This week, we read the chapters “Opening Ceremony” and “Altars-puntos” of Queer Freedom : Black Sovereignty (2020) by Dominican American Anthropologist Ana-Maurine Lara. More than an ethnography, this piece serves as a ceremonial ofrenda to the complex, unclear : unknowing, intersecting, time-space oriented, physical-social, and spiritual qualities, ideas, practices, lives, and woven density of queer : Black : Indigenous spirits, lives, and genealogies, particularly as experienced in the Dominican Republic. The ofrenda’s intimate storytelling and poetic nature challenges Euro-ethnocentric norms and forms of knowledge in favor of a decolonial, Zambo (Afro-Indigenous) consciousness in the face of Christian coloniality in an arrivant state. Regarding this week’s focus on cultural artifacts I ask: how does Lara use the ofrenda and altar as a means to transcend the limitations of time, space, and distance in the ethnographic record as described by Murchison (2010: 158)? What are some examples of cultural artifacts in the text and how does she use them and relate them to her theoretical frameworks?
I look forward to discussing the chapters, book, themes, ideas, and methods in more detail in class on Tuesday as well as reading and discussing everyone’s questions.