IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 112
Afro-Argentines of Colonial Origin:
Afro-Argentine Culture
Thus, if the correct use of this term
marks difference, it is emphasizing not
that they are in Argentina, but rather
than they are from Argentina. In other
words, they are attempting to explain
that theirs is a preexisting population in
the country and they are a constitutive
part of it, beyond any existence of immigrants, e.g., Black Africans or African Americans (in the broad of sense of
‘American’), such as Senegalese, Nigerians,
Cape
Verdeans,
AfroUruguayans, etc.). This population may
have “come off the boats,” and come
from Africa, but the slave traders who
brought blacks to Argentina brought
kidnapped humans, not immigrants.2
Given the general lack of knowledge
about our negritude, we must first understand what we mean by the term
‘Afro-Argentine’ and what we are talking about when we reference AfroArgentine music, before launching into
any discussion of the music, per se.
The ‘Colonial Origin Afro-Argentine’
category is the result of a process of
ethno-genetic process initiated by the
Misibamba Association, in 2008. It began as a series of objections to the terminology that was employed with reference to this population over a long period of time, since it was obsolete, due to
its pejorative semantic load, the result
of a historical, separatist rhetoric based
on castes (black, mulatto, etc.). The
terminology being used had also either
fallen into disuse or referenced an outdated class, legal and symbolic status
(black, slave, etc.). The terms were
vague with regard to what they actually
meant, and were historically and culturally inaccurate when considering the
process of the African Diaspora in the
Americas (e.g., Afro-descendant, Afro,
etc.).
Statistically, very little is known about
this population. The last census that
took it into account took place in 1887.
Yet, there was a recent effort to obtain
approximate figures, through the AfroDescendants Pilot Study that was done
between April 6-13, 2005, in the Montserrat (Buenos Aires) and Santa Rosa de
Lima (Santa Fe) neighborhoods. The
Tres de Febrero National University
administered the pilot, with technical
support from the National Statistics and
Census Institute (INDEC), guidance
from African and Afro-Descendant organization in Argentina, and financing
from the World Bank. The results
showed that 35 of those surveyed considered themselves Afro-descendants
(Stubbs & Reyes 2006). The figure was
corroborated by a genetic study by a
group of biological researchers from the
University of Buenos Aires (UBA)
While focusing on the prefix ‘Afro-‘ to
unequivocally signal their origin, the
term ‘Argentine’ was added to denote
geopolitical location. This was not done
without affective purpose given the fact
the term would counter new attempts to
make them ‘foreign,’ because it forces
one to speak of ‘Afro-Argentines.’ This
acknowledges the socio-historic, colonial origin of their ancestors.
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