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I remember when I was in living in Peru last year, every night the eldest teenage daughter and Rutty, the lady who cleaned, cooked and took care of us (also my close friend by the end of the trip,) would watch telenovelas as if it were a sort of religi…

Las lecturas de esta semana describen dos fenómenos o dos partes muy características de la cultura latinoamericana: las novelas y el futbol. La primera de ellas, escrita por Alex Bellos es Futebol: The Brazilian Way of life a pesar de que es una lec…

Despite the length of this weeks readings, they were absolutely more enjoyable than normal. Perhaps it was because of the fact that for once we were reading about something that is undeniably considered (despite the seemingly elusive nature of the term) “Latin American popular culture,” and is considered as such by most people from […]

This week’s articles talk about two topics that are very dear to me for very different reasons. The first one by Bello’s talks about Brazil, and in specific tries to describe the feelings that embraced the nation before, during, and after the so called “Maracanazo.” Now, I should warn any readers that this is by […]

Popular Culture TransformationsNowhere else is the matrix of popular culture, its transformations, and all of its offspring – even challenging the number offspring produced by Garrincha – more apparent than in Alex Bellos’ “Futebol”. Bellos has the Mid…

This week readings are about two of the greatest vices that Latin American people have, futbol and telenovelas, eventough both genders enjoy them; futbol is seen as a manly thing and telenovelas as a girly thing. Is not a secret that soccer in Lat…

This week’s articles displayed popular culture through mediums which I most identify as being representative of Latin American popular culture: football and telenovelas. I felt like both articles, particularly the article on Brazilian football, did an …

Even though it’s half expected, it is amazing how much you can learn about Brazilian culture through futebol. Bellos’ “Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life” does it quite well. He tells Brazil’s story through events like the 1950 World Cup and athletes…

I quite enjoyed the 4 articles by Alex Bellos that were extracted from “Futebol: The Brazilian way of life. The first chapter was written very passionately with excerpts from other authors that add to the strength of the emotional connection that Brazil has to this sport. Here, Bello’s talks about ‘The Fateful Final,’ Brazil’s devastating […]

I think that in the first reading Bellos explains different aspects of the Brazilian culture that are somehow related to soccer. I enjoy the reading even though it was really long. It was very easy to understand and interesting at the same time. I li…

I found this weeks readings a good follow up to Vasconcelos and Wade’s discussion on mestizo. From the readings of Ortiz I found out the limitations of how this term can be used and discussed in certain contexts and how it can be expanded to encompass other subjects. I believed that it is the the natural coming together of people and how it comes out. Vasconcelos believes this leads to a superior mixed race, and Wade thinks it serves a function for displacement and identity questioning.

Ortiz challenges Vasconelos and Wades arguments. Mestizaje according to Ortiz seems to be too narrow of a concept. It does not encompasses economic, social and political processes which allow for some societal traits to be above others, despite including the simple racial mixture. Instead of assimilating the natives to the conquistadors and creating a ‘cosmic race’, instead its about learning how each culture could contribute to one another’s cultures and allow all parties to be in the mixture. Ortiz uses the term of ‘transculturation’ rather than the more commonly know ‘acculturation’. He talks about how this term can encapsulate different complexities of ‘transmutation of culture’ such as class; both economic and social, religion, ethics, art, language, ideology, sexuality and other parts of life.  

The two article by Cornejo Polar were very good at explaining how cultural representations are influenced by artistic works of other cultures. Written works of indegenismo which have a European aspect to them by being in prose that describes the native culture.

Millington emphasises the point that trans-culturation is better to the acculturation term. She describes acculturation as referring to a cultural take over as opposed to an mixing or a slow process that influences opposing cultures. Millington goes on to talk about written works that support the thought of the effectiveness of this term. The specific example from Neil Larsen is that transculturation allows for a more equitable cultural influence, performing as a illusion solution that does not deal with the issues of ‘social duality’. While this seems to be true to an extent, it is not completely black or white. I see the this as some sort of quick fix rather than dealing with the real issues that have implications in Latin America.

           

 

The readings of this week end enabled me to go deeper in the notion of mestisaje.

