When the Devil knocks
Subtitle: the Congo tradition and the politics of blackness in twentieth-century Panama
By: Renée Alexander Craft
Series: Black performance and cultural criticism
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Columbus
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780814212707; 9780814293751
Subjects: Congos (Panamanian people); Rites and ceremonies; Ethnic identity; Blacks; Carnival; Social life and customs
Description: "Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called "Congo" as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama-the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans' triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging.  When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines "Congo" within the history of twentieth century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 212-226) and index.