Ceylon African Mānja performance: enactments of Black ways of being and Knowing in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

Ceylon Africans are an Afrodiasporic community in Sri Lanka and are the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the island from the 16th–20th centuries. This article focuses on the deployment of Ceylon African mānja performances as an embodiment of memory and Afrodiasporic identity both in private and public spheres. I argue that Ceylon African mānja performances extend beyond an expression of identity and functions as an Africana aesthetic praxis that facilitates memory-keeping work among African-descended peoples in South Asia. Combining theories of Africana aesthetics, memory, and performance with ethnography, I illustrate how mānja performance is a catalyst for individual and communal African identity. This study reveals how mānja performances are not merely limited to enactments of unique cultural practices for the education or admiration of an audience but also about acknowledging the significance of memory, remembering, and re-membering to their life worlds, Africanity, and futurity.

KEYWORDS:

• Ceylon Africans
• western Indian Ocean African diaspora
• mānja
• performance
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by research grants from The Graduate School, the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, and the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University.