Abstract: Diásporas Imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e Histórias Afro-brasileiras, by Kim D. Butler and Petrônio Domingues, explores the Afro-Brazilian diaspora and experience, aiming to reconstruct and examine aspects of this relationship. Published in 2020, it criticizes essentialist and nationalist approaches, using the diaspora as a theoretical tool to analyze the lives of Afro-Brazilian populations in Afrodiasporic dialogue. It highlights the active participation of Afro-Brazilians in the transnational black circuit.
Keywords: Afro-Brazilian Stories, Black Atlantic, African Diaspora.
Diásporas Imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e Histórias Afro-brasileiras is an authorial collection about Afro-Brazilian diaspora and history, written by Kim D. Butler and Petrônio Domingues, who declare their main objectives: “to explore the notion of diaspora […] and use the diasporic approach to reconstitute and examine aspects of Afro-Brazilian history” (p. XVIII). The book was published in 2020, by the publisher Perspectiva.
Kim D. Butler is a professor of History and works in the Department of Afro Studies at Rutgers State University – The State University of New Jersey, in the United States. She has publications on diaspora and Afro-Brazilian history. Petrônio Domingues is a professor in the Department of History at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) and in postgraduate programs, both in History and Sociology, at the same institution. The joint work emerges from an intellectual partnership that began between 2012 and 2013, when Domingues completed a post-doctoral internship at the Department of Africana Studies, at Rutgers University, in New Jersey (USA). The collaboration between the historians resulted in a two-part book, with 9 chapters, in addition to the presentation and a concluding section, distributed over 360 pages.
In the first chapter, Butler proposes to explore some basic definitions, based on critical dialogues with scholars on the subject, envisioning an epistemology and theory of diaspora studies, facilitated by a comparative perspective. Methodologically, she highlights four general processes common to all diasporas: 1. the main dispersion: causes, conditions and narratives; 2. relationship with the land of origin; 3. relationship with the destination land; 4. interrelationships within diaspora communities. The chapter ends with the specification of the African diaspora as the most diverse and oldest of all.
In the second chapter, Butler analyzes how the concept of diaspora migrated from the Jewish experience to the African context, and then resumes the discussion about its universal usefulness. Although the concept was applied to the African experience by black intellectuals, from the mid-twentieth century onwards, when drawing parallels with the Jewish diaspora, for the author, the construction of a mobilizing narrative was more relevant than the details of the dispersion of the Jews. . Initially guided by Pan-Africanist politics (which will be revisited in the next chapter), the diaspora, as a conceptual tool for understanding the global African community, will gain autonomy and can be mobilized by the most diverse ideologies.
In the third chapter, Butler analyzes how the diversity of black communities, considering the tensions between similarities and differences, can impact the real political developments of the diaspora. The author calls into question the unifying identity power of “blackness” and the solidarity policy of Pan-Africanism as a result of the multiplicity of identities and experiences in the African diaspora. In light of this, she argues “that an effective politics of diaspora depends on the same juxtaposition of solidarity and particularity that is necessary for an effective theory of diaspora” (p. 66).
In the fourth and final chapter of the first part, Butler explores diasporic dialogues between Afro-Brazilians, Africa and other Afrodiasporic communities based on stories of black Carnival clubs in Bahia, from the end of the 19th century and the second half of the 20th century, when The so-called Afro Blocks enter the scene. According to the author, these cultural manifestations were relevant to the construction of a version of internationalism of the African diaspora in Bahia, due to the connections between local demands for citizenship and the global black community, such as the creative appropriations of Africa, the context of independence of African countries and the Black Power movement, inspired by Soul music and Jamaican Reggae and Rastafarian culture.
In the fifth chapter, Petrônio Domingues explores this reception in representative and imagery terms based on what was published about this Jamaican activist, known among his followers as “Moisés Negro”, in Brazilian press newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s. analysis, as proposed, evokes the concept of black diaspora, given the circulation of black ideas and political projects in the transnational arena. For Domingues, Garvey was received in a contradictory way: positively in black press newspapers, which celebrated him as an important reference of Pan-Africanism, although there was no absolute alignment with his proposals; In the newspapers with large circulation in the Rio-São Paulo axis, it was reported in a sensationalist and negative way, when it was not ignored.
The sixth chapter is also dedicated to investigating the Afro-Brazilian reception of writings by the American black multi-artist Josephine Baker, published in the Brazilian black press in the 1920s. For the author, Baker’s representation was given in a very complimentary way. However, he argues, the so-called “Black Venus” has been portrayed selectively. The articles hid her “controversial” and “controversial” facet and emphasized “the facet of a talented, famous and rich woman – which constituted a source of pride and positive reference for the “race” (p. 161). Domingues understands that the The renowned artist was among the so-called “modern blacks”, who opened a dialogue with European modernism without rejecting Afro-diasporic references.
