No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation examines the manners in which dancing in Lucumi religious rituals, as a practice in cosmological embodiment, destabilizes and/or subverts normative secular values and structures, and considers what this subversion reveals about the development of civil discourse and participatory parity in the United States. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the destabilization of the public/private binary, the use of secularization by religious communities for their own benefit, the unsettling of the boundaries of the category of religion, and the exposure of the fallacy of secularism as a hallmark of the liberal nation state. The theoretical foundations of the study are in Carribeanist anthropology and postsecularism. Dance and performance ethnography are the primary methods used to analyze two cases studies. The first case study takes place at a Lucumi religious drumming ceremony, known as a tambor, held in the basement of a private home in New York City. The second case study takes places at a Haitian Vodou drumming ceremony held at Riis Beach, in Queens, New York. The findings taken from these case studies suggest that embodiment plays an important, yet often unacknowledged role, in the development of civil discourse, and supports the postsecular argument that in a society defined by plurality, religion(s) offers substantial material in service of the creation of moral frameworks. Dance, in particular, allows bodies and ideas to bridge spaces and ideologies, thus contributing to how individuals perform their identity in society, and to how society envisions itself as a whole. / Dance

An oblique reading of the European canon constitutes the discursive center for present day Caribbean literature. In doing this, authors question Eurocentric representational codes of Caribbean identity while they create their own discourses in "a certain way", that is, from a certain perspective and by means of hybrid appropriation and synchretization of the very models that feed their imagination. As this analysis purports to show, writers Virgilio Piñera (Cuba) and Aída Cartagena Portalatín (Dominican Republic), by their rereading of the canon, establish in their works hybrid dialogs between the European There and the Caribbean Here. In that line, among the canonical cultural signifiers that the authors adopt, they privilege the appropriation of Greek myths. Piñera does this in his theater piece Electra Garrigó, and Cartagena in her novel Escalera para Electra. In Piñera's work, the main devices utilized are humor, irony, and parody of the text by Euripides, obtained by the used of "choteo", a particular brand of Cuban parodic humor in the manner of Bakhtin's carnavalization. This technique is employed along with the use of heteroglossia, which is utilized by Cartagena as well in her novel. In her work, the Dominican author constructs a parallel and intertextual reading of the same play by the Greek dramatist from the positionality of a female subject. Although with different strategies and in different literary genres, Piñera and Cartagena structure their literary discourses with themes that reflect their cultural identities from the synchretism of difference and from the perspective of a Caribbean subject. This dissertation confirms the efficacy of the discursive strategies they utilize on taking the female subject and the family as the axis of their contesting, unofficial readings of the history and cultural identity of the Caribbean.

<p>La disertación no define un campo disciplinario, ni una construcción formal, ni una metodología que intente llegar a una verdad racional. Se desobedece la linealidad epistémica occidental y el enfoque en un tema específico. El manuscrito opta por navegar a través de rutas relacionales en conversación desde, con y entre varios saberes y experiencias personales, tribales y comunitarias. Localizamos el andar decolonial en un territorio expandido donde incorporamos una geo-­‐‑política trazada en la continuidad que ofrece la ancestralidad lingüística y cultural entre maya, seminole y loko, esta última conectada a la lengua madre arahuaca que se extiende desde la región amazónica del este de Los Andes, norte de Argentina y Paraguay desde 9000 A.C.</p><p>Al hilvanar experiencias y saberes otros, se establecen conexiones y rupturas más cercanas a los que entendimos como cosmos-­‐‑existencia y cosmoconvivencia en los imaginarios indígenas, afro y US latinxs. La disertación no podrá abarcar todas las rutas y encrucijadas que propician la decolonialidad del imaginario erótico kairibe, pero transito caminos sacbes desde donde los trazos de la memoria y la experiencia sanan la opresión colonial y nutren el andar del espíritu por los saberes inscritos en los relatos de creación indígenas y afro caribe, la oralidad de las lenguas maya yucateca y loko, la expresión de varixs creadores decoloniales, y las conversaciones e intercambios sociales con algunos de los miembros del proyecto decolonial.</p><p>A partir de la propuesta metodológica de Linda Tuhiwai Smith, en la cual se afirma que las metodologías indígenas son el resultado de la elaboración de un tejido, este manuscrito entrelaza una plataforma crítica, una encrucijada de saberes donde confluyen la variabilidad de los proyectos metodológicos propuesto por Tuhiwai Smith (1999), el pensamiento fronterizo de Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), la corpo-­‐‑política de Frantz Fanon (1987), la poética relacional de Edouard Glissant (1997), las pedagogía sagrada de Jacqui Alexander (2005), el desprendimiento, delinking de Walter D. Mignolo (2007), el poder erótico de Audre Lorde (1986), la transmodernidad de Enrique Dussel (2005) y la geopolítica del pensar propuesta por Catherine Walsh (2007).</p><p>Desde esta encrucijada de saberes, la disertación navega el racismo cognitivo eurocentrado, al mismo tiempo que efectúa el desligue epistémico y creativo hacia locaciones otras donde las experiencias y aprendizajes, conectados a las memorias ancestrales de lxs abuelxs, propician la decolonización del imaginario erótico kairibeafroxeri.</p> / Dissertation

