Shirley Campbell Barr

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Campbell and the second or maternal family name is Barr.

Shirley Campbell Barr
Born	San José, Costa Rica
Other names	Shirley Campbell
Occupation(s)	anthropologist, writer, activist
Relatives	Epsy Campbell Barr (sister)

Shirley Campbell Barr is a Costa Rican anthropologist, activist and poet. Her poetic works give voice to her activism set on empowering black women and encouraging them to establish their place in history. Her poem Rotundamente negra (Absolutely Black, 1994) has become a symbol for women in the Afro-descendant women's movements in Latin American for its self-affirming pro-black message.

Early life and education

Shirley Campbell Barr was born in San José, Costa Rica to Shirley Barr Aird and Luis Campbell Patterson. She grew up in a family of two brothers and five sisters, including Epsy Campbell Barr, vice president of Costa Rica. Both of her grandmothers arrived in Costa Rica from Jamaica and from childhood, Campbell spoke Jamaican English. She attended the arts school, Conservatorio de Castella, where she first studied poetry under Ronald Bonilla and Osvaldo Sauma. She recognized that her writing could be used as an instrument to foster change in the perceptions that people of African descent had of themselves and their place in society. While at the conservatory, she began to act in plays and study literature. She attended the University of Costa Rica, earning a degree in anthropology in 1993. She married fellow Costa Rican, Harold Robinson Davis, and because of his work at the United Nations, moved to Zimbabwe in 1994. She took post graduate courses in African history and feminism at the University of Zimbabwe of Harare, while living there for two years.

Career

In 1996, Campbell moved back to Central America and spent three years teaching in El Salvador, and working as an activist with the Garifuna people in Honduras, where she lived briefly but left because of Hurricane Mitch. After moving to Jamaica for a time, she lived in the United States, Brazil]], and Panama, building a broad knowledge of the ways in which the African diaspora have been impacted by globalization. Completing her master's degree in international cooperation and development in 2004 at the Catholic University of Santa María in Arequipa, Peru, Campbell then studied and completed her training at the Fundación Cultural y Estudios Sociales (Cultural and Social Studies Foundation) in Valencia, Spain.

In talking about her writing career, Campbell has said that her goal is to become a role model and to empower black women, allow them to see themselves reflected in society, since they have been historically omitted from representation in academia, media, power structures, and even toys. She considers herself an activist who gives voice to her cause through her writing. Her work has been widely distributed in Latin America and the Caribbean and translated into English, French, and Portuguese. Her first published book, Naciendo (Being Born, 1988) deals with the discovering one's origins and placing them in a historical and cultural context. Her second book, Rotundamente negra (Absolutely Black, 1994), is an iconic work which is widely known by black women from the Caribbean and throughout the Americas. It has become an anthem of sorts for women who participate in the network of Afro-descendant women's groups which have grown exponentially since the 1990s. The first lines of the poem are an unapologetic and self-affirming pro-black statement: "Me niego rotundamente/ a negar mi voz/ mi sangre y mi piel" [I absolutely refuse / to deny my voice,/ my blood and my skin]. Overall, the work does not objectify or sexualize black women's bodies, but validates Campbell's own perception of her appearance from her own aesthetic sense.

In addition to writing, Campbell participates in educational events worldwide in an effort to encourage black women to write their own stories. She has presented essays like Asumiendo responsabilidad por la palabra (Taking Responsibility for the Word) at events like a regional seminar for black women hosted by the United Nations Development Programme in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2009. She has been an invited speaker at the First Meeting of Afro-descendant Writers hosted in 2019 by the University of Costa Rica, and for the exhibition Ancestralidad, África en Nosotros (Ancestry, Africa in Us) held at The Museum of the Institute for Research and Dissemination of Black Cultures in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the same year. "Her poems have been incorporated into various popular performances in Latin America, such as popular radio soap operas, plays, songs, choral poetry, etc. in Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, among others".

