https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n58.05
Luis Rincón Alba
New York University, USA
Abstract
Drawing from Black studies, this article inquires into “anarchist themes” in the lyrics of Brazilian carnival songs, focusing the analysis on Leci Brandão’s Zé do Caroço, and connecting it with other compositions. Taking Saidiya Hartman and Cedric Robinson as a meeting point, I present festivity as a praxis challenging institutional structures and hierarchical leadership. Furthermore, I argue that carnival, in its political potential, does not aim for representative integration, but rather for the ability to an ongoing rearticulation of the notion of “people”, opening it up as a battlefield. Rather than seeking admission in the “universal reservoir of mankind” (da Silva), carnival practices challenges acknowledgement mechanisms and the very existence of assimilation, which have hijacked the notion of politics as an early form of what is called political by political science. Here, carnival operates as a space where “flesh” and sonority challenge the “terms of order” and try out forms of collective life beyond political science calculations.
Keywords: Black studies, carnival, sociability, people, Black anarchisms, terms of order.
