Revisiting Race and Conceptualizing Whiteness in Latin America

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

In Latin America, people assume that the concept of race does not exist because definitions about skin color are not even consistent within national boundaries. Despite a degree of animosity against indigenous, black, and Asian communities, it is commonly assumed that the long tradition of mestizaje (mixed race) has created a flexible and inclusive racial understanding, which has effectively diluted the notion of race. Therefore, “race” as an analytical category is useless in the region, or, even, a neocolonial project. However, there is a myriad of evidence suggesting that the concept of race—not as a biological reality, but rather as a powerful fiction—exists in the everyday life of people in this region. For example, in almost every country in Latin America, skin color and phenotype—what Frantz Fanon calls the epidermal schema—is strongly correlated to class structures. This connection creates a continuum where whiteness and wealth are commonly situated on one side, and, not-whiteness and poverty are usually located on the opposite side of the spectrum. These types of dynamics raise the questions: Does “race” matter in Latin America? Is whiteness a relevant concept in the region? The present panel aims to revisit the notion of race and examine the value of whiteness as an analytical category in the region.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizer

• Hugo Ceron-Anaya, Lehigh University

Chair

• Ulla D Berg, Rutgers University

Discussant

• Patricia Pinho, University of California, Santa Cruz

Individual Presentations

• White Affects, Care Work: Parenting and Latin American Elites in Brazil and Puerto Rico - Ana Y Ramos-Zayas, Yale

• Faultless Whites and Everyday Racism in Urban Latin@ América: Building 'Negra Acomplejada' Epistemologies - Zaire Z Dinzey-Flores, Rutgers University

• Analyzing Whiteness, Deconstructing Privilege in Brazil - Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz

• The Relation between Class, Racialization, Whiteness and Privilege in Contemporary Mexico City - Hugo Ceron-Anaya, Lehigh University