Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities at the National Museum of Colombia

227 Pages·2016·9.98 MB·English

Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities at the National Museum of Colombia: a
reflexive ethnography of (in)visibility, documentation and participatory collaboration

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of
PhD in Social Anthropology with Visual Media
in the Faculty of Humanities

2016

Sofía Natalia González Ayala
School of Social Sciences, Department of Social Anthropology
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Contents
LIST OF IMAGES .......................................................................................................................................... 5
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. 7
DECLARATION ............................................................................................................................................ 8
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ............................................................................................................................... 8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 9
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 10
SUBJECT, HYPOTHESIS, THEMES ................................................................................................................... 10
ETHNOGRAPHER’S GAZE ............................................................................................................................. 13
VISUAL MATERIAL ..................................................................................................................................... 16
A MUSEUM ETHNOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 23
Collaboration, communities and museums ..................................................................................... 24
RACE, RACISM AND RACIAL STEREOTYPES ....................................................................................................... 26
THESIS STRUCTURE .................................................................................................................................... 28
CHAPTER 1: ‘WAKES AND LIVING SAINTS: FINALLY!’ ......................................................................... 30
THREE ‘CURATORIAL SCRIPTS’ ...................................................................................................................... 33
The National Museum’s collections and the ‘invisibility of studies of the Black’ ............................. 34
The NM’s ethnographic collections and the ethnologist’s vision ..................................................... 35
‘Invisibility’ and ‘stereotypy’ ............................................................................................................ 37
Huellas de africanía [traces of Africanness] .................................................................................... 39
Afro-genesis and the Colombian racialized geography ................................................................... 43
The 1991 Constitution and Law 70 of 1993 of ‘Black communities’ ................................................ 45
New museology and ‘contact zones’ ............................................................................................... 49
Milenios de diversidad [Millennia of Diversity] (1994) .................................................................... 51
The ‘voids’ in the Museum collections, the Strategic Plan 2001-2010 and the ‘48-91’ project ....... 52
Curating stereotypes ....................................................................................................................... 56
CONCEPTUAL THEMES ................................................................................................................................ 74
The politics of (in)visibility ............................................................................................................... 75
Ethnography, documents and the museum effect ........................................................................... 77
Exhibitions as documents ................................................................................................................ 78
Documents as ‘new’ museum objects.............................................................................................. 79
Participatory collaboration as curatorship ...................................................................................... 80
CHAPTER 2: BACKSTAGE .................................................................................................................... 83
Backstage - Frontstage .................................................................................................................... 86
MUSEUM MEETINGS AND MINUTES .............................................................................................................. 88
Taking minutes ................................................................................................................................ 89
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Participation in meetings ................................................................................................................. 93
MEETING WITH SABEDORES AND SABEDORAS ................................................................................................. 94
Planning fieldwork: protecting, collecting and returning ................................................................ 96
Field-trips [salidas a terreno]: politics of visibility and visuality ...................................................... 98
AFRO-REPARATIONS: MEETING TO DISCUSS A HALL DEDICATED TO BLACK AND AFRO-COLOMBIAN PEOPLE ................. 99
The critical visits of ‘Afro subject researchers’ and ‘community representatives’ ......................... 100
Disagreements with the exhibition ................................................................................................ 102
Meeting at the Ministry of Culture ................................................................................................ 103
Article El Dipló ............................................................................................................................... 104
‘WILL THE EXHIBITION BE MADE?’ .............................................................................................................. 108
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 109
CHAPTER 3: FRONTSTAGE ............................................................................................................... 113
POLITICAL LEGIBILITY AND MUSEOGRAPHY .................................................................................................... 127
Lack of context: complex social relationships ................................................................................ 127
THE ‘SCRIPT’ OF THE EXHIBITION ................................................................................................................ 130
THE EXHIBITION: SACRED AND PROFANE ...................................................................................................... 141
Inauguration: sacralization............................................................................................................ 141
Closing ceremony ........................................................................................................................... 144
POLITICAL (IN)VISIBILITY ........................................................................................................................... 145
READING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................................................. 146
FRONTSTAGE CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 148
CHAPTER 4: TRAVELLING WAKES AND LIVING SAINTS ..................................................................... 151
(RE)DESIGNING THE ITINERANTE ................................................................................................................ 155
The Itinerante’s physical presentation........................................................................................... 156
WORKING AS ‘COMMISSARY’..................................................................................................................... 162
Reports .......................................................................................................................................... 164
BUREAUCRACY ....................................................................................................................................... 165
Paperwork ..................................................................................................................................... 166
LOCAL VERSIONS OF THE ITINERANTE .......................................................................................................... 172
Travelling as return ........................................................................................................................ 172
The audience as curators ............................................................................................................... 177
Buenaventura, Juanchaco and Ladrilleros: the Month of Afro-Colombianness ............................ 178
Funerary rituals of the Pacific in the Religious Art Museum of Cali ............................................... 181
Audiovisual documentation and authorship.................................................................................. 182
CHAPTER 5: TOUR-GUIDING ............................................................................................................ 185
TOUR-GUIDES AND EDUCATION IN MUSEUM MEETINGS .................................................................................. 188
MONITORES DOCENTES [MONITOR-TEACHERS] AT THE NMC .......................................................................... 190
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‘SCHOOL OF GUIDES’ AND ‘VOLUNTARIADO’ ................................................................................................ 191
PROGRAMME FOR THE VOLUNTARIADO COURSE ............................................................................................ 193
The Voluntariado: monitor-teachers and mediators ..................................................................... 195
TOUR-GUIDING, VELORIOS AND AFRO-COLOMBIANS ..................................................................................... 197
NICHES EN ACCIÓN (NEA) AND VELORIOS Y SANTOS VIVOS ............................................................................. 202
Travelling through racism .............................................................................................................. 204
TOUR-GUIDING CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................... 207
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 208
SOCIAL LIFE OF DOCUMENTS, IMAGES AND TEXTS........................................................................................... 210
‘EVERYONE FOR A NEW COUNTRY’ AND ‘MEMORY AND NATION’ ...................................................................... 215
CONTRIBUTION....................................................................................................................................... 216
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................ 218

