Resumo

BREWER-GARCIA, Larissa. Black Skin, White Soul: The Ambivalence of Blackness in the Vida prodigiosa of Fray Martín de Porras (1663). Cuad. CILHA [online]. 2012, vol.13, n.2, pp.113-146. ISSN 1852-9615.

The intersection of discourse on Christian universality and discourse on the specific corporality, morality, and spirituality of blacks produced different kinds of subjects of African descent in colonial Spanish American texts. The hagiography of Fray Martín de Porras, written in Lima in 1663 by Dominican Bernardo de Medina, represents Porras's blackness ambivalently: it negotiates the negative symbolic values attributed to the population of African descent in colonial Lima while celebrating Porras as an autochthonous exemplary figure for the viceroyalty of Peru and the Dominican order in general. In this negotiation, Medina represents Porras through an eclectic assortment of characteristics -some associated with the humble classes of Lima's colonial society and others with the elite-. This article shows that in Medina's text Porras is an ambivalent, not hybrid figure: Porras's soul is white and associated with the "white" Spanish/criollo elite class, while his body is dark and associated with the "darker" lower classes. In the text, the ambivalent description of Porras does not threaten the colonial power, but rather supports its hierarchies. By analyzing the dynamics of power at play in the construction of Porras's ambivalent subject, we can reflect on the notions of blackness, hybridity, and ambivalence, and their relation to the growing interest in Afro-colonial topics in the field of colonial Latin American studies.

Palavras-chave : Colonial hagiography; Blackness in colonial Latin America; Saint Martin of Porras.

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