Uruguay

Candombe

an Afro-Uruguayan practice of memory, community and cultural continuity

Resilience Mechanism

Shared rhythm, dance and public space turn cultural memory into a living practice of belonging. Through regular participation, the AfroUruguayan community sustains bonds between generations, preserves its history and affirms its right to be visible.

What It Means

For Afro-Uruguayan communities, candombe is a living practice of memory, culture, resistance and identity. It brings together drumming in a cuerda — a group of drums moving together — dance, shared neighbourhood space and the passing of knowledge between generations. Candombe is closely linked to Montevideo but is now practised across the country.

Comparsas — candombe groups — gather throughout the year to drum, dance and teach younger participants; the annual Desfile de Llamadas is the best-known public event, but the practice is not limited to carnival season.

How It Works in a Crisis

Shared rhythm creates a regular space where people come together again, rebuild mutual ties and reaffirm their belonging to the community.

Rehearsals, drumming processions and participation across generations help sustain support networks even after people have been dispersed or lost their familiar surroundings. At the same time, entering public space makes the community’s experience visible and turns memory from a private experience into a collective stance. In this way, cultural practice sustains continuity, restores a sense of collective strength and prevents crisis from severing the connection between people, their history and place.

What happens

A crisis disperses people and weakens ties
What we focus on

Shared rhythm, memory and intergenerational participation
How we act

Regular rehearsal and entry into public space
What it gives

Renewed belonging and collective strength

A Lesson for Other Countries

Cultural practice can be a form of mutual care.

Shared rhythm, movement and regular gatherings create a space where people sustain relationships, dignity and a sense of belonging. For communities that have experienced discrimination, displacement or dispersal, such participation helps preserve collective identity, pass memory between generations and sustain cultural continuity.

It can also support wellbeing and mental health by allowing people to be together, see their experience acknowledged and remain part of a community.

It can also support wellbeing and mental health by allowing people to be together, see their experience acknowledged and remain part of a community.

Where It Comes From

Candombe grew out of the experience of enslaved Africans and their descendants in what is now Uruguay. The Salas de Nación were important centres in its development: places of gathering, mutual support and organisation where Afro-Uruguayan communities preserved memory, music and dance and passed knowledge on to younger generations. In this way, candombe developed as a living practice of identity, cultural continuity and resistance.

Its later history is linked to the Montevideo neighbourhoods of Barrio Sur and Palermo. During the 1973–1985 civic-military dictatorship, Afro-Uruguayan families were forcibly evicted from parts of these neighbourhoods. This experience made questions of place, memory and the community’s right to remain visible an important part of candombe’s meaning.

What It Looks Like Today

Candombe remains part of everyday cultural life in Montevideo and across Uruguay. Comparsas gather throughout the year to rehearse drumming and dance, teach younger participants and sustain community relationships.

The annual Desfile de Llamadas is the best-known public event, but the practice is not limited to the parade or carnival season. Neighbourhood llamadas and other gatherings take place across the country.

For Afro-Uruguayan communities, candombe is also a way to remember forced displacement, affirm belonging and resist cultural invisibility.

Limits of the Concept

Candombe should not be presented simply as folklore, carnival or tourist decoration for Uruguay.

Afro-Uruguayan communities who preserved and developed the practice must remain central to the story. Its history of enslavement, racism, cultural appropriation and forced displacement from Barrio Sur and Palermo should not be erased, nor should the structural racism these communities still face. At the same time, candombe is now practised and renewed in many parts of the country.

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