321 p., Locates contemporary articulations of afrofeminismo in manifold modes of cultural production including literature, music, visual displays of the body, and digital media. Examines the development of afrofeminismo in relation to colonial sexual violence in sugar-based economies to explain how colonial dynamics inflect ideologies of blanqueamiento/embranquecimento (racial whitening) and pseudo-scientific racial determinism. In this context, the author addresses representations of the mujer negra (black woman) and the mulata (mulatto woman) in Caribbean and Brazilian cultural discourse.
Reviews the books "Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic," by Amalia L. Cabezas and "The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade," by Sheila Jeffreys.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
218 p., Based on ten years of research, Economies of Desire is the first ethnographic study to examine the erotic underpinnings of transnational tourism. It offers startling insights into the commingling of sex, intimacy, and market forces in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, two nations where tourism has had widespread effects. In her multi-layered analyses, Amalia Cabezas reconceptualizes our understandings of informal economies (particularly "affective economies"), "sex workers," and "sexual tourism," and she helps us appreciate how money, sex and love are intertwined within the structure of globalizing capitalism.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
358 p, Chancy aims to show that Haiti’s exclusion is grounded in its historical role as a site of ontological defiance. Her premise is that writers Edwidge Danticat, Julia Alvarez, Zoé Valdés, Loida Maritza Pérez, Marilyn Bobes, Achy Obejas, Nancy Morejón, and visual artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons attempt to defy fears of “otherness” by assuming the role of “archaeologists of amnesia.” They seek to elucidate women’s variegated lives within the confining walls of their national identifications—identifications wholly defined as male. They reach beyond the confining limits of national borders to discuss gender, race, sexuality, and class in ways that render possible the linking of all three nations.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
221 p, In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Hispanic Caribbean was fundamentally a plantation economy dominated mainly by the world sugar market. The politics were shaped by revolutions, political coups, wars, and elections, resulting in an end of Spanish power, independent states, and the domination of the region by the United States. These developments led to changes in social values. The author follows these developments throughout the main Hispanic islands and provides a fascinating picture of a region in turmoil.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
505 p., During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, Fidel Castro, and his brother Raúl; from Argentina, Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
449 p, During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, Fidel Castro, and his brother Raúl; from Argentina, Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
