Anti-blackness in Latin America: Neo-liberalism, Urban Renewal, and Resistance

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Latin American societies were long thought to be more racially and spatially integrated than northern ones due to the primacy of mestizaje as a model of national identity and due to the lack of official segregation policies. Through an examination of black eviction and resistance in various sites (Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay), this panel dispels the myth of racial democracy by foregrounding the anti-black racism inherent in neo-liberal policies and urban renewal projects. By focusing on black women’s organizing, the panel will also point to the centrality of gender and land in contemporary Afro-Latin American politics and resistance.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Chair

• Vannina Sztainbok

Individual Presentations

• The Violent Routinization of Black Dispossession in the Americas - Keisha Khan Y Perry, Brown University

• Affirmative Action in Uruguay - Erica E Townsend-Bell, Oklahoma State University

• Eviction, Criminalization and (B)ordering : Race and Spatial Marginalization in Latin America - Vannina Sztainbok