June 18, 2024

Human Rights in Contemporary Societies

Silvia Rodríguez Maeso

This study aimed to present a contribution to the memorialisation of the Améfrica Ladina from the perspective of the history of the Black movement in the Americas. Accordingly, I investigated the articulations established by organisations and individuals taking the Congresses of Black Culture in the Americas as the starting point. The mapping of these networks and the debates within and around the congresses have led to the analysis of two domestic contexts, Brazil, and Peru, between 1968 and 1982, when both countries were under military dictatorship regimes. In this sense, this mapping is important for understanding the congresses as an exercise of memorialisation.

Améfrica Ladina (Gonzalez, 1988) is understood as the symbolic and physical set of contributions of the black populations of the Americas, which allows us to place them at the centre of historical and political discussions that unveil the fundamental role of black peoples in the construction of the Americas. Gonzalez's notion of Améfrica Ladina is understood as one of the possible manifestations within the Black Atlantic (Gilroy, 1993), embodying the legacy of African peoples in the diaspora. Both concepts make it possible to understand the Black Culture Congresses of the Americas as concrete manifestations of Améfrica Ladina produced within the Black Atlantic, which Gilroy (1993, p. xi) characterised as "changing same".

Through a transnational approach that begins with these meetings promoted by black organisations to think and dialogue about the African Diaspora in the Americas, it was possible to visualise the domestic contexts, and to understand intellectuals' and activists' agency under authoritarian regimes. The study is based on fieldwork developed between 2019 and 2022, consisting of in-depth interviews and documents gathered from public and private archives. Some of the organisations identified as crucial for the development of this study are: the Brazilian Institute of Africanist Studies; the Institute of Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research; the Colombian Foundation of Folklore Studies, the Centre for Afro-Colombian Studies, the Institute of Afro-Peruvian Studies. Personalities such as the siblings Nicomedes and Victoria Santa Cruz; Abdias do Nascimento; Clóvis Moura and Manuel Zapata Olivella are also key people in this mapping.

Through the analysis of testimonies and written sources, I identified situations of bureaucratic censorship in the context of the Brazilian military regime, exemplified by the numerous instances of control and surveillance by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs/ Itamaraty and other institutions of the military regime that aimed to censor and boycott the organisation of the Congresses of Black Culture. In the Peruvian context, we analysed how Velasco Alvarado's military regime promoted black culture as part of a pluricultural national project, exemplified by the organisations of events such as the Festival de Arte Negro de Cañete (Cañete Black Arts Festival), the financial support for Afro-Peruvian dance groups or the involvement of artists and intellectuals in the regime's cultural policies.

The findings piece together the puzzle of how some of these black articulations, composed of personalities and organisations, were able to disseminate a counter-hegemonic discourse that challenged nationalist discourses. They created dialogues that spanned the political and the cultural, promoting the recognition of black populations in the Améfrica Ladina.

Keywords: Améfrica Ladina; Black Atlantic; Military Dictatorships; Congresses of Black Culture; Peru and Brazil