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The yearlong Sawyer Seminar seeks to understand contemporary contestation over citizenship and belonging by Afrodescendants in Latin America, situating these struggles within long-term, historical patterns of nation building, racial stratification, and political mobilization. It will explore the struggles and experiences of citizenship of this vastly heterogeneous group, which have been starkly uneven across time and across (and within) countries.
The Seminar will also ask what these differences can teach us, including how these Afro-Latin American perspectives can help inform our understanding of race and racism. To do so, the proposed seminar will examine four interrelated questions that will guide our comparative analysis of what we believe are three pathways to Afrodescendant citizenship that have guided, and continue to guide, experiences in Latin America.
Invited Speakers:
Glaucea Helena de Britto, Museo de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)
Glaucea Helena de Britto is a visual artist, researcher, curator, and activist for educational and cultural rights from Brazil. She has an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in arts from the University of São Paulo (USP). Glaucea is a founding member of Terreirão Cultural, was the proponent coordinator of the project A Journey Through the African Diaspora by the American Alliance of Museums, and has worked as coordinator of educational spaces at the Akoma Institute, connecting Afro-Brazilians and people of African descent around the world (Washington D.C., São Paulo, London, Accra) through art and carrying out training activities on human rights in relation to the issues faced by their community, historically contextualizing their trajectory, their contributions and their current challenges. She is a fellow at the United Nations OHCHR and also an assistant curator at Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), an institution where she is responsible for coordinating MASP Escola, a free course program, and where she also curates exhibitions. She has published more than 20 books, including exhibition catalogs, textbooks for students and teachers in public schools, as well as materials to support diverse and plural educational practices.
María Elba Torres Muñoz, Instituto Interdisciplinario y Multicultural (INIM), Junta de Directores del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico.
(Nace en Puerto Rico- De cuna multiracial y multicultural- por ello se autodenomina como: afroborimex)
Realizó sus estudios universitarios en la Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras. Realiza su maestría en la Facultad de Filosofia y Letras de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y el doctorado en el Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños y del Caribe de San Juan, Puerto Rico. En el 2018 por invitación del Seminario Permanente Afroindoamérica de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) imparte la Conferencia Magistral: Las Artes y los Movimientos Afro Puertorriqueñxs en la Facultad de Filosofia y Letras. Del 2015 al 2018 fungió como Coordinadora General del Primer y Segundo Congreso Internacional de Afrodescendencia en Puerto Rico en la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras. Actualmente dirige el Instituto Interdisciplinario y Multicultural ( INMIM), Facultad de Estudios Generales, UPR-RP y es un programa de intercambios académicos entre universidades del exterior y la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Actualmente es la Investigadora Principal en el programa Tiznando el País: Visualidades y Representaciones de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras. Este programa lo lleva con la Alianza de Museos y otros espacios culturales de Puerto Rico bajo una subvención de la Andrew M. Foundation. Es docente del Departamento de Humanidades de la Facultad de Estudios Generales de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras.Investiga y escribe sobre las aportaciones de les afrodescendientes en las artes visuales puertorriqueñes, un panorama histórico decolonial. Algunas publicaciones: Actualidad de las Tradiciones Espirituales y Culturales Africanas en el Caribe y Latinoamérica, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2009; The future is now, A new look at african diaspora studies, Edited by Vanessa K. Valdes, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012; Afro-Hispanic Review, Volume 37, Number 1 (Spring 2018), Negro, Negra: Afirmación y Resistencia, Puerto Rico (2019). Publica en la Revista Archipiélago de laUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Ha ofrecido múltiples conferencias en distintas universidades de Puerto Rico, Estados Unidos, Cuba, México, Chile, Brasil y otros. Pertenece a las siguientes Juntas de Directores del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo y al Comité Ejecutivo de la Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidadesde en San Juan, Puerto Rico. (NEHPR)
Eduardo Possidonio, Instituto Pretos Novos, IPN-RJ
Ph.D. in Social History from Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, UFRRJ, with a sandwich period at Boston University, BU (2020). Professor at the Post-Graduate course of History of Africa at Instituto Pretos Novos in Rio de Janeiro, IPN-RJ. Professor at the public schools of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, SME-RJ and at the state of Rio de Janeiro, SEEDUC-RJ. Researcher at the Museu da República (Republic Museum) with Nosso Sagrado Collection. He took part in the curatorial process in the following exhibits: Laroiê: Caminhos abertos para o Nosso Sagrado (Museu da República/2021) and Nosso Sagrado: a construção de uma herança fraterna (Google Arts & Culture/2021). He focuses his research on the following subjects: Central African religiosity, African Catholicism, slavery and mobilities. Author of “Entre ngangas e manipansos: a religiosidade centro-africana nas freguesias urbanas do Rio de Janeiro de fins do Oitocentos (1870-1900)”, Sagga Editora, 2018.
Moderator: Angélica María Sánchez Barona, PhD candidate in African and African American Studies, Harvard University; ALARI Graduate Student Affiliated.
Presented in collaboration with The Afro-Latin American Research Institute.