Wading in the Waters of Black Diaspora Memory, Embodied Archives, Performative Resistance

Session Submission Type: Panel

Description for Program

Through analyses of transnational artistic collaborations, symbolic acts of resistance, intergenerational storytelling, and the politics of representation; this panel explores the confluence of memory, performance, and power in shaping Black identity, notions of community, and modalities of representation.

Renée Alexander Craft
Patacones, Paintbrushes, and Power: Performing Transnational Blackness at the Crossroads of the Americas

Building on over two decades of ethnographic and oral history research within the community Portobelo, Panama; this paper explores how sustained transnational collaborations between African-descended artists in the U.S. and Panama opened a space for artists to nurture bonds of kinship, engage in decoloniality, and create cross-cultural explorations of Black cultural aesthetics, identity, and power.

Lisa B.Y. Calvente
Burning Flesh: Performances of Immolation in Neocolonial Havana, Cuba

Using archival research, ethnography, and popular culture analysis in Havana, this paper reimagines the archive through the lens of performative disruption, focusing on how acts of immolation in twentieth-century Cuba symbolize ongoing colonial violence. It examines neocolonial womanist performances of self-immolation as transformative acts that challenge images of violence, death, and exclusion, altering the historical narrative.

Kayla Corbin
Carrying: An Autoethnographic Exploration Into Intergenerational Archive

This paper offers an autoethnographic analysis of Carrying, a one-woman performance written and performed by the author, which explores intergenerational maternal storytelling as an embodied and material archive. The project examines how maternal narratives shape epistemic frameworks for Black women’s self-concept and meaning-making.

Megan Foster
“Fight Like Hell”: Witnessing Performances of Black (un)Mothering in the Carceral State

This paper examines the process of transforming ethnographic interviews with Black women who survived pregnancy during incarceration into a staged performance. It reflects on the act of witnessing as a political gesture and the ethical responsibilities of representation. Emphasizing collaborative sharing, it explores how performance fosters reciprocity, kinship, and the potential for social change through public-facing art.

Sub Unit

• ASWAD

Chair

• Renée Alexander Craft, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Patacones, Paintbrushes, and Power: Performing Transnational Blackness at the Crossroads of the Americas - Renée Alexander Craft, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Burning Flesh: Performances of Immolation in Neocolonial Havana, Cuba - Lisa Calvente

• Carrying: An Autoethnographic Exploration Into Intergenerational Archive - Kayla Corbin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• “Fight Like Hell”: Witnessing Performances of Black (un)Mothering in the Carceral State - Megan Foster, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill