69 research outputs found
«Per arrivare a Esteban Montejo. I cammini del Cimarrόn»
No full textMiguel Barnet's unpublished text reflects on the path that led him to write Cimarron. Of particular interest in the text is the author's reflection on the quality of the ethnographic practice carried out ‘with’ the fugitive slave Esteban Montejo. This relation of mutual encounter between the anthropologist and Cimarron is emphasised as a ‘rapport’ that provides insight into deep changes in Cuban societ
Modernità devianti tra antropologia e storia: Mickey Mouse, navi da combattimento in fiamme al largo dei bastioni di Orione, angeli della storia
No full textIl contributo analizza il rapporto che Zapponi intrattiene con l’antropologia ed è incentrato sull’approccio ermeneutico del testo La Modernità Deviante del 1993. La riflessione proposta analizza riferimenti ad autori e concetti centrali negli studi antropologici, e, cerca di andar oltre i rinvii espliciti e plurimi al pensiero di Lévi-Strauss per mettere in luce consonanze, leggibili in filigrana, con l’antropologia riflessiva. In particolare, viene sottolineata l’affinità metodologica tra l’analisi della modernità fatta da Zapponi e la prospettiva dell’antropologia interpretativa o quella elaborata negli stessi anni da un autore come Clifford, scartando l’etnografia professionale, fatta di informatori e descrizioni di resoconti di campo trasformati in teoria per considerare invece aspetti polifonici delle culture, colti combinando etnografia, letteratura e arte e transazioni costruttive. Il bricolage metodologico che caratterizza il pensiero di Zapponi suggerisce un apprendista antropologo che studia la modernità a partire dalla rappresentazione diffusa e ricorrente di un senso di catastrofica perdita di autenticità e purezza. Il contributo propone tre letture, simmetrica, metodologica, iconografica-immaginifica, del rapporto all’antropologia espresso in La Modernità Deviante
«La calvizie la portarono a Cuba gli spagnoli o della pratica di cittadinanza del cimarronaje»
No full textThe postface reflects on the history of Cuban slavery by focusing on the practices of resistance, creativity, and of interdependence between man and nature narrated by the fugitive slave Esteban Montejo. The reflection focuses on the value attributed to the cimarronaje in the system of forces of the Cuban colony and its meanings as a practice of citizenship in opposition to the state of exception established in the space of the plantation. A fundamental part of this contribution is the attention brought to a more hidden dimension of Barnet's book that nonetheless constitutes a constant subtext: the knowledge, care practices and sexual practices of enslaved women, which testify to an integral and creative way of life, beyond domination
Modernizzazione e primitivismi. Il caso della rappresentazione della Mulatta Cubana
No full textThe article concerns processes of cultural resistance and colonialism in late modernity, specifically in Cuban contemporary culture. In this context, in which the transculturation process between the old world (Europe) and the local culture are a fundamental part of identity, the occidental primitivist vision is elaborated and readapted in Cuba. This ability to play with the exotic is analyzed by the author focusing on the representations of the Cuban mulatto woman, a central figure in Cuba's culture and a connecting link between black and white cultures. The study of iconographic and literary sources on the Cuban mulatto woman enables reflection on the conquering logic of a triumphant modern Europe, as well as on the various answers and narrations opposed to this same modernity
Mulier ludens. Bellezza e immagini della mulatta cubana
No full textThis study of the aesthetics of the mulatez focuses on reifying sexualising representations, pervasive visual registers and the perspectives of women who call themselves mulata. The narrative reiterated of the appeal of the sensual Cuban mulata, dangerous because she is 'almost white', is explored as an antiphon with contradictory functions: on the one hand, being a warning against attempts to racially contaminate the dominant order of blancura and masculinity; on the other hand, being a metaphor for the possibility of the rupture of this same order and of a liberal ethos, claiming new forms of citizenship within colonial society.
