Peter Wade
The University of Manchester, Social Anthropology, Faculty Member
- I work on issues of race, ethnicity and nation in Latin America, with special reference to Afro-descendant groups and... moreI work on issues of race, ethnicity and nation in Latin America, with special reference to Afro-descendant groups and to Colombia. In January 2010, I started directing an ESRC-funded project on "Race, genomics and mestizaje (mixture) in Latin America: a comparative approach", which examines the way concepts of race, ethnicity and nation enter into recent genomic research about the ancestry of Latin American populations and how findings from such research are received and interpreted in the public domain. In August 2011, this project was extended by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust to focus in more depth on public engagement with scientific information about genomics, health, "race" and ancestry. From September 2013, I took up a three-year British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship for a project titled "Race, nation and genomics: biology and society" in order to write up the many results of these projects. In January 2017, I started work on a project on "Latin American Anti-racism in a 'Post-Racial' Age - LAPORA" (see https://www.lapora.sociology.cam.ac.uk/). In 2020, I started to direct the three-year project "Cultures of Anti-Racism in Latin America - CARLA (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/carla/), which led to a major online exhibition of anti-racist and decolonial art (https://www.digitalexhibitions.manchester.ac.uk/s/carla-en/page/home). In March 2021, I began to collaborate on a project led by James Scorer, "Comics and Race in Latin America - CORALA" (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/comics-and-race-in-latin-america/).edit
This is Chapter 1 (Introduction) of my book Blackness and Race Mixture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).
Research Interests:
Powerful narratives often describe Latin American nations as fundamentally mestizo. These narratives have hampered the acknowledgment of racism in the region, but recent multiculturalist reforms have increased recognition of Black and... more
Powerful narratives often describe Latin American nations as fundamentally mestizo. These narratives have hampered the acknowledgment of racism in the region, but recent multiculturalist reforms have increased recognition of Black and Indigenous identities and cultures. Multiculturalism may focus on identity and visibility and address more casual and social forms of racism, but can also distract attention from structural racism and racialized inequality, and constrain larger antiracist initiatives. Additionally, multiple understandings of how racism and antiracism fit into projects of social transformation make racism a complex and multifaceted issue. The essays in Against Racism examine actors in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico that move beyond recognition politics to address structural inequalities and material conflicts and build common ground with other marginalized groups. The organizations in this study advocate an approach to deep social structural transformation that is inclusive, fosters alliances, and is inspired by a radical imagination.
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Latin America’s long history of showing how racism can co-exist with racial mixture and conviviality offers useful ammunition for strengthening anti-racist stances. This volume asks whether cultural production has a particular role to... more
Latin America’s long history of showing how racism can co-exist with racial mixture and conviviality offers useful ammunition for strengthening anti-racist stances. This volume asks whether cultural production has a particular role to play within discourses and practices of anti-racism in Latin America and the Caribbean. The contributors analyse music, performance, education, language, film and art in diverse national contexts across the region.
The book also places Latin American and Caribbean racial formations within a broader global context. It shows that the region provides valuable opportunities for thinking about anti-racism, not least when recent political events worldwide have shown that, far from a 'post-racial' age, we are living in an era of intensified racist expression and racial injustice.
The book also places Latin American and Caribbean racial formations within a broader global context. It shows that the region provides valuable opportunities for thinking about anti-racism, not least when recent political events worldwide have shown that, far from a 'post-racial' age, we are living in an era of intensified racist expression and racial injustice.
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Race mixture, or mestizaje, has played a critical role in the history, culture, and politics of Latin America. In Degrees of Mixture, Degrees of Freedom, Peter Wade draws on a multidisciplinary research study in Mexico, Brazil, and... more
Race mixture, or mestizaje, has played a critical role in the history, culture, and politics of Latin America. In Degrees of Mixture, Degrees of Freedom, Peter Wade draws on a multidisciplinary research study in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. He shows how Latin American elites and outside observers have emphasized mixture's democratizing potential, depicting it as a useful resource for addressing problems of racism (claiming that race mixture undoes racial difference and hierarchy), while Latin American scientists participate in this narrative with claims that genetic studies of mestizos can help isolate genetic contributors to diabetes and obesity and improve health for all. Wade argues that, in the process, genomics produces biologized versions of racialized difference within the nation and the region, but a comparative approach nuances the simple idea that highly racialized societies give rise to highly racialized genomics. Wade examines the tensions between mixture and purity, and between equality and hierarchy in liberal political orders, exploring how ideas and scientific data about genetic mixture are produced and circulate through complex networks.
