Overview
Although Brazil is home to the largest African diaspora, the religions of its African descendants have often been syncretized and submerged, first under the force of colonialism and enslavement and later under the spurious banner of a harmonious national Brazilian character. Relocating the Sacred argues that these religions nevertheless have been preserved and manifested in a strategic corpus of shifting masks and masquerades of Afro-Brazilian identity. Following the re-Africanization process and black consciousness movement of the 1970s to 1990s, Afro-Brazilians have questioned racial democracy, seeing how its claim to harmony actually dispossesses them of political power. By embracing African deities as a source of creative inspiration and resistance, Afro-Brazilians have appropriated syncretism as a means of not only popularizing African culture but also decolonizing themselves from the past shame of slavery. This book maps the role of African heritage in—and relocation of the sacred to—three sites of Brazilian cultural production: ritual altars, literature, and carnival culture.
Full Product Details
Author: Niyi Afolabi
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Imprint: State University of New York Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.227kg
ISBN: 9781438490717
ISBN 10: 1438490712
Pages: 366
Publication Date: 01 November 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Not yet available
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Reviews
"""Afolabi provides a subtle and exciting reading of the cosmology of African traditions in Brazilian cultural productions, showing the complicated ways race and racism operate on an aesthetic level."" — Tshombe Miles, author of Race and Afro-Brazilian Agency in Brazil ""Relocating the Sacred makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Yoruba diaspora and the transnational vivacity of African traditions. Afolabi brings to English-speaking audiences Afro-lusophone texts and contexts with remarkable translational capacity."" — Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues, Federal University of Roraima, Brazil"
Afolabi provides a subtle and exciting reading of the cosmology of African traditions in Brazilian cultural productions, showing the complicated ways race and racism operate on an aesthetic level. - Tshombe Miles, author of Race and Afro-Brazilian Agency in Brazil Relocating the Sacred makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Yoruba diaspora and the transnational vivacity of African traditions. Afolabi brings to English-speaking audiences Afro-lusophone texts and contexts with remarkable translational capacity. - Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues, Federal University of Roraima, Brazil
Author Information
Niyi Afolabi is Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Identities in Flux: Race, Migration, and Citizenship in Brazil, also published by SUNY Press; Afro-Brazilians: Cultural Production in a Racial Democracy; and Ilê Aiyê in Brazil and the Reinvention of Africa.