abstract: Ethnogeology is the scientific study of human relationships with the Earth as a system, typically conducted within the context of a specific culture. Indigenous or historically resident people may perceive local places differently from outside observers trained in the Western tradition. Ethnogeologic knowledge includes traditional indigenous knowledge (alternatively referred to as traditional ecological knowledge or TEK), which exceeds the boundaries of non-Indigenous ideas of physical characteristics of the world, tends to be more holistic, and is culturally framed. In this ethnogeological study, I have implemented several methods of participatory rapid assessment (PRA) from the discipline of field ethnography to collect culturally framed geological knowledge, as well to measure the authenticity of the knowledge collected. I constructed a cultural consensus model (CCM) about karst as a domain of knowledge. The study area is located in the karst physiographic region of the Caribbean countries of the Dominican Republic (DR) and Puerto Rico (PR). Ethnogeological data collected and analyzed using CCM satisfied the requirements of a model where I have found statistically significance among participant’s agreement and competence values. Analysis of the competence means in the population of DR and PR results in p < 0.05 validating the methods adapted for this study. I discuss the CCM for the domain of karst (in its majority) that is shared among consultants in the countries of PR and the DR that is in the form of metaphors and other forms of culturally framed descriptions. This work continuing insufficient representation of minority groups such as Indigenous people, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Hispanic/Latinxs in the Earth Sciences. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geological Sciences 2018

abstract: Las Islas Canarias son un archipiélago de la costa africana situado a cien kilómetros de la costa de Marruecos y del Sáhara Occidental. Estas islas fueron conquistadas a finales del siglo XV y son actualmente parte del Estado español, y su posición como punto de paso tricontinental ha facilitado una historia colonial que es paralela a la del Caribe y que está caracterizada por la asimilación de sus poblaciones indígenas, las plantaciones de caña de azúcar y el comercio esclavista atlántico, la emergencia de un Nuevo Mundo, las migraciones constantes desde las Islas Canarias hacia el Caribe, el desarrollo de movimientos independentistas y la turistificación del paraíso caribeño/canario, entre otros aspectos. La identidad de las Islas Canarias, si embargo, ha permanecido en una posición ambigua en la discusión de conceptos de tricontinentalidad o puente entre continentes, cuando estas islas no son simplemente consideradas como una región más de España con ligeras diferencias. Desde el Caribe, varios autores regionales han cuestionado sus propias identidades proponiendo los conceptos de creolización, relación o meta-archipiélago. Las ideas comunes exploradas por intelectuales de ambos archipiélagos incluyen los conceptos de colonialidad, modernidad, mitologización de la isla, fragmentación, atlanticidad, frontera y ultraperiferia, entre otros. De esta manera, esta tesis doctoral conecta las Islas Canarias y el Caribe a través de la exploración de sus discursos identitarios, y aplica a Canarias las teorías poscoloniales desarrolladas en el Caribe. Partiendo del análisis de diversos trabajos de Fernando Ortiz, Antonio S. Pedreira, Édouard Glissant, Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphael Confiant, Antonio Benítez Rojo, José Luis González, Juan Flores, Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Gloria Anzaldúa y Juan Manuel García Ramos, entre otros, esta tesis propone el término canaribeñidad para definir el desarrollo bilateral y común de las identidades nacionales en las Islas Canarias y el Caribe, destacando la contribución canaria a la identidad caribeña (la fundación de la literatura cubana, el guajiro/jíbaro, la brujería…) y viceversa (discursos independentistas y nacionalistas, la experiencia diaspórica, la música, el tabaco, el sentido de fraternidad con el Caribe…). El corpus analizado en esta disertación incluye obras literarias transatlánticas, desde las primeras crónicas hasta ejemplos de teatro, novelas, ensayos, artículos periodísticos y poesía de los siglos XVI-XX. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2019