Word count: 80,827
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List of images
Exhibition Velorios’s catalogue cover (p. 17)
Simulated funerary altar, made in 2007 by Augusto Sánchez (p. 18)
Museum designs based on photograph of simulated altar (p. 19)
Photograph of exhibition’s entrance (p. 20)
Image of ‘ninth night’ banner (p. 21)
Photograph of set up of the Itinerante in Villavicencio in 2010 (p. 22)
Chapter 1: ‘Wakes and living saints: finally!:’ Jaime Arocha’s column in El Espectador (p. 30)
Un negro es un negro (p. 58)
Negra menta in Negricolas (p. 60)
Negra Nieves in Negricolas (p. 61)
Front cover of book Afro-reparaciones (p. 63)
Negra Menta in Afro-reparaciones (p.69)
Jesús Abad Colorado’s picture (p. 70)
Martha Posso Rosero’s picture (p.71)
Slave ships 1 (p. 72)
Slave ships 2 (p. 73)
Chapter 2: Backstage: Page 29 of Velorios’s exhibition catalogue (p. 83)
The minutes of 5 May 2006 (p. 92)
Page of minutes with Arocha's hand-drawn scheme, dated 31 January 2008 (p. 107)
Chapter 3: Frontstage: Screenshot of Velorios’s ‘Profane area’ from Manglerojo’s website (p. 113)
Picture of the ‘Profane’ area, from Lleras’s thesis (2011: 68) (p. 116)
Sacred and profane: Velorios’s exhibition’s scale model and screenshot from Manglerojo’s website (p.
118)
Screenshots of the ‘African ancestors’ corner and the ‘Agony’ stage (p. 120)
Screenshots of the ‘Death’ stage and the corner for the ‘Adoration feasts to Baby Jesus (p. 122)
Arocha’s hand-drawn plan for the exhibition (p. 134)
Moya's plans for the exhibition (p. 137)
Museography division's plans for the exhibition (p. 140)
StillS from the lobby's video of the exhibition inauguration (p. 143)
Screenshot of Velorios’s ‘script’ (p. 150)
Chapter 4: Travelling Wakes and living saints: Screenshot of the Itinerante’s website (p. 151)
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Banner with the titles, logos and names of the institutions that organized, supported and sponsored
the exhibition (p. 159)
Images of the rest of the banners, which can be expanded and downloaded freely (p. 160)
Letter 1: a new presentation of the exhibition’s script (p. 167)
Letter 2: a new presentation of the exhibition’s script (p. 168)
González’s drawing of the plan (p. 170)
View of the two rooms where the Itinerante was setup (p. 171)
The set up in Guapi’s coliseum (p. 175)
Before and after the Itinerante in Buenaventura’s House of Culture (p. 176)
Banners in the entrance of the Itinerante in Buenaventura (p. 180)
Chapter 5: Tour-guiding: Stills from tour-guides videos that travelled with the Itinerante (p. 185)
Stills from the video I edited of Niches en Acción members, Marly Estrada and Jhonatan Fruto tour-
guiding at the Javier Sánchez school in Barranquilla (p. 201)
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Abstract
The University of Manchester
PhD Candidate: Sofía Natalia González-Ayala
Thesis title: Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities in the
National Museum of Colombia: a reflexive ethnography of (in)visibility,
documentation and participatory collaboration
12 April 2016
The subject of this thesis is the temporary and travelling exhibition Velorios y santos
vivos: comunidades negras, afrocolombianas, raizales y palenqueras [Wakes and
living saints: Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities]. ‘Velorios,’
as many people involved in the project referred to it, portrayed Afro-Colombian
funerals and devotions to Catholic saints, and was on display in the temporary
exhibitions hall in the National Museum of Colombia, in Bogotá, from 21 August to 3
November 2008. Before it closed, a travelling version was designed that began to go
around the country in 2009. When I wrote this thesis, ‘the Itinerante,’ as the
travelling version was referred to at the Museum, was still available as one of the
displays that its Travelling Exhibitions Programme (TEP) offered to the public. I use
Velorios and the Itinerante as the main ‘characters’ in an ethnography of the National
Museum of Colombia, where I explore the different instances in which this major
exhibition produced visibilities and invisibilities regarding the place of Afro-Colombian
people in the nation. As a museum, this institution is responsible for managing,
researching and displaying its four collections (of art, history, ethnography and
archaeology) but also, as one of the Ministry of Culture’s ‘special administrative units,’
it is in charge of designing and implementing policies that regulate all the other
museums in Colombia. This is in keeping with national and international official
legislation regarding cultural heritage, like the National Culture Plan and UNESCO’s
resolutions, and in support of the development and strengthening of museums,
museology and museum design in the whole country. Here I show what these
responsibilities and duties translate into on the ground. The themes that the thesis
explores are i) (in)visibility, ii) participatory collaboration and, also as the means to
approach these themes, iii) documents and documentation. They are all components
of the kind of curatorship that this museum exhibition conveyed.
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Declaration
No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for

