easa

Dear colleagues,

With apologies for cross-posting, Elena Zapponi and I are pleased to
circulate the following call for contributions to our panel at this year's
meeting of the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology:

Call me =E2=80=9Cmamacita=E2=80=9D: Afro-descendant and Caribbean women neg=
otiating hope
and desire

Panel 32 / Quinto Convegno Nazionale SIAC =E2=80=9CSPERARE / DISPERARE / DE=
SIDERARE=E2=80=9D

Matera, 25-27 settembre 2025

Proponenti: Elena Zapponi (Universit=C3=A0 Ca=E2=80=99 Foscari di Venezia),=
Elise
Hjalmarson (University of California, Berkeley)

Abstract

This panel explores the intersections of desire, hope and despair in the
experiences of Latin American and Caribbean women, particularly those who
are Afro-descendant, within transnational economies of intimacy. Legacies
of slavery and the sugarcane economy have historically framed Caribbean and
Brazilian women as desirable and consumable, perpetuating colonial
stereotypes that continue to shape women=E2=80=99s representations and soci=
al
positioning. Constructing women as static objects of desire rather than
actively desiring subjects, such racialized and gendered imaginaries
infiltrate intimate relationships, orient migration trajectories and
exacerbate economic precarity, compelling women to respond. Rather than
reproducing narratives of exoticization, this panel examines how women
navigate racialized and gendered constraints, self-representing and
actively subverting, refining or reclaiming the mamacita figure =E2=80=93 a
male-constructed, reductive and sexualized image =E2=80=93 in some cases, t=
urning
it into a tool of agentic self-definition. We invite contributions that
engage with these themes, bridging historical legacies with contemporary
configurations of desire. By foregrounding women=E2=80=99s lived experience=
s, this
panel challenges deterministic accounts of sexual tourism and
hypersexualization, instead offering a nuanced understanding of how hope
and desire are negotiated across intersecting differences of class, gender,
status and borders.

Keywords: Desire, Hope, Caribbean, Women, Racialized Sexualities

Lingue accettate: Italiano / English / Fran=C3=A7ais / Espa=C3=B1ol

Kindly send your proposed abstract (max 1500 characters) to
elena.zapponi@unive.it and elisehjal@berkeley.edu by May 23.

https://www.siacantropologia.it/panel-32-siac-2025/

A presto,

Elena Zapponi and Elise Hjalmarson