This essay takes on the task of reflecting on the keyword negro from a transnational standpoint that considers how negro/a/x, a sociopolitical identity, falls in and out of AfroLatinidad in Latin American and hispanic Caribbean diasporas. In particular, the author is concerned with re-centering Blacknesss in AfroLatinidad in response to the depoliticized usage of this identity. Through a focus on diaspora, movement, and the embodied fact of Blackness, the author argues that when thinking about negro (Black) and negritud (Blackness) from a transnational Spanish Caribbean context, we should remember that AfroLatinidad, or Black Latinidad, is first and foremost about Black lives, embodied experiences, movement, translatability, and untranslatability.
Transnational Renderings of Negro/a/x/*: Re-centering Blackness in AfroLatinidad
Omaris Z. Zamora is assistant professor of AfroLatinx studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She is jointly appointed in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Africana Studies. Zamora is a transnational Black Dominican studies scholar and spoken-word poet. Her research interests include theorizing AfroLatinidad in the context of race, gender, and sexuality through Afro-diasporic approaches. Her book project is tentatively titled “Cigüapa Unbound: AfroLatina Feminist Epistemologies of Tranceformation.”
Omaris Z. Zamora; Transnational Renderings of Negro/a/x/*: Re-centering Blackness in AfroLatinidad. Small Axe 1 July 2022; 26 (2 (68)): 93–99. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9901654
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