The rise of the Afro-Chilean Movement: An Intersectional Analysis

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 15. Intersectional Approaches

Abstract

In this paper, I use an intersectional lens to explore how race, class, gender, and national origin intersect in the experiences and perceptions of people who are adopting or re-signifying a black or Afrodescendant identity in Chile. I start by briefly describing three historical processes that I argue are crucial for how race is understood in northern Chile: the colonial endeavor and the invention of the modern concept of race; the consolidation through warfare of the Chilean nation-state during the late 19th century; and the instauration of neoliberalism during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973-1990), in a context of global rise of identity politics. In a second moment, I explore how Afro-Chileans in the Region of Arica construct notions of race and blackness today. Based on 50 interviews conducted between April 2016 and July 2017, I analyze the narratives that Afro-Chileans construct around their racial identity and identify how these narratives are gendered, classed, and “nationed”. I put special attention to how local narratives are constituted in connection to global discourses around race and identity, and to how racial categories are mobilized, negotiated, re-signified and sometimes reified by those who are recently embracing them. I finally conclude by exploring possible avenues for the Afro-Chilean movement to transcend their particularistic claims and create coalition politics that can transform the social, economic and political structures that are producing inequality in the first place.

Author

• Antonia Mardones Marshall, University of California-Berkeley