Careta, who are you? Aspects of the carnivalesque in African Brazilian manifestations as strategies of subversion and resistance

Abstract

The element of nonconformity in opposition to the authoritarianism of the official culture present in European folk carnival festivities traveled with European colonisers to the Americas, where they were met by diverse African and Indigenous traditions, giving birth to new forms of manifestation in the melting pot of cultures collateral to colonialism. Existing under a colonial system willing to suppress any subversive or marginal aspects, diasporic Black culture made use of carnivalesque modes of representation to temporarily subvert the authority of the official institutions, having the resistance against dominant power through the crossing of its culture as an important part of surviving in this environment, connected with the local hopes, aspirations and tragedies of those who occupy to this day the margins of society. In Brazil, many of these marginal manifestations happen as festivals connected to the period of catholic celebrations. In this research I focused on how these elements can be identified in the collective popular manifestations of ‘Caretas do Acupe’ and ‘Nego Fugido’, both present in the region of Recôncavo Baiano, in Brazil. The strategies found in these manifestations pervade African-American manifestations associated with black cultural resistance, and display instances where African traditional practices crossed and resignified aspects of European culture, using the carnivalesque as the sign of double articulation that enabled them to create counter-narratives to mock, disrupt and resist colonial power. These ideas were then articulated in the photographic project ‘Careta, who are you?’, which explored narratives created to connect and mix my own moving cultural identity from Bahia while living in Aotearoa.