Research Associate Elena Guzman Explores 'Black Spiritual Borderlands'

Elena Herminia Guzman comes to the study of religion from her work with visual anthropology and filmmaking, while exploring the Haitian religious performance, known as Rara. It is through this work that she follows a thread between Rara, African diaspora religions, and gender and sexuality.

Below, Guzman shares how she has explored this work further through WSRP collaboration and her year-long research project, "Chimera Geographies: Black Spiritual Borderland Performances of the Caribbean."

Scholarly Background

I am currently an assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the Department of African and African American and African Diaspora Studies and in the Department of Anthropology. I received my PhD from Cornell University in anthropology, with a specialization within visual anthropology and filmmaking. 

That became a really important part of the work that I do, not only thinking about cultural anthropology, but also how film itself can be a form of scholarship, rather than merely representing scholarship. So, I've come to the study of religion in a bit of a roundabout way.

While I was doing my dissertation fieldwork, my primary interest was actually in Black performance studies. I did my research on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I was interested in how performance was facilitating pan-Caribbean, cross-identity relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I primarily wanted to do that through performance. Particularly, how performance was demonstrating histories and relations.

As I was doing my fieldwork, things kind of shifted, as is usually the case, and I wound up doing a lot of my fieldwork around a religious performance in Haiti called Rara. It happens every year, from Lent to Easter, syncretized to the Christian faith, while having critical Vodou components. 

Most people might see that as kind of contradictory, but it is really a critical part of Caribbean culture more broadly, when thinking about Creolization. And so, I became really interested in the Rara festivals. At that time, even while I was writing my dissertation, I was not necessarily a religion scholar. It is something I would later embrace, given that Vodou is such an important part of the performance of Rara.

Once a dissertation is finished, there always comes the point where I had to decide how my dissertation was going to be different from the book I was going to write. For me, I realized that what interested me most was actually the way people were utilizing these African diasporic religions and rituals. Namely, how it was used to empower people and how people used it for things like economic and cultural gains. I became very interested in those intersections. So, as I started shifting, my book became more about African diasporic religions, with a particular focus on feminist and queer articulations of them.

A Book in the Works

My book is more so looking at a variety of different African diasporic religions and the way that women, queer people, and non-binary people use ritual performance and religion to create these kinds of counter-geographies that act against geographies of capitalism, white supremacy, sexism, and racism. 

I guess the basic ideal of it is the power that religion can have in people's day-to-day lives, but also the role and the power that ritual can have in creating communities and creating these different ways of living in the world that go against everything that we have to live with in the day-to-day world. Living in a capitalist and patriarchal climate, where do we get the opportunity to have refuge from that? 

The basic argument of my book is that religion has the capacity to create this type of refuge, specifically for women, queer people, and non-binary people, because we live in a world that is homophobic, patriarchal, etc., and there has to be a place in which we created these spaces. 

Another critical part of this is that many African diasporic religions offer these alternative understandings of gender. This does not mean there is no patriarchy, racism, or sexism within religions. That is part of any institution. However, there are many conceptions of multiple genders and the ability to break gender binaries, which I think allows for queer people, women, and gender non-binary people to actually use that space very effectively.

There are examples of this within the performances themselves. One of the articles that I published was about the way that Haitian women are using Rara to create these alternative gender scripts within their communities. I analyze the songs that they sing during their marches, and one thing to know about Rara is that the songs are considered to be very sexual. They are all about body parts and this, within a Christian perspective, is obviously considered to be something that is outside of the realm of the sacred. We cannot necessarily talk about the sacred within sex and so I analyze these sexually provocative songs and talk about how, one, not only do they hide deeper meaning in terms of politics—the nature of everything that is happening in the community—but also, they create these alternative scripts for gender possibilities as well, which itself is a part of the sacred.

I think that because they have different conceptions around gender and sexuality in a way that is more open and fluid, you will find queer communities very invested within these religions. It is considered to be a normal aspect, but that still does not suggest that there is no patriarchy or sexism within the religions themselves. It is a little bit of both in the sense that people will join these spaces, but there is also more work that still needs to be done in order to make it a more gender and sex-inclusive space for people of all genders, races, sexualities, etc.

Visual Anthropology and Ethnography

Visual anthropology is a practice of filmmaking that utilizes the tools of anthropology. Its initial use was providing information about other cultures so that we might understand people from faraway places. 

For example, it was used by governments and colonial administrators to understand the Indigenous people of different lands. Since then, it has had many different kinds of feminist interventions. It is essentially filmmaking that is informed by anthropology and the history of visual anthropology, often as a form of ethnography. How people use it is completely dependent upon where they come from and their ideas of it. Some people just think of it as satisfying the need to record culture. Other people think we are actually creating an object out of the film itself and suggest we can do more than merely capture culture on film.

In terms of the relationship between the subject and the filmmaker, there are people within visual anthropology who think their presence is not going to change the way in which subjects act of behave. While alternatively, there are those who think, well no, actually our mere presence changes the whole thing. And so rather than being a passive bystander, we must ask ourselves, "How do we actually participate in this, and to what extent?" And that is something I had to deal with a lot when doing my research. 

