In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Relocating Identities in Latin American Cultures
  • Néstor Rodríguez (bio)
Elizabeth Montes Garcés, editor. Relocating Identities in Latin American Cultures. University of Calgary Press. viii, 264. $39.95

The central aim of Relocating Identities in Latin American Cultures is, as the editor Elizabeth Montes-Garces puts it, to analyze ‘the ever-changing process of the de/construction of identities in Latin-American literatures and cultures.’ The collection springs from a conference held at the University of Calgary in January of 2004, and combines articles approaching ‘identity’ from the perspectives of ‘location, time, and place.’ Collectively, the topics examined in the eleven essays included in this volume span a century, from the early twentieth century (in Norman Cheadle’s opening piece on Raul Scalabrini and Leopoldo Marechal’s literary treatment of Buenos Aires) to the contemporary moment (in the articles by Rita de Grandis, Nayibe Bermudez Barrios, Claudine Potvin, Catherine Den Tandt).

It may perhaps not come as a surprise that the majority of the articles employ (by now well-known) ideas and concepts of Homi Bhabha as well as of Latin American icons such as Angel Rama and Nestor Garcia Canclini in order to analyze the cultural production of only a few Latin American locations (Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, and Brazil). There is one further article – ‘Exile and Community’ – that breaks the geographical mould, dealing with the literature of Latin American exiles in Canada.

The most immediately striking feature of the collection is the uneven quality of its articles. For instance, while brevity might be considered a virtue, it lacks that positive quality in Claudine Potvin’s piece on identity and ‘the representation of gaming culture.’ The same could be said of Mercedes Rowinsky-Guert’s article on Uruguayan Cristina Peri Rossi. Other articles employ somewhat idiosyncratic styles of criticism: in ‘Exile and Community,’ for instance, after a thorough discussion on the ‘ethics of struggle’ of the exiled artist, Luis Torres proves some of his philosophical remarks with a close reading of his own poetic work. There is even a review passing as an article (Rita de Grandis’s ‘The Latin American Intellectual Redefining Identity: Nestor Garcia Canclini’s Latinoamericanos buscando lugar en este mundo’). Some of the remaining articles catch the attention of the specialized reader in a negative way [End Page 411] with the simplicity of their queries and assertions. ‘Exile and the Search for Identity’ is a clear example: ‘When exile occurs, the individual is removed from everything that is familiar.’

Nevertheless, the volume also includes a few important and well-argued contributions, in particular those by Paola Hernandez, Nayibe Bermudez Barrios, and Catherine Den Tandt. Through an analysis of several plays by the Teatro da Vertigem, a collective active in Sao Paulo since the 1990s, Paola Hernandez examines ‘the negative consequences of globalization in Brazil – high incidences of poverty, government corruption, and socio-political instability.’ It is Hernandez’s contention that the work of Teatro da Vertigem ‘shows the audience the many facets of Brazilian identity and society, while attempting to postulate a message of resistance against the homogenizing forces brought on by mass media and global culture.’

Nayibe Bermudez Barrios approaches the complex modes of adaptation in her exegesis of Alejandro Pelayo’s 1992 film Miroslava. Despite a rather weak closure, Bermudez Barrios’s article effectively demonstrates the difficulties and challenges faced by the female protagonist, Miroslava Stern, in trying to establish herself as a lesbian Czech émigré and film star in the highly nationalistic milieu of Mexico in the 1950s.

Going against mainstream readings of Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) by Puerto Rican Mayra Santos Febres, Catherine Den Tandt identifies what seems to be a generational trend among young fiction writers of Latin America – the self-conscious inability of the text to articulate a positive form of identity. She reads the novel as a ‘cultural text that acknowledges its own weakness or failure as an instrument of identity.’

Overall, despite its weaknesses, the collection unites some interesting and thought-provoking articles.

Néstor Rodríguez

Néstor E. Rodríguez, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Toronto

...

pdf

Share