I like the way the first text by Ortiz puts a distinction between the terms « acculturation » and « transculturation ». Acculturation means to acquire a new culture, it is « the process of transition from one culture to another ». For Ortiz, transculturation means both to acquire a new culture and to lose another one, be uprooted from another one (deculturation). Transculturation means to lose a part of its culture, to take a part of another one but also the creation of something new so it is a general process of transformation. However, Ortiz emphasizes the fact that in Cuba some people like the Indian people didn’t have this transition and their culture and institutions have been totally destroyed. This text shows that mestisaje could imply a part of violence and oppression: people have to forget their traditions and customs and have to be assimilated. This violent vision of mestisaje is totally opposed to the « romantic » one of Vasconcelos in his text about the cosmic race. Mestisaje is not always the fruit of the peaceful alliance between two cultures but could be the erase of one particular culture in the benefice to another one. In mestisaje, there is a relation of « dominant-dominated »: one culture always prevails on one another. In his text about indigenismo, Cornejo Polar shows that even in literature, there are some cultural cods. Indigenismo is a type of literature focusing on folk: indigenous myths, legends. However, Cornejo Polar asserts that these texts are written to fit to non-indigenous culture. « It is still a mestizo literature ». « If an indigenous literature must come, it will come in due time, when the Indians themselves are able to produce it ». The real indigenous culture is based on oral storytelling or dance, or they use a graphic language. But on the other hand, this kind kind of literature is also a way to resist. It’s a way to prove that the Spanish didn’t destroy all the indigenous culture which still remains. One could analyze mestisaje and transculturation as the domination of one part on another one: the dominant culture on the indigenous one, but even if the dominated culture is minimized, it is still part of the mix and still exists.

This weeks articles explored the terms and associated meanings of transculturation. In the first article by Ortiz we learn of his ideas regarding the terms acculturation and transculutation and that he feels the latter is more appropriate or fitting. He states that the word ‘acculturation’ describes “the process of transition from one culture to another…” Arguing that transculturation as a term is more fitting. In his study he looks at Cuba because of its complex and extremely diverse cultures and “transmutations of culture” that have taken place there. He puts forward the idea of Cuba being similar to a mother and father having children together, the resulting child has similarities to both parents but is ultimately something new. Transculturation is defined throughout as the process from one culture to another.

 

Antonio Conejo Polar gives us another point of view regarding types of literature in Latin America. He specifically talks of the heterogeneous and homogenous literature and indigenismo literature. I found this second article a bit harder to get into, and I look forward to talking about it in class.

 

The third reading by Mark Millington examines and analyzes the arguments presented in Ortiz’s ‘Contrapunteo Cubano’. I think Millington does make good points and arguments against Ortiz’s (maybe too positive) outlook on transculturation. The idea that culture is like two people procreating making something new may be too simple. The idea that a culture can just change easily like that and it is not always a nice positive creation in the end.

 

            After reading Vasconcelos and Wade’s discussions on mestizaje, this weeks readings presented an interesting follow up regarding the limitations of certain terms when discussing this topic of cultural and racial mixture. Mestizaje seems to talk about an almost natural process of people coming together and how it plays out. In Vasconcelos opinion, this leads […]

The first article by Ortiz is a fantastic overview of how Cuba has morphed, rather dramatically, into the country it has become today. He discusses how Cuba experienced so much change is such a small amount of time by stating “The whole Gamut of cultur…

For this weeks reading, I found that Ortiz’s version of Mestizaje seems to be more “down to earth” than the romantic version that we analyzed earlier by Vasconcelos. In his essay, Ortiz presents the term transculturation, as the gaining of cultural aspects by mixing different points of view from several cultures, however he acknowledges that […]

The last time we speak about mestizaje, we enlighten the fact that the theory of syncretism was based on an idea of the dominance of one culture on the others.  Thus, the « cosmic race » resulted to be a way to purify the indigenous cultures, which were considered as inferiors. Contrary to the theory in term […]

… Transculturación… En el primero de los artículos, escrito cubano Fernando Ortíz se hace una reseña de cómo fue el cambio cultural que se vivió en Cuba, pero creo que los más importante es como este da origen a lo que Ortiz llama transcultu…

 This weeks three readings on theories of mixture were very intriguing.  The term transculturation is brought into use in the firs article on Cuba. Fernando explains that in Cuba there has been so many cultures of which have influenced have been so…

The first reading from this week pertains specifically to Cuban culture and the elements that it consists of. The author uses the term transculturation to denote the mixing of various cultures and races which resulted in the evolution of every aspect o…

I thoroughly enjoyed the readings for this week. Similar to our readings on “mestizaje”, it was interesting to read work by the original author of studies on “transculturation” and then be able to read work by an author who tests the arguments presente…

I think I was doing pretty well with the term “transculturation” until I reached Millington’s article.  According to Millington “transculturation stands alone as a description of a process of mixing” and “hybridisation… is linked with hybridity as a…

The readings for this week talk about the concept of transculturation.Ortiz presents the word as an alternative to acculturation, which he argues implies an acquiring of culture. He says that the process undergone in Cuba and the Americas as a whole (…

These week’s readings discuss several complex academic terms all related to Latin American post colonial societies and there structures. I think that the real complexity raised by such concepts is the different understandings and interpretations of eac…

In Cuba Counterpoint by Fernando Ortiz I found it interesting to read the difference between acculturation and transculturation. Acculturation in Ortiz’s point of view, does not describe the history and culture of Cuba as well as transculturation. Just…

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