another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.
Copyright statement
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copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester
certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.
ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be
made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and
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iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property
(the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example
graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the
author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and
must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the
relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions.
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place is available in the University IP Policy (see
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction
declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see
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Presentation of Theses.
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Acknowledgements
This thesis is dedicated to my mum, Nancy, who is my pillar and role model in life.
To Pete and Rupert, my two supervisors, who committed patiently to this project, and helped me to
cross boundaries in ideas, ways of writing and of doing anthropology that I was not aware of, I am
deeply grateful.
To Katie, Hong and Owen, my housemates and family in Manchester.
To María de Lourdes and Michael Brendan, my dearest friends.
Special thanks to my uncle Julio, the representative of Ayala family in the UK.
I also thank my colleagues and friends at the anthropology department, most especially Sofía and
Paola, and also Ines, Thodoris, Hester, Rachel and Hannah.
Jaime Arocha, my teacher and mentor, and other members of the GEA – Grupo de Estudios
Afrocolombianos, made this work possible institutionally and personally. Thank you too.
Cristina Lleras supported me both on a personal and institutional level, and encouraged me to make
the most of an anthropological environment very different from the one I was used to in Colombia.
Colciencias funded my studies and expenses in the UK, making it possible for me to dedicate myself
fully to many days of thinking and writing.
Last but not least, during ‘fieldwork,’ which often felt like a déjà vu, Niches en Acción in Barranquilla,
particularly Deibys and Marly, supported me and invited me to be part of their social project, to which I
hope this thesis contributes. In Bogotá, I must give special thanks to Johanna Galindo, Loretta Meneses,
Yasaira Sánchez, Bertha Aranguren, Antonio Ochoa and Adriana Parra.
Introduction
Subject, hypothesis, themes
The subject of this thesis is the temporary and travelling exhibition Velorios y santos vivos:
comunidades negras, afrocolombianas, raizales y palenqueras1 [Wakes and living saints: Black, Afro-
Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities]. ‘Velorios,’ as many people involved in the project
referred to it, portrayed Afro-Colombian funerals and devotions to Catholic saints, and was on display
in the temporary exhibitions hall in the National Museum of Colombia, in Bogotá, from 21 August to 3
November 2008. Before it closed, a travelling version was designed that began to go around the
country in 2009.2 When I wrote this thesis, ‘the Itinerante,’ as the travelling version was referred to at
the Museum, was still available as one of the displays that its Travelling Exhibitions Programme (TEP)
offered to the public.3 I use Velorios and the Itinerante as the main ‘characters’ in an ethnography of
the National Museum of Colombia, where I explore the different instances in which this major
exhibition produced visibilities and invisibilities regarding the place of Afro-Colombian people in the
nation. As a museum, this institution is responsible for managing, researching and displaying its four
collections (of art, history, ethnography and archaeology) but also, as one of the Ministry of Culture’s
‘special administrative units,’ it is in charge of designing and implementing policies that regulate all the
other museums in Colombia. This is in keeping with national and international official legislation
regarding cultural heritage, like the National Culture Plan and UNESCO’s resolutions, and in support of
the development and strengthening of museums, museology and museum design in the whole
country.4 Here I show what these responsibilities and duties translate into on the ground. The themes

