on the diversity of AfroBrazilian history and culture, to better explain the sociohistorical complexities involved in researching and writing on this topic, and how the present work fits into that complex AfroBrazilian reality. Still, it must be noted that these are suggested “tweaks” to an excellent work of analytic scholarship. Steven Byrd University of New England