How to listen to an Afro-Caribbean landscape

Claudia Fioretti Bongianino

doi:10.1590/1809-43412020v17d507

Abstract

Abstract Using my 14-month ethnographic research at Old Bank, in the Caribbean coast of Panama, I seek to map how the domains I knew of this village were shaped by the multisensory relationships I established with my interlocutors and the spaces in which they lived, circled, and projected their voices. In dialogue with the Caribbean literature, I show how the locally established contrasts between before and today, as well as the existence of the distinct neighborhoods of the village, expressed the historical process of space occupation, based on the use, inheritance and collective ownership of family land. Finally, connext Ingold's argument about landscape with ethnographic data, underlining how Old Bank´s time and space are created through the relationship between human beings and God.

Highlights

Using my 14-month ethnographic research at Old Bank, in the Caribbean coast of Panama, I seek to map how the domains I knew of this village were shaped by the multisensory relationships I established with my interlocutors and the spaces in which they lived, circled, and projected their voices
Gaia was in Panama City visiting her daughter and going to the doctor’s when her son, Arny, was telling me about the small, one-bedroom apartment built right below her house, which was let out to “people like you” – meaning, in this case, people like me
4 Family Land, in capitals, refers to the widespread Caribbean concept, as discussed by authors such as Clarke (1999 [1957]) and others, while “family land”, in quotations, refers a native concept used by the villages of Old Bank

Summary

Introduction

Using my 14-month ethnographic research at Old Bank, in the Caribbean coast of Panama, I seek to map how the domains I knew of this village were shaped by the multisensory relationships I established with my interlocutors and the spaces in which they lived, circled, and projected their voices. The presence of the Ngobe and Chinese in Old Bank was linked to the Banana Industry, which had its heyday in 1930 (Bourgois 1985), while other foreigners mostly arrived with the development of the tourist industry in the village and in the Boca del Toro region, which took place during the 1990s and 2000s (Clairborne 2010; Spalding 2011).

Results

Conclusion