Description
Book SynopsisHow water enables Caribbean and Latinx writers to reconnect to their pasts, presents, and futures.
Water is often tasked with upholding division through the imposition of geopolitical borders. We see this in the construction of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo on the US-Mexico border, as well as in how the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean are used to delineate the limits of US territory. In stark contrast to this divisive view, Afro-diasporic religions conceive of water as a place of connection; it is where spiritual entities and ancestors reside, and where knowledge awaits.
Departing from the premise that water encourages confluence through the sustainment of contradiction, Channeling Knowledges fathoms water’s depth and breadth in the work of Latinx and Caribbean creators such as Mayra Santos-Febres, Rita Indiana, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, and the Border of Lights collective. Combining methodologies from literary studies, anthropo
Trade Review
Hey-Colón’s approach to water is expansive and groundbreaking, as the book engages with saltwaters and freshwaters, unsettling the disciplinary boundaries that have traditionally linked these bodies of water to either Caribbean or Latinx Studies . . . As such, Channeling Knowledges, which is part of the "Latinx: The Future Is Now" series run by the University of Texas Press, represents a crucial and timely contribution to Afrolatinx, Caribbean, Border, and Religious Studies. * A Contracorriente *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue. Infusing the Sacred: The Liquid Knowledges of the Afro-Diasporic World
- Chapter 1. Channeling the Undocumented in Mayra Santos-Febres’s boat people
- Chapter 2. The Techno-Resonances of Rita Indiana’s La mucama de Omicunlé
- Chapter 3. Afro-Diasporic Currents in the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers
- Chapter 4. Orishas in the Borderlands
- Epilogue. Water and Light: The Bóveda as Counter-Archive
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