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The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics... more
The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics to transfigure and transform existing ways of thinking about human diversity are often overstated. If a range of social contexts are examined, the effects are uneven. Our data show that genomic knowledge can unsettle and reinforce ideas of nation and race; it can be both banal and highly politicized. In this introduction, we outline concepts of genetic knowledge in society; theories of genetics, nation and race; approaches to public understandings of science; and the Latin American contexts of transnational ideas of nation and race.
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In genetics laboratories in Latin America, scientists have been mapping the genomes of local populations, seeking to locate the genetic basis of complex diseases and to trace population histories. As part of their work, geneticists often... more
In genetics laboratories in Latin America, scientists have been mapping the genomes of local populations, seeking to locate the genetic basis of complex diseases and to trace population histories. As part of their work, geneticists often calculate the European, African, and Amerindian genetic ancestry of populations. Some researchers explicitly connect their findings to questions of national identity and racial and ethnic difference, bringing their research to bear on issues of politics and identity.
Based on ethnographic research in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the contributors to Mestizo Genomics explore how the concepts of race, ethnicity, nation, and gender enter into and are affected by genomic research. In Latin America, national identities are often based on ideas about mestizaje (race mixture), rather than racial division. Since mestizaje is said to involve relations between European men and indigenous or African women, gender is a key factor in Latin American genomics and the analyses in this book. Also important are links between contemporary genomics and recent moves toward official multiculturalism in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. One of the first studies of its kind, Mestizo Genomics sheds new light on the interrelations between "race," identity, and genomics in Latin America.
Contributors. Adriana Díaz del Castillo H., Roosbelinda Cárdenas, Vivette García Deister, Verlan Valle Gaspar Neto, Michael Kent, Carlos López Beltrán, María Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Eduardo Restrepo, Mariana Rios Sandoval, Ernesto Schwartz-Marín, Ricardo Ventura Santos, Peter Wade
Based on ethnographic research in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the contributors to Mestizo Genomics explore how the concepts of race, ethnicity, nation, and gender enter into and are affected by genomic research. In Latin America, national identities are often based on ideas about mestizaje (race mixture), rather than racial division. Since mestizaje is said to involve relations between European men and indigenous or African women, gender is a key factor in Latin American genomics and the analyses in this book. Also important are links between contemporary genomics and recent moves toward official multiculturalism in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. One of the first studies of its kind, Mestizo Genomics sheds new light on the interrelations between "race," identity, and genomics in Latin America.
Contributors. Adriana Díaz del Castillo H., Roosbelinda Cárdenas, Vivette García Deister, Verlan Valle Gaspar Neto, Michael Kent, Carlos López Beltrán, María Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Eduardo Restrepo, Mariana Rios Sandoval, Ernesto Schwartz-Marín, Ricardo Ventura Santos, Peter Wade
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Publisher's blurb: "For over ten years, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America has been an essential text for students studying the region. This second edition adds new material and brings the analysis up to date. Race and ethnic... more
Publisher's blurb:
"For over ten years, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America has been an essential text for students studying the region. This second edition adds new material and brings the analysis up to date.
Race and ethnic identities are increasingly salient in Latin America. Peter Wade examines changing perspectives on Black and Indian populations in the region, tracing similarities and differences in the way these peoples have been seen by academics and national elites. Race and ethnicity as analytical concepts are re-examined in order to assess their usefulness.
This book should be the first port of call for anthropologists and sociologists studying identity in Latin America."
"For over ten years, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America has been an essential text for students studying the region. This second edition adds new material and brings the analysis up to date.
Race and ethnic identities are increasingly salient in Latin America. Peter Wade examines changing perspectives on Black and Indian populations in the region, tracing similarities and differences in the way these peoples have been seen by academics and national elites. Race and ethnicity as analytical concepts are re-examined in order to assess their usefulness.
This book should be the first port of call for anthropologists and sociologists studying identity in Latin America."
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"The intersection of race and sex in Latin America is a subject touched upon by many disciplines but this is the first book to deal solely with these issues. Interracial sexual relations are often a key mythic basis for Latin American... more
"The intersection of race and sex in Latin America is a subject touched upon by many disciplines but this is the first book to deal solely with these issues.
Interracial sexual relations are often a key mythic basis for Latin American national identities, but the importance of this has been underexplored. Peter Wade provides a pioneering overview of the growing literature on race and sex in the region, covering historical aspects and contemporary debates. He includes both black and indigenous people in the frame, as well as mixed and white people, avoiding the implication that "race" means "black-white" relations.
Challenging but accessible, this book will appeal across the humanities and social sciences, particularly to students of anthropology, gender studies, history and Latin American studies."
