Scripts of Blackness : Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico / Isar P. Godreau.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Godreau, Isar (Isar P.)

Series:

Global Studies of the United States

Global studies of the United States

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Geopolitics--United States.

Geopolitics.

Geopolitics--Puerto Rico.

Nationalism--Puerto Rico.

Nationalism.

Race--Political aspects--Puerto Rico.

Race.

Puerto Rico--Relations--United States.

Puerto Rico.

United States--Relations--Puerto Rico.

United States.

Ponce (P.R.)--Race relations.

Ponce (P.R.).

San Antón (Ponce, P.R.)--Race relations.

San Antón (Ponce, P.R.).

Puerto Rico--Colonial influence.

Puerto Rico--Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Urbana, Illinois : University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. In Scripts of Blackness, Isar P. Godreau explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race--created to overcome U.S. colonial power--simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Antón in the city of Ponce, Scripts of Blackness examines how institutional and local representations of blackness developed from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. Godreau traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, she outlines the debates and social hierarchies that inform the racialization of San Antón and its residents as black. Mining ethnographic materials and anthropological and historical research, Scripts of Blackness provides powerful insights into the critical political, economic, and historical context behind the strategic deployment of blackness, whiteness, and racial mixture"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Title page""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""1. Place, Race, and the Housing Debate""; ""Part I. Benevolent Slavery: Docile Slaves or Free People of Color?""; ""2. Slavery and the Politics of Erasure""; ""3. Unfolkloric Slavery: Alternative Histories of San Antón""; ""Part II. Hispanicity: Shades of ""Whiteness"" between Empires""; ""4. Hispanophile Zones of Whiteness""; ""5. His-Panic / My Panic: Hispanophobia and the Reviles Whiteness of Spain""; ""Part III. Race Mixutre: In the Blood or in the Making""

""6. Flowing through My Veins: Populism and the Hierarchies of Race Mixture""""7. Irresolute Blackness: Struggles and Maneuvers over the Representation of Community""; ""Conclusion""; ""Notes""; ""References""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-289) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780252096860

025209686X

OCLC:

900194143