ABOUT THIS BOOK

The Garifuna are a Central American, Afro-Indigenous people descended from shipwrecked West Africans and local Indigenous groups on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. For over two centuries, the Garifuna have experienced oppression, exile, and continued diaspora that has stretched their communities to Honduras, Belize, and beyond. However, little has been written about the experiences of the Garifuna in Nicaragua, a community of about 5,000 who live primarily on the Caribbean coast of the country.

In Surviving the Americas, Serena Cosgrove, José Idiáquez, Leonard Joseph Bent, and Andrew Gorvetzian shed light on what it means to be Garifuna today, particularly in Nicaragua. Their research includes over nine months of fieldwork in Garifuna communities in the Pearl Lagoon on the southern Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and in New York City. The resulting ethnography illustrates the unique social issues of the Nicaraguan Garifuna and how their culture, traditions, and reverence for their ancestors continues to persist.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Serena Cosgrove is a Sociologist and Anthropologist. She is an Associate Professor of International Studies and the Director of Latin American Studies at Seattle University; she currently serves as the Faculty Coordinator for SU’s Central America Initiative. Her previous books include the co-authored book, Understanding Global Poverty: Causes, Capabilities, and Human Development (2018), and Leadership from the Margins: Women and Civil Society Organizations in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador (2010).

José Idiáquez is an Anthropologist, a Jesuit priest, and the President of the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua, Nicaragua. His previous books include En Búsqueda de Esperanza: La Migración Ngäbe a Costa Rica y su Impacto en la Juventud (In Search of Hope: Ngäbe Migration to Costa Rica and its Impact on Youth) in 2012 and El Culto a los Ancestros en la Cosmovisión Religiosa de los Garífunas de Nicaragua (The Worship of the Ancestors in the Religious Cosmovision of the Garifuna of Nicaragua) in 1997.

Leonard Joseph Bent is Garifuna; he is a Sociologist and Attorney of Law. He taught Sociology and was the director of the Training and Development Program at the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University until his retirement in 2018. Currently, he is a consultant and practices law.

Andrew Gorvetzian is a graduate student in Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Prior to his studies at UNM, he taught at the Universidad Centro-americana in Managua, Nicaragua and at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico.

REVIEWS

Surviving the Americas is a vivid and intimate account of the Nicaraguan Garifuna. The activist commitments and collaborative nature of the work as well as its decolonial lens provide keen
insights into the persistence of this under-acknowledged Afro-Indigenous community in the Garifuna and African Diasporas.

— Jennifer Goett, Associate Professor of Comparative Cultures and Politics, Michigan State University

Beautifully written… contextualized, and nice integration of academic sources and Garifuna voices.

— Sarah England, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Soka University of America

Ethnographically rich! Surviving the Americas intervenes to decolonize Garifuna ethnography by attending to critical discussions of indigeneity, intersectionality, and resilience.

— Keri Vacanti Brondo, Professor of Anthropology, University of Memphis

"Surviving the Americas is a welcome addition to the literature on Garifuna and Indigenous and Afro descendant Central America. Garifuna in Nicaragua have received little attention in the literature, and the book helps us understand both the diversity of Garifuna communities in Central America and the social and political conditions confronting Garifuna in different nation-states. It is well suited to course adaption in introductory or advanced courses in anthropology, Indigenous studies, or Central American studies. Clearly written and accessible to non-specialists, it provides a compelling account of cultural persistence under neocolonial structures that produce displacement, highlighting how 'those routes that so often take people away from communities while allowing exogenous forces in can also prove to be sources of new hope for resilience.'"

— New West Indian Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Copyright

Dedication

Table of Contents

Garifuna Timeline

Preface: Welcoming: Garifuna Hospitality

Introduction: Being Garifuna

Chapter One: Persisting: Garifuna Histories

Chapter Two: Framing: Decolonial Intersectionality

Chapter Three: Rooting: Garifuna Connection to Nature

Chapter Four: Believing: Garifuna Spirituality

Chapter Five: Routing: Youth Persistence

Chapter Six: Rooting, Routing, and Believing: Garifuna Persistence in Nicaragua, Honduras, and New York City

Chapter Seven: Unlearning/Relearning: Decolonial Methodologies

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Authors