Afrocubanismo

Louis Aguirre (1968) deviene en el contexto musical contemporáneo como el más sugestivo y prolífico de los compositores cubanos de la diáspora de finales del siglo XX y principio XXI. Su obra ofrece uno de los catálogos más fértiles y transgresores que se puedan contar en el ámbito estético afrocubano de la música académica occidental. Indefectiblemente multicultural y sobrecargado, el universo sonoro de Aguirre explora la esencia telúrica y brutal de las ceremonias rituales de la Santería y el Palo Monte, para ofrecernos experiencias acústicas de intensidad física y emocional sobrecogedoras. Es su estética afrocubana avant-garde, heredera del movimiento afrocubanista de los años 1920-1930, uno de los procesos creativos de la diáspora musical de la Isla más incitantes y promisorios a abordar en el actual acontecer sonoro internacional.

OVERVIEW
The decades between the First and Second World Wars witnessed intensified challenges to both European and US imperialism in the Caribbean. Issuing demands for self-determination and full citizenship rights, activists utilized new mass organizations—such as trade unions, political parties, and nationalist associations—as well as older collectives such as mutual aid societies, religious groups, and cultural clubs to contest the legitimacy of foreign rule. The duration, scale, and militancy of anti-colonial mobilizations varied widely across the region, as activists employed tactics ranging from formal negotiation with the state to armed guerrilla warfare. Yet, as an interdisciplinary literature has demonstrated, the surge in grassroots protest during the interwar years occurred throughout the colonial Caribbean as well as in the formally independent nation-states of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Thus, the political ferment of the interwar era not only laid the groundwork for post-World War II independence movements, but also created an opening to contest hegemonic constructions of race, gender, and nation.

This special issue will examine how gender shaped anti-colonial thought and praxis in the interwar Caribbean (1919-39). Studying the global origins of anticolonialism, feminist scholars have deconstructed the “citizen/subject” binary, highlighting the relationship among political exclusion, racial hierarchies, and gender inequality. They have also illuminated how oppositional movements throughout the colonized world reconfigured and reproduced ideas about sexual difference, articulating citizenship claims through gendered ideologies that often affirmed—rather than dislodged—patriarchy.

Intervening in this burgeoning literature, Caribbeanist scholars have investigated how local understandings of “womanhood” and “manhood” shaped resistance to colonialism in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. In addition, they have documented women’s myriad roles in struggles against colonial rule, excavating the forgotten connections between anti-colonial and feminist movements. Disrupting the longstanding focus on the “fathers” of Caribbean nationalism, groundbreaking biographical accounts of female activists have revealed women’s crucial contributions as intellectuals, organizers, and foot soldiers during the interwar years. Building on these foundational works, an important body of scholarship has also begun to interrogate “the sexual inheritances of nationalism” and the “heterosexual imperative of citizenship” in the postcolonial era (Alexander 1994: 11, 6).

For this special issue, we invite submissions that deepen the literature on gender and anticolonialism in the interwar Caribbean (including the global Caribbean diaspora). We hope to include essays based on specific case studies as well as theoretical works that grapple with the gendered implications of anticolonialism in a region forged through centuries of colonial incursions. Possible topics for exploration include (but are not limited to):
— Constructions of masculinity and femininity in interwar anti-colonial movements
Organized labor in the Caribbean and the fight against colonialism
— Caribbean feminist thought in the interwar era
— Nationalism, gender, and the circum-Caribbean press
— The campaign against the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic
— Challenges to Canadian annexation campaigns in the British Caribbean 
— Anti-colonial currents in literary and cultural movements (e.g. Négritude, surrealism, indigenism, and Afrocubanismo)
— The ideology and praxis of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
— The role of Caribbean activists in the Communist International and other leftist organizations
— Movements for Puerto Rican independence
— Transnational ties between Caribbean anti-colonial activism and post-World War I nationalism in Asia and Africa
— The role of religion and spirituality in anti-colonial movements