Works

• Campbell Barr, Shirley (1988). Naciendo [Being Born] (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Universidad Estatal a Distancia. OCLC 23141415.
• Campbell Barr, Shirley (1994). Rotundamente negra [Absolutely Black] (in Spanish) (1st ed.). San José, Costa Rica: Ediciones Arado. OCLC 36942708.
• Campbell Barr, Shirley; Meoño, Rodolfo (2007). Desde el Principio fue la Mezcla [From the Beginning There Was Mixture] (in Spanish). Heredia, Costa Rica: Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos.
• McDonald, Delia; Campbell Barr, Shirley, eds. (2011). Palabras indelebles de poetas negras [Indelible Words of Black Poets] (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica.
• Campbell Barr, Shirley (2013). Rotundamente negra y otros poemas [Absolutely Black and Other Poems] (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Madrid: Torremozas. ISBN 978-84-7839-540-8.

References

Bibliography

• Capote-Díaz, Virginia (2020). "Rotundamente negra. Un acercamiento a la producción poética de la costarricense Shirley Campbell Barr [Absolutely Black: An Approach to the Poetic Production of the Costa Rican Shirley Campbell Barr]". In Jaramillo, María Mercedes; Osorio, Betty (eds.). Poemas y cantos [Poems and Songs] (in Spanish). Bogotá, Colombia: Ministry of Culture, Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. Archived from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Díaz, Doriam (19 May 2019). "Shirley Campbell, escritora costarricense: 'Yo sí quiero que me etiqueten, yo sí quiero que digan esa es la poeta negra'" [Shirley Campbell, Costa Rican Writer: 'I do want them to label me, I do want them to say that is the black poet']. La Nación (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
• Lunazzi, Eduardo (13 October 2019). "Habla Shirley Campbell: como siempre, 'rotundamente negra'" [Shirley Campbell Speaking: As always, 'absolutely black']. Diario el Isleño (in Spanish). San Andrés City, San Andrés and Providencia. Archived from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Méndez Montero, Andrea (1 September 2019). "Poet Shirley Campbell: 'We have to rewrite our history'". Noticias. San José, Costa Rica: University of Costa Rica. Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Mosby, Dorothy E. (2016). "Traveling Words: A Reflection on "Rotundamente negra" and Afro-Descendant Women's Cultural Politics" (PDF). Meridians. 14 (2). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press: 25–45. doi:10.2979/meridians.14.2.03. ISSN 1536-6936. JSTOR 10.2979/meridians.14.2.03. S2CID 151672380. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Ramsay, Paulette (Spring 2003). "Entrevista a la poeta Afro-costarricense Shirley Campbell" [Interview with the Afro-Costa Rican Poet Shirley Campbell]. Afro-Hispanic Review (in Spanish). 22 (1). Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University: 60–67. ISSN 0278-8969. JSTOR 23054469. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
• Ramsay, Paulette A. (March 2014). "Shirley Campbell's Ideology of Historiographic Legitimation". Hispania. 97 (1). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press for the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese: 140–153. doi:10.1353/hpn.2014.0001. ISSN 0018-2133. JSTOR 24368752. S2CID 145489705. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Schweizer, Melina (16 August 2019). "Ancestralidad, África en Nosotros. Un encuentro con Shirley Campbell Barr" [Ancestry, Africa in Us: An Encounter with Shirley Campbell Barr]. Acento (in Spanish). Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
• Senior-Angulo, Diana (2016). "Campbell Barr, Epsy (1963– ), activist, economist, and politician". In Knight, Franklin W.; Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (eds.). Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-93580-2. – via Oxford University Press's Reference Online (subscription required)
• Solano Rivera, Silvia Elena (January–December 2014). "El giro identitario en la poesía de Shirley Campbell Barr" [The Identity Twist in Shirley Campbell Barr's Poetry]. Repertorio Americano (in Spanish). 2 (24). Heredia, Costa Rica: Universidad de Costa Rica: 371–393. OCLC 1171329018. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Vasconcellos, Ellen Maria (11 June 2020). "Desde que eu tenho memória, de Shirley Campbell Barr // Tradução" ['Since I Have a Memory', by Shirley Campbell Barr // Translation]. Arribação (in Portuguese). Maceió, Brazil. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
• "Libros: Desde el principio fue la mezcla" [Books: From the Beginning There Was Mixture]. Germinal (in Spanish). XIX (183). Heredia, Costa Rica: University of Costa Rica: 14. October 2007. Archived from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.