Embodied reclamation: how Big Baby Balam and Danza Ocelotl represent the body as a site for decolonization

Abstract

In this article, I investigate how two paintings—Big Baby Balam and Danza Ocelotl—represent the potential for embodied reclamation for Chicanas/os. Through these paintings, the artist Yreina D. Cervántez situates her body as a site for decolonization through a process which I describe as embodied reclamation. In decolonizing her body and situating her body as a site for decolonization, Cervántez represents the body as a physical and material location that was colonized and can be reclaimed. This article extends decolonial theories to discuss embodied reclamation, which reconceptualizes the body as a physical site for reclamation rather than colonization. I am looking at the way these paintings represent a wrestling with embodied identity, and from that I call for more work exploring the “art of identity” as a strategy of self-making in contexts where particular bodies are Othered and brutalized.