In this Book
- When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: The Ohio State University Press
- Series: Black Performance and Cultural Criticism
summary
Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called “Congo” as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama—the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans’ triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging. When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines “Congo” within the history of twentieth-century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- List of Photos and Illustrations
- pp. viii-x
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xiv
- References
- pp. 212-226
Additional Information
ISBN
9780814273722
Related ISBN(s)
9780814212707
MARC Record
OCLC
902909715
Pages
288
Launched on MUSE
2015-02-06
Language
English
Open Access
Yes