Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

Abstract

Anthropological Perspectives on Human Security eDiteD By thomas eriksen, eLLen BaL anD osCar saLemink A History of Anthropology thomas hyLLanD eriksen anD Finn sivert nieLsen Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives Second Edition thomas hyLLanD eriksen Globalisation: Studies in Anthropology eDiteD By thomas hyLLanD eriksen Small Places, Large Issues:

The Genetic Diversity of the Americas

“…Beyond population segregation enforced by law, a range of other social phenomena may also have affected the rates of admixture across the Americas. Although this is a matter of debate, a substantial social sciences literature argues that racism has been different, and possibly more intense, in British America than in Iberian America (45,56,89,103).…”

A resurgence of black identity in Brazil? Evidence from an analysis of recent censuses

“…The emergence of this particular racialized worldview is associated with the European colonization and enslavement of populations in Africa, Asia, and the Americas and, as such, has not been exclusive to Brazil. For instance, the same historical process has strongly influenced the production of official statistics in other Latin American countries and in the United States (Smedley 2007;Wade 2010;Zuberi 2001).…”

“…Perz et al (2008) suggest that this increase might be associated with the success of identity politics by indigenous movements after the redemocratization of Brazilian society in the mid-1980s. Following a broader literature on indigenous mobilization in Latin America, they argue that these social movements were able to make progress in valorizing indigenous identity and fighting representations which traditionally pictured indigeneity as backward and incompatible with modernity (Wade 2010;Warren 2001).…”

Introduction

“…By now, blood purity had come to be understood as "racial" purity (see, e.g. Casaús Arzú 2007;Martinez-Allier 1989;Wade 1997 for more on these processes).…”

“…There was thus a focus on differences in physical appearance, but this was not yet thought about as biological "race". Instead, the word "race" was understood as "lineage" in European languages at the time-that is, it referred to a notion of kinship rather than fundamentally different kinds of human beings (Wade 1997). However, as Europe embarked on the era of discovery and colonialism, a multitude of concernseconomical, practical, philosophical and theological-merged in a single conception-that of human "races" (see Ystanes 2011:92-108 for a discussion of this process).…”