Revisiones de lo Afrocubano: Diálogo e interdisciplinariedad en Lydia Cabrera y Wifredo Lam

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the representation of Afro-Cuban subjects and cultures in the works of Lydia Cabrera and Wifredo Lam. The exploration of the Afro-Cuban religious universe and its articulation of the experience of being black in Cuba allowed Cabrera and Lam to challenge North Atlantic discourses of race through the recognition and re-creation of the symbolic apparatus of the Afro-Cuban subject as an original, and cultural being. By examining how their intersectional works have impacted and reshaped the understandings of Afro-Cuban cultures, I propose that Cabrera and Lam reconceptualize race relations in the island by positioning the black subject at the core of the race and culture debate in Cuba.Taking this into account, this work delves into their particular relationship as individuals and intellectuals, recreating and reconstructing a dialogue from their works, personal correspondence, as well as the context in which they participated in Cuba during the 1940’s and 1950’s. In doing so, this dissertation argues that the works of the painter and the ethnographer include and experiment with logics and epistemologies of Afro-Cuban religions, in particular santeria, or regla de Ocha-Ifá. I specifically analyze how both intellectuals incorporate the image and logic of the circle in their works, as an allegory and structure of the conflict between order and chaos, as well as the natural cycle of life and death. In the case of Lydia Cabrera and Wifredo Lam, the integration of elements of the Afro-Cuban worldview and epistemology into their narratives and visual vocabulary reveals that for both intellectuals, Afro-Cuban religions represent valid bodies of knowledge. This dissertation also emphasizes in the experience of both Lam and Cabrera in the fieldwork and their ethnographic research as methods of working and approaching Afro-Cuban religions, substantial tools in the professional and personal experience of both intellectuals in their understanding of the beliefs and practices of Afro-Cuba religions.