Imagining the Afro-Uruguayan Conventillo: Belonging and the Fetish of Place and Blackness

• Main Author: Sztainbok, V.
• Other Authors: Razack, Sherene
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: Uruguay; blackness; whiteness; belonging; Latin America; race; gender; fetish; foklorization; space; conventillo; domestic work; Rosa Luna; Carlos Paez Vilaro; Afro-Uruguayan; Barrio Sur and Palermo; symbolic order; psychodynamics of place; 0631; 0453
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/26479

This thesis explores the symbolic place occupied by a racialized neighbourhood within the Uruguayan national imaginary. I study the conventillos (tenement buildings) of two traditionally Afro-Uruguayan neighbourhoods in Montevideo, Barrio Sur and Palermo. These neighbourhoods are considered the cradle of Afro-Uruguayan culture and identity. The conventillos have been immortalized in paintings, souvenirs, songs, and books. Over the years most of the residents were evicted due to demolitions, which peaked during Uruguay’s military dictatorship (1973-1984). I address the paradox of how a community can be materially marginalized, yet symbolically celebrated, a process that is evident in other American nations (Brazil, Colombia, etc.). I show how race, class, and gender are entangled in folkloric depictions of the conventillo to constitute a limited notion of blackness that naturalizes the relationship between Afro-Uruguayans, music, sexuality, and domestic work. The folklorization of the space and it residents is shown to be a “fetishization” which enhances the whiteness of the national identity, while confining the parameters of black citizenship and belonging. Utilizing a methodology that draws on cultural geography, critical race, postcolonial, and feminist theory, my dissertation analyzes the various ways that the Barrio Sur/Palermo conventillo has been imagined, represented, and experienced. Specifically, I examine 1) autobiographical, literary and popular (media, songs) narratives about these neighbourhoods; 2) the depiction of the conventillo by a prominent artist (Carlos Páez Vilaró); 3) spatial practices; 4) the performance of a dancer who emerged from the conventillo to become a national icon (the Carnival vedette Rosa Luna); and 5) interviews with nine key informants. My analysis focuses on how bodies, subjects, and national belonging are constituted through relations to particular spaces. By foregrounding the “geographies of identity” (Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996, p. 27), I show that the symbolic celebration of black space goes hand in hand with material disavowal. This study thus connects the imagining of a local, racialized space to how national belonging is constituted and experienced.