A retomada negra no norte do Chile: presença afro em Arica

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation presents some of the dynamics of the black uprisings in the north of Chile, specifically in the city of Arica. Since the 2000s, there has been a discussion in the country about the Afro-Chilean people, which I have tried to follow and live with over the years of this thesis. This ethnographic work involved everything from practices related to the cultural movement to the political movement. In these meetings, a series of articulations and networks between practitioners of African matrices in Chile and the Americas are presented. The main theme is the revival of an Afro-descendancy which, through the politics, music, drums, cosmology, tradition, orality and memory, is present and mobilizes lives on the country's northern border. The aim of this dissertation will be to discuss issues that involve not only the idea of what it is to be black in Chile and Afrochilenity, but that reveal how the existential experience in its fullest Afro-Aryan dimension tells and retells stories that were suppressed by the colonizing power. That's why, without a doubt, this revival seeks to be treated here as a way of propagating the defenses and ongoing efforts of Chile's Afro-descendant tribal people. Practices that teach us how, in an almost always festive way, it is also possible to reopen areas devastated by colonization in that territory.