The author concentrates on the habitus of an ostentatious vanity: a tactic of making oneself visible in order to guarantee one's existence in the slave system of forces through the irruption of beauty. Mulier ludens, the mulata must negotiate her own subjectivity with the oppressive weight of a visuality that fixes her as available and passive: woman of sugar, made from the cane cultivated by her black slave ancestors, sweet, to be eaten. What do women describing themselves as mulatas make of this bitter history? How is beauty being 'made' in Havana today? Narratives of menear - the body technique of hips -, of the aesthetic practices of caring for the frizzy hair disparagingly called 'pasa' and of the quality of 'sandunga' reveal beauty as a doing rather than a being; a performative style critical of the tragic and passive representational tradition of the mulata built into the colony's system of forces
Cammino
No full textThe book reflects on the word Walking. Analyses from the experience of various fieldwork researches on the topic of spiritual walking are provided. The literature on the subject and the recent revalorisation of the spiritual metaphor of walking in the cultural production of recent decades are also considered
Afrocubanismi
No full textAbstract
Recenti evoluzioni all’Havana mostrano come i processi di patrimonializzazione della cultura africana di Cuba e le rappresentazioni di comunità patrimoniali non sempre rappresentano una sensibilità condivisa. Istituzioni ufficiali, pratiche di salvaguardia e museografiche suscitano frizioni, altre risposte interpretative e resistenze nel paesaggio della capitale. I beni culturali immateriali dell’africania all’Havana vivono tra permeabilità alle politiche culturali e conservazione del segreto.The safeguarding of Afrocuban immaterial culture in present-day Havana is no homogeneous a process. Frictions emerge concerning the representation of specific communities according to the Cuban capital’s official institutions and to the communities themselves. The latter occasionally tend either to represent themselves as the authentic communities of Cuba or to reject the very practice of representation, by keeping certain practices or beliefs secret
«¿Donde esta el pollo? Cuba, sovranità alimentare e ontologia della scarsezza»
No full textParadigms of sustainability are being formed in Cuba along autonomous paths, marked by the imposition of the bloqueo. The analysis focuses on changes rooted in the long-lasting crisis that followed the 1990s and on an 'ontology of scarcity', a consequence of the pandemic, the exacerbated economic crisis, and the recent reorganisation of the monetary system; a time marked by an increased sense of daily lucha on the part of citizens who experience supply difficulties, urban peregrinations in search of food, and an unprecedented migratory exodus. The reflection focuses on the libreta de abastecimiento, an instrument of rationing basic foodstuffs. It is considered in its production as a habitus but also as a contradictory object, a metaphor for scarcity, a promise of the guarantee of food that is concretely often unavailable. Moreover, a metaphor for the recent changes in Cuban resolver is the chicken, an imported food, a sign par excellence of the problems of disruption of food chains, of the difficulties of distribution and purchase queues that modify the practice of everyday time. The passages outlined analyse the feeling of cognitive dissonance on the part of citizens with respect to state guarantees in the context of the victorious 'bet' of Cuban vaccination policies
«Politiche vaccinali cubane e scommesse sulla sovranità. Risposte al virus, politicizzazione della salute globale e mutamenti accelerati»
No full textThe article explores the changes introduced in Cuba by the impact of the pandemic and by vaccination and virus control policies. It considers the habitus of preparedness and response to risk from the beginning of the Revolution to the present day, and the public and cost-free health system in its intimate relationship with the population. Observing these specificities allows us to delve into the production of the five national vaccines and the bet behind the approval of the Soberana vaccine. The article analyses cultural and national constructions, meanings and urgencies of Cuban health policy. Inscribed in the precariousness exacerbated by the pandemic, it faces accelerated changes and an increasing politicisation of global health
«La joie de vivre tropicale». Visioni europee del lussureggiante
No full textIl saggio esplora l’invenzione europea dei Tropici come luogo di sensualità e disponibilità femminile. In particolare, l’analisi si concentra sull’imperativo di felicità e piacere proiettato sulla zona torrida e sul ricorrente concetto di delizia, usato da un punto di vista bianco e maschile, per descrivere l’Altra tropicale. Il filo rosso del percorso è il turbamento suscitato nell’animo del viaggiatore alla ricerca di sé ai Tropici da due precise caratteristiche delle terre indigene, percepite come il lussureggiante: la vegetazione rigogliosa, non addomesticata e le donne autoctone, dalla pelle di un color cannella, che provoca stupore, attrazione e desiderio di dominio. Per cercare di dar conto di logiche perduranti di colonialità e di simulacri femminili tropicali di lunga durata, invenzione di un soggetto dominante bianco e maschile, un giro largo rintraccia l’approccio cognitivo a una flora sconosciuta e a una linea del colore della pelle non nera e non bianca, che sfugge alle categorie del noto. Le esperienze del tropicale di tre “casi esemplari” rispetto all’antropopoietica europea, Cristoforo Colombo, Paul Gauguin, Bronislaw Malinowski, sono lette attraverso la loro scrittura biografica di viaggio. Questi celebri diari, narrazioni del sé ai Tropici, lontani tra loro nel tempo e nello spazio, posti in prospettiva, permettono di riflettere sulla fabbricazione di un’innata sensualità femminile esotica e sulle pratiche di produzione, in contesto di colonizzazione e di colonialità, di corpi di donne concepiti come delizie da incorporare, legittimanti il desiderio antropofagico occidentale.This essay explores the European gaze on the Tropics. In particular, the analyses focuses on the happiness and pleasure imperative associated to the torrid zone and on a male western vision of the feminine producing a sense of wonder and delight. The article considers the emotional perturbation provoked by two features of the indigenous lands, arousing desire in the stranger in search of himself in the tropics: the lush vegetation and the indigenous women delicious cinnamon skin. This broad overview on tropical female simulacra traces the cognitive approach to an amazing flora and and skin, neither black nor white, of three “exemplars”: Christopher Columbus, Paul Gauguin, Bronislaw Malinowski. The experiences of the Tropics of these European, symbols of conquest, art or science, are read through their biographical writing. These narratives of the self in the tropics, however distant in time, placed in perspective, allow to reflect on the European cultural production of the exotic and of female delighting bodies, legitimizing the western anthropophagic desire
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