Afro performances and social mobilization: articulations between art, politics and memory in Buenos Aires

Abstract

In this work I address articulations between art, politics and memory, based on the resignification processes regarding the Afro-Latin American cultural expressions that have given rise to the development of political performances in the public spaces of Buenos Aires. To do this, I focus on the annual mobilization to the emblematic Plaza de Mayo on March 24 –the date of the 1976 coup d'etat– where artistic-political Afro-culture groups are increasingly proposing new channels of expression. Based on my ethnographic field work, I recognize the continuity of these groups in the transformations of this march of memory, in dialogue with the changes in the forms of contextual social mobilization and the local dissemination of Afro-Latin American cultural and political expressions. Likewise, I analyze the movement’s links with groups that surpass an “afro” inscription and how this signifier is revisited, thus building bridges of meaning —regarding “afro intra-genealogy” — within the overall performance.