The Spatial Politics of Afro-Colombian and Afro-Cuban Mobilization, 1920s-1970s

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel examines Afro-Colombian and Afro-Cuban mobilization in urban and rural spaces from the 1920s to the 1970s. We conceive of black mobilization both as moments in which Afro-Latin Americans organized along racial lines, but also instances that were not defined primarily in ethnic or racial terms, but in which black people participated. We make three main propositions. First, although peasant movements and urban trade union politics have dominated the social histories of 20th century Latin America, we have much to learn about the roles that black people played in these struggles. We contend that a spatial framework, that is, putting black Latin Americans at the center of broader urban and rural politics across the region we can better understand the role that ideas of racial difference and racial stratification played in these lager processes. Second, by focusing on Afro-Latin American mobilization in urban and rural contexts—and the connections between them—we aim to better understand the repertoires and strategies of contention that black Latin Americans deployed to make claims for inclusion, equality and social justice in different settings. Third, both countries offer historical contexts to reflect on the circulation of socialist and progressive ideas and their impact on the labor, peasant and popular organizations that black people participated in: next year marks the centenary of the founding of the first socialist party in Colombia and the 60th anniversary of Cuba’s unfinished Revolution.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizer

• Francisco Florez, Universidad de Cartagena

Chair

• Laura Correa Ochoa, Harvard University

Discussant

• George Reid Andrews, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Afro-Colombian Peasant Mobilization in the Caribbean and Pacific Coasts in the 1970s - Laura Correa Ochoa, Harvard University

• Popular Religion and Popular Protest in a Mid-Century Havana Shantytown - Jesse Horst, Sarah Lawrence College

• White Plague, Salud Negra: Health Activism and Tuberculosis in Cuba, 1925—1965 - Kelly L Urban, University of South Alabama

• Leyendo a Marx, interpretando a Colombia: afrocolombianos y la cuestión racial durante el ascenso del socialismo (1919-1945) - Francisco Florez, Universidad de Cartagena