Jens Andermann, The Optic of the State: Visuality and Power in Argentina and Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), pp. xv+256, $27.95, pb.
to maintaining race as a tool of power. While mestizaje was blooming in the seventeenth century, the Inquisition and several jurists and theologians turned to examine the concept of limpieza and revived the discussion over the religious aspect of bloodlines. The Holy Office assumed that the indigenous had accepted Catholicism and that caciques could claim purity of blood, but other, lesser-known (albeit influential) writers were of the contrary opinion and compared the Indians to the Jews – to the former’s disadvantage. For the eighteenth century Martı́nez uses the casta paintings extensively, and takes the opportunity to reiterate the role of women in the genetic process. She sides with those who view the paintings as reflecting nostalgia for a past that was rapidly crumbling due to the Spaniards’ lack of control over their own women, especially at the lower social levels. This view may still be subject to debate, as are all interpretations derived from these paintings, which have become an anchor to a variety of theses. The fact is that restrictions to exclude castas and reassert cleanliness proliferated. Martı́nez concludes that the religious meaning of limpieza declined rapidly (although not totally), while the concept ‘became embedded in a visual discourse about the body, and in particular about skin color ’ (p. 248). To solve the blurred and contradictory picture of both interpretations, Martı́nez sees the cult of Guadalupe as promoting a creole vision of a Catholic mestizo kingdom (p. 252) even though at the end of that century creoles’ sense of identity was still based on their claim to direct linkages with Iberian Spaniards. Buttressed by an extensive historical literature, this study provides a sweeping coverage of the subject of race and blood cleanliness. Given the great deal of attention that the subject of race has commanded, the issue is : to what extent does the book open new frontiers in current debates over race perception? There is a nagging feeling in the reader that much of what is stated is not necessarily new but reinterpreted and cogently synthesised. However, the examination of seventeenthcentury theories and practices definitely expands our understanding of how theologians, religious authorities and institutions such as the Inquisition debated the meaning of cleanliness even though they never achieved consistency or absolute clarity, owing to significant differences among themselves. By showing how somatic differences were seen through the lens of religion, Martı́nez succeeds in establishing new parameters of analysis. The study of limpieza de sangre and casta construction is a difficult one. Arguments and counter-arguments assault the historian who tries to make sense of the various and often conflicting views contained in legislation and ecclesiastical sources, as well as popular perceptions tangentially wrapped in legal suits or in art. Even though casta and limpieza de sangre will continue to defy the historical imagination, Martı́nez’s effort to make this process clearer to the modern reader is commendable insofar as it provides a thread that helps us to follow nearly 400 years of attempts to define the significance of cleanliness of blood.