Blackness and the Politics of Recognition in Latin America

In 2015, for the first time in Mexico's history, there was an official count of its population of African descent, thus leaving Chile as the only nation in the hemisphere not have done this. A year prior, Brazil introduced a quota system for all federal jobs, leading to new questions about who qualifies for these positions. These examples and more highlight a new era in Latin America that questions who counts -- both literally as with censuses and figuratively as with affirmative action -- as Afro-descended in a region characterized by racial mixture. In this course, we will analyze the new turn toward racial governance as we grapple with the following questions: How does the racial governance of the 21st century upend or echo the racial governance of the colonial era? How does this new era affect our understanding of race and identity? What is lost and gained by counting people as black? For AFAS majors, this course counts as Area Requirement 4.
Course Attributes: EN S; BU BA; BU IS; AS LCD; AS SSC

Blackness and the Politics of Recognition in Latin America

AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES 211

Section 01