Preserving and Promoting Garifuna Culture in the Digital Age

644 Words2 Pages

Garifunas believe that now is the time to fight back for the survival of their culture. The promotion and nurturing of it is crucial. The promotion of Garifuna music through social media and the Internet, has given this transnational community a platform and a sense of connection to other Garifuna communities abroad. Garifuna American Heritage Foundation United is an organization created for the re-acculturation of the Garifuna population in the United States and is teaching individuals the language, history, and culture of their people. Their main objective is the preservation of the culture for the future generations to come, although some aspects of the culture have been lost, other things have been gained and also modified. Garifuna identity …show more content…

As a social group of African descent, they have common historical experiences, with a collective ancestry, a shared culture, which is what gives them a sense of uniqueness. But then again, this is a culture that, according to its geography and history, continues to develop features and builds their future in a social framework that not only derivative from the past, but, beyond the differences, that clearly perceived them as the "other". The Garifuna acquired a significant reputation in the current context of recognition of cultural diversity. They have played an important role in the politics of visibility of people of African descent via the strengthening of ethno-racial categorizations. This role has involved, with peculiarities in each country, the official characterization as 'ethnic group', incorporating their cultural expressions as part of national identity, and recognition of their culture and intangible cultural universal heritage of humanity. Supported by a discourse on their Carib-Arawak roots and permanence of some of their cultural expressions, the Garifuna have been identified and have asserted themselves at certain times in its history the status of indigenous people. Currently, the process of political mobilization of the Garifuna articulates a discourse of inclusion in national societies, while proclaiming their transnational identity as Garifuna and members of the diaspora of African Descent in the Americas. This feature differentiates them from other processes of identity claiming their ethno-racial basis in the Americas, such as indigenous peoples and other African Descent. These dynamics including the Garifuna coexist and interact with other factors, are also based on a structural racial system that has in its roots in the colonial traces that maintain forms of social exclusion and discrimination against these

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