I brought a camera to the field and my plan was to just document things I was experiencing during performances, but there were often times you cannot just be the person on the outside. You're someone who is part of this community, and therefore you have to engage. So that line between filmmaker and participant was just completely erased in this circumstance.

After I received my PhD, I had a postdoc at Haverford College, which is where I did a lot of the ideation of my larger book manuscript project where I wondered how I was going to change this project. I also think it was a place where I could embrace more of myself as a visual studies scholar and filmmaker. It was a pretty big transition for me, and it was also the moment I started working on my first film, with their assistance.

When I shifted to Indiana University, I was able to finish my first film and then continue to publish on various topics I'm interested in, which included feminist ethnographic filmmaking and also Rara and African diasporic religions. A lot of my time has been spent developing my scholarly voice as a junior scholar, while also finding my artistic voice as a filmmaker as well.

Ultimately, all of those things coming together is what brought me here for the Women's Studies in Religion Program, and I am using this time to write my book and embed myself more within religious studies.

A Year at the WSRP

It has really been great to have so many people, from so many different religious backgrounds and studies, offering perspectives on religion—the similarities, the differences, and things to think about that I may have not considered. I have been drafting chapters of my book and participating in workshops where we offer feedback to one another. Each of us gets the opportunity to workshop a selection of our work each semester. 

We read each other's drafts and then hold a two-hour meeting to talk about the work and what the strengths are. It is such valuable feedback time, because everyone is truly coming from a different place. Reading their work as well is helpful in not only forcing me outside of my own disciplinary perspective, but also in thinking more broadly about the implications for religious studies beyond my own scope.

One of the largest benefits of this fellowship is that you are around many people coming from different backgrounds, with different interventions, and you are placing yourself within those.

The other is that, before coming here, I had this idea for a chapter that I had been working on for a long time and it was the structure of this program that was most helpful in actually getting it out. Within the span of three months, I was able to put together something I've been struggling with for years.

As for teaching, last semester I taught a course called “Black Spiritual Borderlands,” and it was an amazing experience. I took the opportunity to assign texts that I wanted to read and it gave me the opportunity to delve more into the field of African diasporic religious studies. I have read a lot of books on African diasporic religion; however, I also wanted to read the new work that was coming out. 

The class was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience for me that I will always remember, namely because the type of space we created was really beautiful. We supported each other and talked about the core tenets of various different African diasporic religions. We explored these various and different traditions, but also examined and discovered what was shared between them as well, which led to extensive and profound conversations surrounding life and what religion does for you.

I remember this one particular conversation we had about the concept of evil and how it is presented in African diasporic religions. We used the text to ask ourselves where evil comes into this, which resulted in a discussion about how evil does not function as a core component of the religion. 

We explored the idea that these religions are more so about cosmic balance, which developed into these larger discussions about slavery and colonialism. This allowed us to envision what justice looks like from a religious perspective. It was one of these really beautiful and intense conversations, and we had so many conversations like that.

I'm the type of educator who strives to create a kind of space that is pedagogically distinct. It is not the standard graduate classroom. We are bringing in our feelings. We are bringing in our experiences. These are critical parts of how we are learning. I think that created this space of vulnerability which allowed the students to connect with each other so that each time we had a class, it felt like a spiritual experience. It was a sacred space, and we came to it with all of these different perspectives, while everybody was respectful of each other and seeking to understand others coming from different backgrounds. We thought about this material through the lens of life.

HDS Film Festival

The film festival showcased my first film, called Smile4Kime, which explores mental health and spirituality. It is a really difficult film that talks about death and suicide from the personal perspective of me mourning the loss of a friend and following me as I try to think about how our friendship continues even after death. Part of the tying thread of the film is how I use my own spiritual practices to continue my friendship with my friend who passed away.

The film itself, I always tell people, is a visual altar. It is a living altar of my friend. You cannot expect to just be a passive observer; expect to be pulled in very intensely. I think it is really powerful to have that experience, especially in academic spaces, where you are not necessarily expected to be emotional. I am not only relating to the film and the subject in a relational way, but I also want the audience to do that as well, for them to be engaged in this story, this feeling, whatever it is. That is part of my filmmaking practice as well: How do we make the audience more active in watching this?

Looking Ahead After WSRP

I hope to take advantage of the time I have left. I have one more workshop where I will be presenting my work. I'm excited to get my colleagues' feedback, revise that chapter before I leave here, and then go back to Indiana with a new outlook on my book. Before coming here, I had this idea for a book and maybe a chapter written. Now, I have three chapters done, and I am ready to start seriously thinking about it. I feel like I have accomplished so much during this time.

I also just started a new film project now that my first one is done, and I am realizing that a lot of my filmmaking interest lies in how to represent religion and spirituality in film in a way that is not ethnographic, but in a way that is more participatory and experimental. So I think that this experience is going to shift the way that not only am I thinking about religion within my written scholarship, but also within my film work as well.

—Interview conducted and edited by Rachel Mallett, HDS news correspondent