“Creolization, Possession, and Performances in Caribbean Cultural Discourses” entails an intercultural, interdisciplinary investigation of the motifs of spiritual and bodily possession in historic and contemporary discourses of Caribbean cultures. Through a multifaceted analysis of literary, visual, oral, and performative texts, I emphasize the manner in which the historically-rooted tensions of possession invite a more complex understanding of the dynamics of creolization—or the amalgamation of racial, ethnic, and religious identities—in the Caribbean. The conflicts engendered by spiritual and bodily possession connote the crossroads, or the metaphorical site of racial, cultural, linguistic, and religious interchange analogous to the post-Columbian Caribbean region. In my analyses I problematize the discourses of creolization by highlighting the tensions and resistance that are deeply embedded in the crossroads, and which are most prominently revealed through the motifs of spiritual and bodily possession. ^ The introductory chapter provides an overview of post-Columbian Caribbean histories and Caribbean cultural discourses. Chapter 1 examines the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, Patroness Saint of Cuba, and the orisha Ochún, the Afro-Cuban deity syncretized with the Virgin of Charity in Cuban history and folklore. Chapter 2 continues the investigation of racialized, gendered archetypes of femininity in Cuban culture with an emphasis on visual religious culture and the aesthetics of feminine sweetness in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Chapter 3 analyzes spiritual possession as a pathway to health and transcendence, with an emphasis on several novels by Cuban-born writer Mayra Montero, whose early literature invokes the Haitian religious experience. In Chapter 4 I ponder the prevalence of haunting feminine figures in Caribbean literatures and folklores while drawing attention to Franco-Caribbean cultural discourses. Chapter 5 examines maternality in contemporary literatures by Afro-Caribbean women, and the discourses of the heroic male Caribbean maroon that frequently disavow the heroism of Afro-Caribbean mothers. In Chapter 6 I consider globalization, diasporas, and Caribbean nationalisms while focusing on Trinidad Carnival as a performative spectacle that paradigmatically dramatizes the racial, cultural, and gendered tensions of Caribbean creolization. The concluding chapter offers some insights on the directions in which Caribbean cultural studies and cultural praxis may develop in the future. ^
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-6424 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Creators | McKenzie, Ada Chinara |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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