1 ‘Black’ [negro] refers to a racial category inherited from the colonial period, which alludes to the local Black
movement that emerged in the 1970s and also to the ‘Black communities’ [comunidades negras] that the 1991
constitution includes in Law 70. ‘Afro-Colombian’ [afrocolombiano] is a more recent name that acknowledges
ancestry from African enslaved people, and alludes to the word ‘Afro-descendent.’ ‘Raizal’ is an ethnic category
that refers to the native people and diaspora from San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands in the
Caribbean Sea. ‘Palenquero,’ also an ethnic category, refers to the people from San Basilio de Palenque, a maroon
enclave founded by African enslaved people in the colonial period near Cartagena, Bolívar, in the Caribbean
continental region, and also to their diaspora and language. For readability I will include all four categories into the
label ‘Afro-Colombian.’ I discuss these categories in more detail below.
2 There was one international version of the exhibition, which took place in 2010 at the University of Barcelona, in
Spain, led by a historian who had presented a paper in one of the seminars organized at the Museum in 2008. I do
not have the space or enough information to discuss it here.
3 In the beginning of 2016, the Itinerante appears as one of the TEP’s ‘past’ exhibitions, possibly not available for
lending anymore. According to this office’s website the exhibition travelled until 2014, and had 64,731 visitors
(http://www.museonacional.gov.co/exposiciones/itinerantes/Paginas/Pasadas.aspx, 10-Feb-2016).
4 http://www.museonacional.gov.co/el-
museo/objetivos%20y%20funciones/Paginas/Objetivos%20y%20funciones%20.aspx, 10-Feb-2016.