Museo Garifuna Sawaina in Context: Honduran Neoliberalism, Anti-Colonial Ethnographies & Garifuna Celebrations of Life
Presenter: Bryan Castro-Velez, Bernardo Guerrero, Museo Garifuna Sawaina
Mentor: Sarah Fouts, American Studies
RAC 230 | 2:55 – 3:10 p.m.
A modest community museum on the northeastern coast of Honduras works beyond preservation and instead actively nurtures Afro-Indigenous cultures, realities, and celebrations of life. Contrasting western institutions, Museo Garifuna Sawaina exhibits transformational conceptions of cultural institutions and ethnographic practices led by Afro-Indigenous people in rejection of appropriation, extraction, and taxidermy. My research ultimately reflects upon mestizaje concealing neocolonial developments through the privatization and censorship of public institutions and education. This is a collaborative project that centers and contextualizes Museo Garifuna Sawaina’s community-centric model within its sociopolitical and economic environment, exploring Museo Sawaina as a transformative Honduran institution, with Director Bernardo Guerrero as a co-facilitator. Critical participatory action research, accompaniment and formation analysis will be the primary methodologies to prioritize intellectual ownership to the Garifuna pueblo of Limon, Honduras. I will directly assist in a community-developed project in this contextualization, including subsets, and co-produce a storytelling deliverable (ie. Story/Map, Storytelling Circle). This public-facing component ultimately connects Museo Garifuna Sawaina with the growing international presence of community museums and their efforts to ensure Afro-Indigenous communities remain the rightful stewards of their (hi)stories, traditions, and land.
This work was funded through the Orser Center for Public Humanities.
URCAD is Wednesday, April 22 in the RAC:
URCAD.umbc.edu