Transnational networks and resource mobilization: The Consolidation of an Afro-descendant agenda in Argentina and Chile

• In Event: 30282 - Transnational Solidarities for Racial Justice

Abstract

In this article, I examine the role of transnational Afro-descendant networks, intergovernmental organizations, multilateral funding agencies, and international legal instruments, on the institutionalization of Afro-descent in Argentina and Chile. In both countries, early activists’ access to transnational alliances and resources, opened political opportunities for local movements to advance their demands and pressure governments to enact ethno-racial reform. Afro-Argentine and Afro-Chilean activists, however, were not equally successful in mobilizing these transnational networks. I find that differences in the time periods in which they began to politically organize produced unexpected consequences for their possibilities of accessing and mobilizing international support to position their demands locally. From the time when the Afro-Argentine movement consolidated (mid-1990s) to when the Afro-Chilean movement did (mid-2000s), there was a pronounced change in multilateral agencies' priorities. Between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, Afro-descendant networks multiplied throughout the region and positioned an Afro-descendant agenda in major international organizations and funding agencies, resulting in unprecedented attention and resources focused on Latin American Black communities, from which Afro-Argentine civil society organizations were able to capitalize. This turned out to be a limited window, however. By the time Afro-Chilean activists reached out seeking assistance and financial resources from multilateral agencies, they were consistently denied support. I conclude that this distinct possibility of mobilizing international resources is crucial to explaining why the Argentine state included an Afro-descendant question in the 2010 National Population Census, while a similar question was rejected in Chile for the 2012 and 2017 national censuses. While Afro-Argentine activists gained support from powerful multilateral agencies to position their statistical inclusion as a priority with state officials, Afro-Chilean activists had to rely instead on national institutions and local allies for political support, a strategy that turned out to be comparatively less successful.

Author

• Antonia Mardones Marshall, Universidad de Tarapaca