When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama

Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called "Congo" as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama--the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans' triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging.
When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines "Congo" within the history of twentieth century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism.

Author: Renée Alexander Craft
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Published: 03/18/2016
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9780814252109

About the Author
Renée Alexander Craft is assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Curriculum in Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This title is not returnable