The Caribbean Carretera: Race, Space and Social Liminality in Costa Rica

Abstract

A single highway connects the Caribbean province of Limo n to mainstream society in the highlands of Costa Rica. This paper explores the ways in which that highway affects the status hierarchy of mainstream society in Costa Rica, and how the construction of whiteness as an unexamined racial qualifier for total social incorporation constrains the perception of blacks as social liminars and blackness as a state of communitas. The argument elaborates the work of Victor Turner on ritual liminality to suggest the structural ambiguity of Afro-Latin Americans in the context of Costa Rica.

El Colonialismo Y Los Skates, Bikers Y Raggas en Limón

“…En general, los Skate desafían la construcción de Limón como un espacio privilegiado de la población afrocostarricense. Ellos no se conforman a la negritud como estatus normativo (Sharman, 2001), al contrario, Skate y Bikers protestan por el hecho de que los medios de comunicación y las personas del Valle Central construyen Limón como un lugar solo de negros y no como un espacio multiétnico. Además reaccionan con expresiones abiertamente racistas, burlándose y haciendo evidente su enojo en contra de la población negra.…”

The Decline of the White Idiosyncratic: Racialization and Otherness in Costa Rica

“…The industry exploded in the late nineteenth century, exporting more than one million bananas by 1890, almost 3,000 times more than the 360 bunches Costa Rica exported in 1880 (Harpelle 2001: 15). Large waves of West Indians sought work in Costa Rica, resulting in a population of 21, 259 persons of African descent noted in the 1927 census, up from 634 in the previous census of 1892 (Harpelle 2001;Sharman 2001).…”

“…This racial regionalization was furthered by the presence of Racism and discrimination against West Indians in the first half of the twentieth century was noticeable, especially after 1920. Beyond the aforementioned prohibitions on immigration and movement, popular discourse implicated blacks as infantile, lazy, dirty and dangerous (Sandoval 2004a;Sharman 2001). In 1939 Picado lamented that the blood of the entire country was blackening as a result of black immigration to Costa Rica; newspaper editorials expressed similar concerns that allowing blacks to stay in Costa Rica could only contribute to its decline [Duncan and Meléndez 2005;Picado (1939Picado ( ) 2004.…”

Gauguin, Negrín and the Art of Anthropology

“…2. The question of why whites would collude in this practice of erasing their presence in Limon through painting is taken up in detail elsewhere (Sharman 1999(Sharman , 2001. Much of it has to do with appropriating the images of their own marginalization from the rest of the nation.…”

“…Soon, white Costa Rican migrant laborers from the highlands joined the Jamaicans in the banana fields, followed by white Costa Rican bureaucrats in front offices and city government. Eventually enfran chised as Costa Ricans, the largely Black population of Limon remained a controversial threat to the white myth of racial purity cultivated in Costa Rica throughout the colonial period (Godmundson 1986;Sharman 2001). not, the questions we turned to, "Where do we come from?…”