Roger Sansi, Fetishes And Monuments: Afro-brazilian Art And Culture In The 20th Century

摘要

The subject of Roger Sansi's Fetishes and Monuments is the formation of Afro-Brazilian culture in Salvador da Bahia, starting with the post-slavery years of the latter part of the 19th century and continuing through to the present day. The book describes a 'historical transformation of practices, values and discourses' (p. 3) and as such contributes to an already quite considerable literature on the cultural history of this region. Sansi's analysis is refreshingly different, however. Unlike earlier historical, sociological, and anthropological approaches, which turned on notions of essentialised cultures, relatively fixed religious systems, and clashes of civilisations, Sansi describes the formation of Afro-Brazilian culture as a two-way process of mutual exchange between the Brazilian cultural and political elite and the leaders of prominent Afro-Brazilian religious centres of Candomble.