Ackee and saltfish vs. amalá con quimbombó? A note on Sidney Mintz’ contribution to the historical anthropology of African American cultures
Ackee and saltfish vs. amalá con quimbombó? A note on Sidney Mintz’ contribution to the historical anthropology of African American cultures. In the spirit of Sidney Mintz’ contribution to African American historical anthropology, this essay examines theories allocating differential explanatory weig...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société des américanistes
2005-12-01
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| Series: | Journal de la Société des Américanistes |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/2988 |
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| Summary: | Ackee and saltfish vs. amalá con quimbombó? A note on Sidney Mintz’ contribution to the historical anthropology of African American cultures. In the spirit of Sidney Mintz’ contribution to African American historical anthropology, this essay examines theories allocating differential explanatory weight to African cultural continuities and New World social conditions in the historical development of African American cultures through the lens of a set of culinary allegories built around two Caribbean dishes. Specifically, I argue that the opposition recently voiced by some Africanist historians against the so-called « rapid early synthesis » model developed by Sidney Mintz and Richard Price not just misinterprets the theoretical issues at hand, but foregrounds highly problematic, and ultimately ahistorical, notions of « Africanity ». Contrasting Cuban and North American conceptual linkages between « Africanity » and « racial identity », and surveying the emergent North American literature on « culinary Pan-Africanism » in light of theories of cultural property, I suggest that it is time we transcended the terms in which the debate between so-called « creolists » and « New Revisionists » has been framed. |
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| ISSN: | 0037-9174 1957-7842 |