In the seventh chapter, Domingues examines the way in which the Brazilian Black Front was read by the Chicago Defender, an important black press newspaper in the United States, in the 1930s. For the author, the American newspaper produced an apologetic speech about the Brazilian black organization, reaching including distorting and inflating facts and data. However, he argues that such appropriation allows us to see connections established between Afro-diasporic communities in the two countries in question. It also allows us to review Brazil’s role in the Afro-Atlantic circuit, not only as a mere receiver, but as a propagator of ideas and culture.
In the eighth chapter, the historian deals with the agency of the Associação Cultural do Negro, which emerged in the 1950s in São Paulo, highlighting its national dialogue and in the Afro-Atlantic circuit. According to the author, “A highlight of ACN’s actions were its efforts to establish connections with international leaders, movements, associations and events in the concert of the black diaspora” (p. 229). His argument is supported by facts that show solidarity support and alliances with black communities in North America, Europe and Africa.
In the ninth and final chapter, Domingues makes some considerations about the Movement for Reparations for People of African Descent in Brazil, which emerged in the city of São Paulo in the 1990s. He not only highlights the importance of this movement in the construction of one of the most evoked agendas by the community organized black society – the affirmative action policy –, as demonstrated by its transnational connections in the black diaspora circuit.
In the chapters dedicated to “reconstituting and examining aspects of Afro-Brazilian history” (from 4 to 9), with the exception of the fourth chapter, the approaches focus on the Rio-São Paulo axis. Although the authors do not promise an empirical analysis that covers Afro-Brazilian experiences in the most diverse regions of Brazil, I believe that announcing the predominance of analyzes in the southeast region could resolve broader expectations on the part of readers. However, this observation may suggest a range of future research that aims and reviews the history of black people in Brazil in other geographic spaces from the perspective of the diaspora. For example, the connection between Maranhão and Jamaica through Reggae music would be a great opportunity to investigate Afro-diasporic diversity in the Brazilian Northeast. The appropriation of songs by black northeastern icons, such as Jackson do Pandeiro and Luiz Gonzaga, in the Caribbean and Africa, is another example of the presence of black northeasterners in the Afro-Atlantic circuit. The dispersion of people and black culture from the Northeast to the Southeast could also spread transregionalism in a country with a continental dimension like Brazil. One possibility would be to analyze the influence of Bahians and Bahian (aunts) in the formation of modern samba in Rio, which gained the status of national music in the 1930s. Potential developments aside, the work stands out for what it proposes and presents.
The book puts us in the exercise of knowing and rethinking the black experience in Brazil from a diasporic approach, as a theoretical and methodological contribution, with an alternative analysis to the limits of the Nation-State. The concept of diaspora presented also offers an alternative to Afrocentric tendencies and the limits of the politics of solidarity of Pan-Africanism – centered on the ancestral land – by considering the multiple political perspectives established among communities of the African diaspora. In other words, there is no pre-existing unity or essence of solidarity and identity in the diaspora. There are similarities, differences and contextual political decisions.
This notion of diaspora also encompasses a space circulation of narratives, political-cultural ideas and anti-racist emancipatory projects of the black community broader than the notion of the Black Atlantic, disseminated by the Afro-British sociologist Paulo Gilroy, in which the multilateral circuit occurs between America, Africa and Europe. Butler and Domingues even expand the space of the Black Atlantic analyzed by Gilroy by highlighting the southern hemisphere in this circuit, since in the sociologist’s work what predominates is the English-speaking northern hemisphere.
This gap in The Black Atlantic (1993), recognized by Gilroy in the preface to the Brazilian edition (2012), is duly explored in Imagined Diasporas. The conception of time is expanded when considering the multiple dispersions of a diaspora. Finally, the work stands out for defending the thesis that Afro-Brazilians do not play a role as passive recipients in the transnational circuit of black people. Not only are external diasporic influences adapted to the local context, but black people in Brazil participate in the exchanges of black transnationalism.
The work fulfills the objective announced in the first pages of the book, presenting the reader with a history of the concept of diaspora and its current definition, using this approach as a viable theoretical-methodological tool to analyze the Afro-Brazilian historical experience in its constant Afrodiasporic dialogue. . As a result, we have a research instrument that problematizes essentialist, strictly nationalist, Afrocentric or Eurocentric notions, in what corresponds to studies of race relations. The work, therefore, is recommended for scholars of the African/black diaspora and Afro-Brazilian history in the post-abolition period, for activists engaged in the anti-racist struggle and for people interested in discussing black identity, culture and politics.
