Bomba, Space, and Critical Human Geography
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This project examines Bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican dance-music-cultural practice, as a site of social gathering and a living, embodied archive of collective identity formation. Initial research plans involved archival research conducted in New York City in summer 2025, wherein Van Gyseghem traced gaps and silences in dominant narratives of Puerto Rican history, particularly those that obscure African roots. An unforeseen disruption to archival access caused by a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem revealed ongoing patterns of marginalization affecting Puerto Rican and African American communities and prompted a methodological shift from archival to field-based research.
Through intercommunal networks, Van Gyseghem connected with key figures across political, musical, and dance spaces, gathering oral histories from community leaders and elders. This ongoing research asks how Bomba operates as a practice of cultural preservation and spatial reclamation, and how it shapes collective identity, political action, and modes of futurity within Afro-Nuyorican communities in the context of colonialism, racial marginalization, and social injustice.
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