Afro-Paradise : Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil / Christen A. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Christen A., 1977- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Salvador.

Black people--Brazil--Salvador.

Black people.

Black people--Race identity--Brazil--Salvador.

Black people--Crimes against--Brazil--Salvador.

Black people--Race identity.

Salvador (Brazil)--Race relations.

Salvador (Brazil).

Brazil.

Brazil--Salvador.

Physical Description:

xiv, 261 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana ; Chicago ; Springfield : University of Illinois Press, [2016]

Summary:

Tourists exult in Bahia, Brazil, as a tropical paradise infused with the Black population's one-of-a-kind vitality. Christen A. Smith argues that the dialectic of glorified representations of Black bodies and subsequent state repression reinforces Brazil's racially hierarchal society. Interpreting the violence as both institutional and performative, Smith follows a grassroots movement and social protest theater troupe in their campaigns against racial violence. As Smith reveals, economies of Black pain and suffering form the backdrop for the staged, scripted, and choreographed Afro-Paradise that dazzles visitors. Based on years of field work, Afro-Paradise is a passionate account of a long-overlooked struggle for life and dignity in contemporary Brazil. Book jacket.

Contents:

Interlude I Culture Shock 31

1 Afro-Paradise: Where the Whip Tears the Flesh 41

Interlude II "The Berlin Wall" 71

2 The Paradox of Black Citizenship 77

Interlude III "Terrorism" 113

3 The White Hand: State Magic and Signs of War 117

Interlude IV "The Police Raid" 153

4 Palimpsestic Embodiment 155

Interlude V Reprise 177

5 In and Out of the Ineffable 179.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-250) and index.

ISBN:

9780252039935

0252039939

9780252081446

0252081447

OCLC:

923665613