Summary of Diásporas Imaginadas
Apresentação
1. Definições de Diáspora: Articulação de um Discurso Comparativo | Kim D. Butler
2. Por que “Diáspora”? A Migração do Termo da Experiência Judaica Para a Africana e a Sua Utilidade Universal Kim D. Butler
3. A Diversidade da Diáspora: Contribuições Para o Desenvolvimento da Teoria Política da Diáspora Africana | Kim D. Butler
4. Diálogos Diaspóricos: A Fantasia da África e o Internacionalismo Diaspórico no Carnaval da Bahia | Kim D. Butler
5. O “Moisés dos Pretos”: Marcus Garvey no Brasil | Petrônio Domingues
6. A “Vênus Negra”: Josephine Baker e a Modernidade Afro-Atlântica | Petrônio Domingues
7. Como se Fosse Bumerangue: Frente Negra Brasileira no Circuito Transatlântico | Petrônio Domingues
8. “Em Defesa da Humanidade”: A Associação Cultural do Negro na Arena do “Black Internacionalism” | Petrônio Domingues
9. Agenciar Raça, Reinventar a Nação: O Movimento das Reparações no Brasil | Petrônio Domingues
BUTLER, Kim D.; DOMINGUES, Petrônio. Diásporas imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e histórias afro-brasileiras. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2020. 360 p. Review by: ANDRADE, Charlisson, Silva de. Black Transnationalism. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/transnacionalismo-negro-resenha-de-charlisson-silva-de-andrade-ppgs-ufs-sobre-o-livro-diaspora-imaginadas-de-kim-butler-e-petronio-domingues-2/>.
Abstract: Diásporas Imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e Histórias Afro-brasileiras, by Kim D. Butler and Petrônio Domingues, explores the Afro-Brazilian diaspora and experience, aiming to reconstruct and examine aspects of this relationship. Published in 2020, it criticizes essentialist and nationalist approaches, using the diaspora as a theoretical tool to analyze the lives of Afro-Brazilian populations in Afrodiasporic dialogue. It highlights the active participation of Afro-Brazilians in the transnational black circuit.
Keywords: Afro-Brazilian Stories, Black Atlantic, African Diaspora.
Diásporas Imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e Histórias Afro-brasileiras is an authorial collection about Afro-Brazilian diaspora and history, written by Kim D. Butler and Petrônio Domingues, who declare their main objectives: “to explore the notion of diaspora […] and use the diasporic approach to reconstitute and examine aspects of Afro-Brazilian history” (p. XVIII). The book was published in 2020, by the publisher Perspectiva.
Kim D. Butler is a professor of History and works in the Department of Afro Studies at Rutgers State University – The State University of New Jersey, in the United States. She has publications on diaspora and Afro-Brazilian history. Petrônio Domingues is a professor in the Department of History at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) and in postgraduate programs, both in History and Sociology, at the same institution. The joint work emerges from an intellectual partnership that began between 2012 and 2013, when Domingues completed a post-doctoral internship at the Department of Africana Studies, at Rutgers University, in New Jersey (USA). The collaboration between the historians resulted in a two-part book, with 9 chapters, in addition to the presentation and a concluding section, distributed over 360 pages.
In the first chapter, Butler proposes to explore some basic definitions, based on critical dialogues with scholars on the subject, envisioning an epistemology and theory of diaspora studies, facilitated by a comparative perspective. Methodologically, she highlights four general processes common to all diasporas: 1. the main dispersion: causes, conditions and narratives; 2. relationship with the land of origin; 3. relationship with the destination land; 4. interrelationships within diaspora communities. The chapter ends with the specification of the African diaspora as the most diverse and oldest of all.
In the second chapter, Butler analyzes how the concept of diaspora migrated from the Jewish experience to the African context, and then resumes the discussion about its universal usefulness. Although the concept was applied to the African experience by black intellectuals, from the mid-twentieth century onwards, when drawing parallels with the Jewish diaspora, for the author, the construction of a mobilizing narrative was more relevant than the details of the dispersion of the Jews. . Initially guided by Pan-Africanist politics (which will be revisited in the next chapter), the diaspora, as a conceptual tool for understanding the global African community, will gain autonomy and can be mobilized by the most diverse ideologies.
