Ana Lara

ANA LARA, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, received a grant in April 2021 to aid research on “Ogun’s Fields: Black Ontologies on the Island of Hispaniola.” This project focuses on the figure of Ogun among vudú practitioners ( servidores ) in the Dominican Republic. The study examines the relationship between Ogun and local articulations of Blackness. Lara collaborated with researchers and servidores over a nine-month period to carry out qualitative ethnographic research across Dominican vudú communities. The study asks, “How do servidor mobilizations of Ogun shape articulations of Blackness in the Dominican Republic?” Initial findings point to how servidor mobilizations of Ogun rupture contemporary discourses of hypodescent and mestizaje — carving out a distinct path that is neither. Servidor conceptualizations of Ogun forgo Christian colonial narratives of ethno-racial Catholic Hispanic assimilation into the modern nationalist project and provide an alternative geography of belonging across the island of Hispaniola.