Join us for a conversation with Professor Francio Guadeloupe as he elaborates freedom as a practice that places us in relation to different spheres, including the political and religious, and to all forms of life (not just “those who human”).
Drawing on the radical relationality of the Rastafari notion of the “I-and-I”, and reflecting in particular on music in the Caribbean, Francio draws out how music enables a relational and participatory aesthetic that creates moments of freedom and denaturalises categories of race, identity and gender.
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Biography
Francio Guadeloupe is Professor by special appointment of Public Anthropology of Kingdom Relations at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. His research focus is on the Dutch Caribbean and the Netherlands Antilles, and in particular he is concerned with themes including identity, post-colonialism and social dynamics within kingdom relations. Guadeloupe ’s principal areas of research have been on the manner in which popular understandings of national belonging, cultural diversity, religious identity, and mass media constructions of truth, continue to be impacted by colonial racisms and global capital.
Links to accompany the episode
Music
Bunny Wailer (and the Rastafari notion of the I-and-I)
Armagideon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qWRdMr3Oos
Respeck Band – Freedom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A7cSGhjoz8
On the idea of mi hendenan in the Dutch Caribbean:
Rincon Boysz and Jéon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDyfJ3_OGDU
On the Haitian “nèg”, which is a radical resignification leading the term to mean simply “human” (and tied to it in modern form the “kita nago” movement emulating the movement of the cross for peace):
Carimi – Kita Nago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0j6LP_5Ieg
Midnite, Rastafari Now (and music based on the heart beat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wyPwbAnTRc
Francio’s writing
Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism
in the Caribbean (University of California Press, 2009): https://www.ucpress.edu/books/chanting-down-the-new-jerusalem/paper
Link to Black man in the Netherlands: An Afro-Antillean Anthropology University press of Mississippi, 2002): https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/B/Black-Man-in-the-Netherlands
Francio recommends …
Patrick Chamoiseau, The Old Slave and the Mastiff, trans. Linda Coverdale. Dialogue Books, 2018.
Podcast hosts
Dr Férdia Stone-Davis: www.ferdiastonedavis.com
Dr Charissa Granger: https://sta.uwi.edu/fhe/dlcc/dr-charissa-granger
Podcast acknowledgements
The Sounding Freedom and Liberation music was composed by Samuel J. Wilson. Website: https://www.samueljwilson.com/profile
The Sounding Freedom and Liberation logo was designed by Pavlína Kašparová. Website: https://www.creativenun.com/bio
The Podcast was recorded at the Media Lab, the West Hub, Cambridge, and was edited by Mike Chivers
