Christen Smith

Interests

Performance, race, violence, the body, transnational racial formation, Brazil, Latin America, the African Diaspora, social protest theater, social movements, grassroots organizing, black and indigenous struggles

Biography

Dr. Smith's research takes a critical look at the politics of performance, race, violence and the body in Brazil and the Americas. Since 2001 she has conducted ethnographic field research with black activists in Salvador, Bahia around issues of racism and violence that plague that community. This work has led to her ongoing collaborations with activistsand her sustained investment in investigating the global politics of racialized state violence. Her investigations explore how racial formation in Brazil, in addition to being constructed by historical context, social reality and epistemology, is also performed and enacted by the inscription of race onto the body during scenarios of racial contact, moments of violent encounter when disparate identities meet as performance zones informed by both discourse and action that are productive of meaning. Her current book project, Tearing Down the Big House: Performance, Race, Violence and the Body in Brazil, investigates the politics of performance, racial formation, violence and racism in contemporary Brazil through an ethnographic look at the multiple registers of racial violence that frame everyday social interactions in Bahia.

Additional affiliations: Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Center for African and African-American Studies

Courses taught:

Undergraduate: Politics of Race and Violence in Brazil; Image, Race and Latin America
Graduate: Race, Violence and Brazil; Performance, Race, Violence and the Body