In the third chapter, Butler analyzes how the diversity of black communities, considering the tensions between similarities and differences, can impact the real political developments of the diaspora. The author calls into question the unifying identity power of “blackness” and the solidarity policy of Pan-Africanism as a result of the multiplicity of identities and experiences in the African diaspora. In light of this, she argues “that an effective politics of diaspora depends on the same juxtaposition of solidarity and particularity that is necessary for an effective theory of diaspora” (p. 66).
In the fourth and final chapter of the first part, Butler explores diasporic dialogues between Afro-Brazilians, Africa and other Afrodiasporic communities based on stories of black Carnival clubs in Bahia, from the end of the 19th century and the second half of the 20th century, when The so-called Afro Blocks enter the scene. According to the author, these cultural manifestations were relevant to the construction of a version of internationalism of the African diaspora in Bahia, due to the connections between local demands for citizenship and the global black community, such as the creative appropriations of Africa, the context of independence of African countries and the Black Power movement, inspired by Soul music and Jamaican Reggae and Rastafarian culture.
In the fifth chapter, Petrônio Domingues explores this reception in representative and imagery terms based on what was published about this Jamaican activist, known among his followers as “Moisés Negro”, in Brazilian press newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s. analysis, as proposed, evokes the concept of black diaspora, given the circulation of black ideas and political projects in the transnational arena. For Domingues, Garvey was received in a contradictory way: positively in black press newspapers, which celebrated him as an important reference of Pan-Africanism, although there was no absolute alignment with his proposals; In the newspapers with large circulation in the Rio-São Paulo axis, it was reported in a sensationalist and negative way, when it was not ignored.
The sixth chapter is also dedicated to investigating the Afro-Brazilian reception of writings by the American black multi-artist Josephine Baker, published in the Brazilian black press in the 1920s. For the author, Baker’s representation was given in a very complimentary way. However, he argues, the so-called “Black Venus” has been portrayed selectively. The articles hid her “controversial” and “controversial” facet and emphasized “the facet of a talented, famous and rich woman – which constituted a source of pride and positive reference for the “race” (p. 161). Domingues understands that the The renowned artist was among the so-called “modern blacks”, who opened a dialogue with European modernism without rejecting Afro-diasporic references.
In the seventh chapter, Domingues examines the way in which the Brazilian Black Front was read by the Chicago Defender, an important black press newspaper in the United States, in the 1930s. For the author, the American newspaper produced an apologetic speech about the Brazilian black organization, reaching including distorting and inflating facts and data. However, he argues that such appropriation allows us to see connections established between Afro-diasporic communities in the two countries in question. It also allows us to review Brazil’s role in the Afro-Atlantic circuit, not only as a mere receiver, but as a propagator of ideas and culture.
In the eighth chapter, the historian deals with the agency of the Associação Cultural do Negro, which emerged in the 1950s in São Paulo, highlighting its national dialogue and in the Afro-Atlantic circuit. According to the author, “A highlight of ACN’s actions were its efforts to establish connections with international leaders, movements, associations and events in the concert of the black diaspora” (p. 229). His argument is supported by facts that show solidarity support and alliances with black communities in North America, Europe and Africa.
In the ninth and final chapter, Domingues makes some considerations about the Movement for Reparations for People of African Descent in Brazil, which emerged in the city of São Paulo in the 1990s. He not only highlights the importance of this movement in the construction of one of the most evoked agendas by the community organized black society – the affirmative action policy –, as demonstrated by its transnational connections in the black diaspora circuit.
In the chapters dedicated to “reconstituting and examining aspects of Afro-Brazilian history” (from 4 to 9), with the exception of the fourth chapter, the approaches focus on the Rio-São Paulo axis. Although the authors do not promise an empirical analysis that covers Afro-Brazilian experiences in the most diverse regions of Brazil, I believe that announcing the predominance of analyzes in the southeast region could resolve broader expectations on the part of readers. However, this observation may suggest a range of future research that aims and reviews the history of black people in Brazil in other geographic spaces from the perspective of the diaspora. For example, the connection between Maranhão and Jamaica through Reggae music would be a great opportunity to investigate Afro-diasporic diversity in the Brazilian Northeast. The appropriation of songs by black northeastern icons, such as Jackson do Pandeiro and Luiz Gonzaga, in the Caribbean and Africa, is another example of the presence of black northeasterners in the Afro-Atlantic circuit. The dispersion of people and black culture from the Northeast to the Southeast could also spread transregionalism in a country with a continental dimension like Brazil. One possibility would be to analyze the influence of Bahians and Bahian (aunts) in the formation of modern samba in Rio, which gained the status of national music in the 1930s. Potential developments aside, the work stands out for what it proposes and presents.
