Colonialist Gazes and Counternarratives of Blackness

Afro-Spanishness in 20th- and 21st-Century Spain

Cornejo Parriego, Rosalía
Léon-Tavora, Ana (ed.)

Building on the growing field of Afropean Studies, this interdisciplinary and intermedial collection of essays proposes a dialogue on Afro-Spanishness that is not exclusively tied to immigration and that understands Blackness as a non-essentialist, heterogeneous and diasporic concept. Studying a variety of twentieth- and twenty-first-century cultural products, some essays explore the resilience of the colonialist paradigms and the circulation of racial ideologies and colonial memories that promote national narratives of whitening. Others focus on Black self-representation and examine how Afro-Spanish authors, artists, and activists destabilize colonial gazes and constructions of national identity, propose decolonial views of Spain and Europe’s literature and history, articulate Afro-Diasporic knowledges, and envision Afro-descendance as an empowering tool.