Being and Blackness in Spain: Exploring Contemporary Afro-Spanish Identity

This talk will examine works of contemporary Afro-Spanish authors and artists (Lucía Mbomío Rubio, Desirée Bela-Lobedde and Ruben H. Bermúdez) to comment on the often invisibilized experiences and identity formation of Afrodescendants born and raised in Spain. While Spain is the only country the protagonists of these works have ever known, a theme that resonates throughout them is the questioning of their Spanishness, a constant in a society that considers Spanishness and Blackness mutually exclusive. I examine the ways in which these works articulate a burgeoning Afro-Spanish identity, commenting on references to diasporic Black figures and pop culture that are integral to the protagonists’ development of a Black subjectivity. In addition to aligning themselves with Afro-Spanish contemporaries, the protagonists make connections with aspects of Latin American and US Afro-descendant culture to evoke a transnational sense of Black identity and resistance.