Carnival performances and their political implications underwent significant transformations in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. By focusing on two periods of colonization, this article examines carnival as an event that involves a multitude of meanings and forms of imitation that could imply resistance to colonialism, but were by no means limited to critique and upheaval. Colonizers, colonized, and the people mediating and situated between these overarching categories could ascribe various meanings to specific performances, thereby underlining the multi-dimensional character of carnivalesque rituals and their heterogeneous significations. In these performances, mimicking the colonizers was an active, creative, and ambiguous undertaking that repeatedly and increasingly challenged colonial representation. However, the colonial state proved to be far less controlling and totalizing than is often assumed.

中文翻译：

---

殖民地国家和狂欢节

狂欢节表演及其政治影响在 19 世纪和 20 世纪的西非几内亚比绍发生了重大转变。通过关注两个殖民时期，本文将狂欢节视为一个事件，它涉及多种含义和模仿形式，可能暗示对殖民主义的抵抗，但绝不限于批判和动荡。殖民者、被殖民者以及介于这些总体类别之间的人们可以为特定的表演赋予不同的意义，从而强调狂欢节仪式的多维特征及其异质性意义。在这些表演中，模仿殖民者是一项积极的、创造性的和模棱两可的事业，不断地挑战着殖民代表。然而，