Constructions of Cultural Identity in the Poetry of the Afro-Colombian Ángela Castro Garcés' Ramillete pacífico (2013)

Abstract

"Cultural identity… is a matter of becoming as well as of being. It belongs to the future as much as to the past…. identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by and position ourselves within the narratives of the past" (Stewart Hall 98). The preceding excerpt advances a critical aspect of Stuart Hall's characterization of cultural identity. Implied in his exemplification is the centrality of individual agency and participation in the construction of the cultural identity of communities, its grounding in past and present experiences and how it serves to indicate future developments of these communities. This expression or assertion of cultural identity suggests that it is dynamic, subjective and provides an interesting frame within which to locate and analyse Angela Garcés Castro's poems in the collection Ramillete pacífico (2013).