ABSTRACT
The rapid development of the Carnival industry has generated a series of contradictions for the Afro-Brazilian community in Salvador, Bahia. In economic terms, extreme marginalization contrasts with unprecedented communitarian and individual opportunity. 1 In terms of social and ethnic status, stigmatization through racism contrasts with a prestigious valorization of aesthetic expressions. 2 As for the repertoire of symbols invoked by noted Afro-Bahian Carnival activists, whether in formal manifestos, statements, and commentary, or in artistic expression, the discourse is again articulated on a broad axis: on the one hand, the immediate cultural realm of the city of Salvador with its various concrete manifestations: streets, squares, neighborhoods, cuisine, musical forms, traditions, and peculiarities; on the other hand, beyond municipality, state, and nation, the international domain. The differing informants of the discourse are, respectively, a rich history of localized culture—largely restricted, even within the state of Bahia, to the region around Salvador and All Saints Bay known as the Recôncavo—and the developments of globalization, particularly in terms of two cultural paradigms: first, internationalized consumption of cultural goods, including the “world music” market, which facilitates dissemination of Bahian music, and the cultural tourism that brings foreigners to Bahia; and second, Afrocentric ethnic affirmation, encompassing pan-Africanism, the African-American struggle for social equity, and the separatism of Jamaican Rastafarianism as propagated in reggae music.