Hip hop culture is redefining public space. The use of hip hop as public performance has been the most recent occurrence in reclaiming a sense of free cultural expression and immediate communication and interactions with the public. Historically, U.S. hip hop, and the development of its four elements, DJ, breaking, MC, and graffiti, have encouraged street culture and public street performances as a way to reclaim public space, and inform on-lookers to the social inequalities produced with a spatial-temporal awareness (Baker, p. 218). Non-U.S. hip hop has not deviated from this phenomenon, and in many cases has significant, politicized hip hop movements that have flourished. Many Cuban and Brazilian rappers and artists are creating more provocative, street displays of expression that elucidate the contradictions of daily existence in marginalized, neglected communities. For this reason, Cuban and Brazilian hip hop both have the uniqueness of these incorporations and contradictions in hip hop expression, based on the fact that both Cuban and Brazilian governments are promoting hip hop culture This dissertation examines the use of hip hop inspired street performance as both hidden and public transcript. James C. Scott in Domination and the Arts of Resistance defines these two terms as methods that are employed by power entities exercising control over discourse through cultural manifestation. The dissertation will be contextualized in this framework What is of concern for this dissertation is how Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian youth and other hip hop-influenced youth in these countries exert public spatial control under specific historic and contemporary circumstances where social contradictions are growing between whites and non-Whites, artists and governing bodies. I will utilize hip hop street culture and spoken word, performance art as a performative, corporal expression that has received financial support from the Cuban and Brazilian government, while at the same time has remained community-based in both countries. Nongovernmentally-supported hip hop street performance has allowed some artists the liberty to bypass cultural institutions and other avenues of official and national artistic recognition, for instance, seeking other benefactors to support their work. Despite this, artists, participators, and rappers are 'playing' various political alliances and employing both hidden and public transcripts to benefit from the increasing support of the art form, and in the case of Alamar, Cuba and Salvador, Brazil performers, are producing socially 'conscious' artistic manifestations in public places for specific audiences with specific intentions and objectives. In many cases these performers seek not only to produce personal art that usually has an activist intent that also benefits the government sponsored financial support of 'rebel' music culture, but to also allay hidden transcripts to the communities in the audience who pick up on its subtleties I will contextualize these ideas through an analysis of national identity and history, and how culture and identity have historically informed social justice and values in the racially and socially polarized societies of Havana/Alamar and Salvador. Hip hop will then be analyzed as a public resource (Yudice, p. 9). Hip hop culture allows participating communities to share in the global public discourse of social transcendence and power (Pardue, Ideologies, p. 24). Public performance also arms artists with a wider arsenal of material. It also gives a sense to audience members that they are participating in a resource of social integration and increasing political momentum (Baker, p. 240) This dissertation will describe how Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban communities use hip hop to publicly and creatively express their local concerns through a politics of culture in the commercial arena of 'the street'. This cultural politics is then incorporated into other affiliations with the state or socio-political movements and used for specific purposes within these two countries. Many artists negotiate with these institutions, while maintaining a cultural autonomy and a critical quality to their work. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / acase@tulane.edu

<p>While great strides have been made in the study of Trinidad Carnival, there has yet to be a robust inquiry into how women have contributed to its evolution. One major reason for this shortcoming is that the dominant cultural discourse relies on a reductive</p><p>dichotomy that recognizes the costumes created prior to the 1970s as creative and those made after the 1970s as uncreative. This arbitrary division of the costume aesthetic reflects a distinct anti-feminist bias that sees women's spirited emergence in Carnival</p><p>territory in the 1970s as apolitical. </p><p>My dissertation exposes this dilemma, and seeks to undermine this</p><p>interpretation, by its focus on how women's bodies, their presentation, and their acknowledgment of the body's potential for non-verbal articulation impacted the evolution of performance practices and the costume aesthetic in Trinidad Carnival. I</p><p>explore how the predominance of women in Carnival since the 1970s and the bikinibased costume aesthetic that complements this change is suggestive of women's urgent need to manipulate the body as an aesthetic medium and site of subversion. Critical to</p><p>this argument is a close examination of certain female figures who have had a sustainable presence in Trinidad Carnival's history. My project acknowledges the <italic>jamette</italic>, a working class woman who defied Victorian tenets of decorum in preindependence</p><p>Trinidad. This figure has been overlooked in the predominant scholarship of Trinidad Carnival history. Another section of my dissertation explores the influence of the Jaycees Carnival Queen competition. Women of mostly European descent participated in this Carnival-themed beauty pageant that remained popular until the</p><p>1970s. I also examine the legend of <italic>soucouyant</italic> (an old woman who turns into a ball of fire at night and sucks the life blood from unsuspecting victims) and how this figure can be deployed to reinterpret <italic>Jouvay</italic> (the ritual that marks the beginning of Trinidad Carnival).</p> / Dissertation

For eighty-six-year-old Tampa, Florida, native Dolores Lolita Rodriguez, yard decorating was more than just decoration; it was a form of therapy. Her yard was a massive assemblage of found objects arranged into a personalized visual vocabulary that involved honoring the deceased, her Spanish identity, and local spiritual practices. The yard also upheld a unique conception of beauty. Her creations were an articulation of, and remedy for, a life of tremendous loss. They were also the cause of her stroke and confinement to rehabilitation in November 2002. Dolores property was visually cognate with a mode of yard decoration, called the African-American yard show, which defends the home from evil spirits and honors the deceased. Although Dolores was not African-American, but of Spanish-American descent, it was important to explore possible influences from the local African-American community. It also became necessary to interact with Caribbean religious practices present in her west Tampa neighborhood in order to understand her coded yard. After a year and a half of meetings with Dolores in her rehabilitation center room, it was determined that no academic paradigm or any one religious practice could be used to explain her world. Dolores did not abide by any specific set of rules other than her own. Her daily act of decoration was a make-do phenomenon. She improvised with found objects and elements of local spiritual practices creating a bricolage of meaning. She surrounded herself with an autobiographical sketch of her past, something she found to be beautiful. Her twenty-five years of hard work were completely destroyed in May 2004, by her long-lost grandson. The property was erased of everything Dolores en put up for sale. Dolores Lolita Rodriguez died of a heart attack in her rehabilitation center bed in November 2005. All that remains are her words and the photographs of her work as they have been presented in this project. I do hope that my research serves her legacy well.