From Pombagiras to Bizet’s Carmen: Undoing Patriarchal (Mis)Representations of ‘Wicked Women’
Preprints.org June 10, 2026 Marcelo Kuna preprint
The essay argues that the Afro-Brazilian spirit Pombagira—a female enchantress associated with healing and sex, often cast as evil in patriarchal narratives—functions as a decolonial emblem that queers rigid binary categories of womanhood. Drawing on occulture and decolonial theory, the author shows how this figure appears in opera, musical theatre, and film, including Verdi's La forza del destino, Bizet's Carmen, and cinematic Lola characters. The analysis connects Gloria Anzaldúa's queer feminist spiritual mestizaje to Pombagira as an anti-patriarchal force, challenging Western gendered impositions and the epistemicide of Afro-Brazilian traditions.