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Orality, Identity, and Resistance in Palenque (Colombia): An interdisciplinary approach
Edited by Armin Schwegler, Bryan Kirschen and Graciela Maglia
[Contact Language Library 54] 2017
► pp. 121–145

Chapter 3
San Basilio de Palenque (Colombia)

A performance of freedom

This article studies the configuration of representations of identity in San Basilio de Palenque (henceforth Palenque) by examining how the community has interacted with academia, international institutions (UNESCO), and the media. Such representations are typically organized around three main topics: “Palenque as the first free people in Latin America,” “Africa in America,” and “Palenque as a Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity” (UNESCO). The first part of the essay examines how the concept of intangible heritage serves as an observational “ground zero,” a locus from which “the world” is “recognized,” collected, and safeguarded. The study then proceeds to analyze recent processes of self-representation employed by the Palenquero community, and how these have been used to interact with official entities. I claim that such “performances” of self-representation subvert the interactions between the observer and the observed. Finally, the essay will demonstrate how the monument of Benkos Bioho, Palenque’s supposed founder, symbolically synthesizes relations of power and meaning in present-day Palenque.
Keywords: freedom, identity/identification, intangible heritage, mimicry, monument, performance, San Basilio de Palenque, representation
Article outline
  • 0.Introduction
  • 1.Materiality of the intangible
    • 1.1The omnipresent narrator
    • 1.2All that is beautiful is good
    • 1.3The limits of the museum exhibit
  • 2.The specters of representation
    • 2.1Articulations
      • 2.1.1The reconstructed origin
      • 2.1.2The reconstruction of origins (1954, 1970s–1980s)
      • 2.1.3The representation of identity: From 1991 onward
  • 3.A case of mimicry
  • 4.Benkos Bioho breaking the chains
    • 4.1Analysis of the Benkos Bioho monument
  • 5.Final reflection
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.54.03fer
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