Sustaining Anti-Black Colonial Logics Through Caring Dehumanization in a Chilean School

• In Event: The hidden side of emancipation: Historicizing well-intentioned educational projects.

Abstract

1. Objectives
This work examines the dynamics of body representation of students of African descent in a Chilean school. This study draws on a larger ethnographic research project conducted at the San Francisco Voucher School (SFVS) in Santiago, Chile’s capital, where nearly half of the students were of immigrant origin, with 80% originally from Haiti. Rooted in the social justice values of diversity and inclusion for marginalized communities, the school fostered practices that aimed to develop a sense of belonging among immigrant students. Yet, educators’ good intentions reached a limit when they collide with anti-Black sentiments and attitudes.

2. Theoretical Framework
This work draws on an understanding of anti-Blackness as a form of dehumanization. Within this frame of reference, anti-Blackness is more profound than negative attitudes or discrimination against a group. Dumas and Nelson (2016) argue that “dehumanization involves something far more dangerous: a construction of the Other as not human, as less than human, and therefore undeserving of the emotional and moral recognition accorded to those whose shared humanity is understood” (p.29). The Chilean society inherited from colonization (Fanon, 2021) and has maintained uncontested (Tijoux, 2016) that Blackness is foreign, undesired, and immoral, while Whiteness is Chilean, advantageous, and decent.

3. Methods and Data Sources
This ethnographic study, conducted over a four-year period, draws on 600 hours of participant observation and over 100 interviews. Participants included educators, administrators, and custodial staff, among others. I formally interviewed 12 students from Haiti, 13 students from Chile, four students from Venezuela, and one student from Colombia. All interviewees were at least 13 years old and provided written consent before the interview. All minors had their parents’ consent to participate in the interview.

4. Findings
In a social justice-oriented Chilean school, educators’ caring intentions failed to disrupt systemic anti-Blackness. Teachers often resorted to race-evasive practices when confronted with overt racism, leaving students of African descent to endure persistent verbal and physical violence from peers. This conflict manifested in well-intentioned but dehumanizing (Dumas & Nelson, 2016) school initiatives, such as a mural depicting Afrodescendant children with non-human skin tones. Consequently, students were deprived of a healthy ethnoracial identity formation, leading them to reject associations with Blackness in favor of identifying as simply “human” or “Haitian” and using light-skinned tones in their self-portraits.

Even though their teachers, peers, and the Chilean society label the students of African descent as Black, and the students acknowledged experiencing anti-Blackness, they rejected this identification since it signified “the archetype of the inferior values” (Fanon, 2021, p.166)

5. Significance
My work contributes to the growing literature examining ethnoracial dynamics in Latin America (Bonhomme, 2023; Sue, 2013; Telles & Paschel, 2014). Understanding how race is constructed, understood, and approached in Chile, especially at the school level, is crucial for building mechanisms that disrupt dominant racial hierarchies. Furthermore, as this research shows, through anti-racist curriculum and pedagogies, educators ought to learn how to support students to “skim over this absurd drama that others have staged” (Fanon, 2021, p.174) around them.

Author

• Maria Eugenia Rojas Concha, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso