Geografías negras del arroz en el Caribe colombiano: tongueo y cuerpo territorio ‘en las grietas’ de la modernización agrícola

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rice has shaped Afro-diasporic cultures, identities and geographies in the Americas. In the Colombian Caribbean, throughout the 20th century, agrarian modernization re-configured black geographies of rice by transforming cultivated landscapes and disavowing black people´s agricultural knowledges and practices. This article analyzes tongueo, a form of rice harvesting that became widespread during the 1970s and 1980s in the municipality of Marialabaja, a historic afro-campesino territory. Tongueo involved women and children collecting and pounding the rice that was left after mechanized harvest. The stories told by tongueadora women re-signify this practice as a space of enjoyment, sociability and transmission of cultural memory. Drawing on theoretical elements of black geographies and Latin American feminist spatial thought, I argue that tongueo was an embodied territorial practice that occurred within the spaces of agrarian modernization. By shedding light on the configuration of black geographies in articulation with racialized agrarian change in Colombia, the article contributes to broaden the field of black geographies beyond Anglo-centric literature, establishing a dialogue with Latin American debates on territory and body-territory.