The book puts us in the exercise of knowing and rethinking the black experience in Brazil from a diasporic approach, as a theoretical and methodological contribution, with an alternative analysis to the limits of the Nation-State. The concept of diaspora presented also offers an alternative to Afrocentric tendencies and the limits of the politics of solidarity of Pan-Africanism – centered on the ancestral land – by considering the multiple political perspectives established among communities of the African diaspora. In other words, there is no pre-existing unity or essence of solidarity and identity in the diaspora. There are similarities, differences and contextual political decisions.
This notion of diaspora also encompasses a space circulation of narratives, political-cultural ideas and anti-racist emancipatory projects of the black community broader than the notion of the Black Atlantic, disseminated by the Afro-British sociologist Paulo Gilroy, in which the multilateral circuit occurs between America, Africa and Europe. Butler and Domingues even expand the space of the Black Atlantic analyzed by Gilroy by highlighting the southern hemisphere in this circuit, since in the sociologist’s work what predominates is the English-speaking northern hemisphere.
This gap in The Black Atlantic (1993), recognized by Gilroy in the preface to the Brazilian edition (2012), is duly explored in Imagined Diasporas. The conception of time is expanded when considering the multiple dispersions of a diaspora. Finally, the work stands out for defending the thesis that Afro-Brazilians do not play a role as passive recipients in the transnational circuit of black people. Not only are external diasporic influences adapted to the local context, but black people in Brazil participate in the exchanges of black transnationalism.
The work fulfills the objective announced in the first pages of the book, presenting the reader with a history of the concept of diaspora and its current definition, using this approach as a viable theoretical-methodological tool to analyze the Afro-Brazilian historical experience in its constant Afrodiasporic dialogue. . As a result, we have a research instrument that problematizes essentialist, strictly nationalist, Afrocentric or Eurocentric notions, in what corresponds to studies of race relations. The work, therefore, is recommended for scholars of the African/black diaspora and Afro-Brazilian history in the post-abolition period, for activists engaged in the anti-racist struggle and for people interested in discussing black identity, culture and politics.
Summary of Diásporas Imaginadas
Apresentação
1. Definições de Diáspora: Articulação de um Discurso Comparativo | Kim D. Butler
2. Por que “Diáspora”? A Migração do Termo da Experiência Judaica Para a Africana e a Sua Utilidade Universal Kim D. Butler
3. A Diversidade da Diáspora: Contribuições Para o Desenvolvimento da Teoria Política da Diáspora Africana | Kim D. Butler
4. Diálogos Diaspóricos: A Fantasia da África e o Internacionalismo Diaspórico no Carnaval da Bahia | Kim D. Butler
5. O “Moisés dos Pretos”: Marcus Garvey no Brasil | Petrônio Domingues
6. A “Vênus Negra”: Josephine Baker e a Modernidade Afro-Atlântica | Petrônio Domingues
7. Como se Fosse Bumerangue: Frente Negra Brasileira no Circuito Transatlântico | Petrônio Domingues
8. “Em Defesa da Humanidade”: A Associação Cultural do Negro na Arena do “Black Internacionalism” | Petrônio Domingues
9. Agenciar Raça, Reinventar a Nação: O Movimento das Reparações no Brasil | Petrônio Domingues
BUTLER, Kim D.; DOMINGUES, Petrônio. Diásporas imaginadas: Atlântico Negro e histórias afro-brasileiras. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2020. 360 p. Review by: ANDRADE, Charlisson, Silva de. Black Transnationalism. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/transnacionalismo-negro-resenha-de-charlisson-silva-de-andrade-ppgs-ufs-sobre-o-livro-diaspora-imaginadas-de-kim-butler-e-petronio-domingues-2/>.
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Charlisson Silva de Andrade is a PhD candidate in Sociologia (PPGS/UFS), bolsista CAPES/DS and member of the Research Group “Pós-abolição no Mundo Atlântico”. He has a master’s degree in Ciências da Religião (PPGCR/UFS) and a degree in História (DHI/UFS). Among other works, he published: “A Teologia Negra da Libertação em James Cone: aspectos de sua hermenêutica contextual a partir de ‘O Deus dos Oprimidos’ (1975)” (2018), co-authored with Joe Marçal Gonçalves dos Santos, and “Ave Maria das Músicas: o feminino no sagrado” (2022). ID LATTES: https://lattes.cnpq.br/1882716589350728; ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7830-9997; E-mail: lenodeandrade@gmail.com