Interracial sexual relations are often a key mythic basis for Latin American national identities, but the importance of this has been underexplored. Peter Wade provides a pioneering overview of the growing literature on race and sex in the region, covering historical aspects and contemporary debates. He includes both black and indigenous people in the frame, as well as mixed and white people, avoiding the implication that "race" means "black-white" relations.
Challenging but accessible, this book will appeal across the humanities and social sciences, particularly to students of anthropology, gender studies, history and Latin American studies."
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Since the controversial scientific race theories of the 1930s, anthropologists have generally avoided directly addressing the issue of race, viewing it as a social construct. Challenging this tradition, Peter Wade proposes in this volume... more
Since the controversial scientific race theories of the 1930s, anthropologists have generally avoided directly addressing the issue of race, viewing it as a social construct. Challenging this tradition, Peter Wade proposes in this volume that anthropologists can in fact play an important role in the study of race.
Wade is critical of contemporary theoretical studies of race formulated within the contexts of colonial history, sociology and cultural studies. Instead he argues for a new direction; one which anthropology is well placed to explore. Taking the study of race beyond Western notions of the individual, Wade argues for new paradigms in social science, in particular in the development of connections between race, sex and gender. An understanding of these issues within an anthropological context, he contends, is vital for defining personhood and identity.
Race is often defined by its reference to biology, ‘blood,’ genes, nature or essence. Yet these concepts are often left unexamined. Integrating material from the history of science, science studies, and anthropological studies of kinship and new reproductive technologies, as well as from studies of race, Peter Wade explores the meaning of such terms and interrogates the relationship between nature and culture in ideas about race.
Wade is critical of contemporary theoretical studies of race formulated within the contexts of colonial history, sociology and cultural studies. Instead he argues for a new direction; one which anthropology is well placed to explore. Taking the study of race beyond Western notions of the individual, Wade argues for new paradigms in social science, in particular in the development of connections between race, sex and gender. An understanding of these issues within an anthropological context, he contends, is vital for defining personhood and identity.
Race is often defined by its reference to biology, ‘blood,’ genes, nature or essence. Yet these concepts are often left unexamined. Integrating material from the history of science, science studies, and anthropological studies of kinship and new reproductive technologies, as well as from studies of race, Peter Wade explores the meaning of such terms and interrogates the relationship between nature and culture in ideas about race.
Research Interests:
Long a favorite on dance floors in Latin America, the porro, cumbia, and vallenato styles that make up Colombia's musica tropical are now enjoying international success. How did this music which has its roots in a black, marginal region... more
Long a favorite on dance floors in Latin America, the porro, cumbia, and vallenato styles that make up Colombia's musica tropical are now enjoying international success. How did this music which has its roots in a black, marginal region of the country manage, from the 1940s onward, to become so popular in a nation that had prided itself on its white heritage? Peter Wade explores the history of musica tropical, analyzing its rise in the context of the development of the broadcast media, rapid urbanization, and regional struggles for power. Using archival sources and oral histories, Wade shows how big band renditions of cumbia and porro in the 1940s and 1950s suggested both old traditions and new liberties, especially for women, speaking to a deeply rooted image of black music as sensuous. Recently, nostalgic, "whitened" versions of musica tropical have gained popularity as part of government-sponsored multiculturalism. Wade's fresh look at the way music transforms and is transformed by ideologies of race, nation, sexuality, tradition, and modernity is the first book-length study of Colombian popular music.
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Focusing on humorous cartoons about the Conquest published between 1945 and 1970 in an Argentinian popular comic magazine and on a Colombian educational and politically militant comic-book narrative history of the same events, published... more
Focusing on humorous cartoons about the Conquest published between 1945 and 1970 in an Argentinian popular comic magazine and on a Colombian educational and politically militant comic-book narrative history of the same events, published in 1978, I analyse how the publications used mixed temporalities when relating historical events. I challenge the common idea that disrupting linear timelines by mixing temporalities necessarily has politically progressive effects. The humorous cartoons typically portray Indigenous Americans from the fifteenth century as ‘primitives’ who nevertheless behaved in ‘modern’ ways, but this temporal disruption in fact works to erase the responsibility of dominant classes for Indigenous disadvantage. In contrast, the educational comic-book brings Indigenous people from the conquest into the present, talking directly to the readers and interpellating them as comrades in the struggle. Yet this comic-book also portrays Indigenous people in generic stereotyped ways, illustrating the difficulty of shaking off these colonial ‘recursions’ (Ann Stoler)
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It has often been asked if Latin America has any lessons in anti-racism for other regions. This kind of comparative approach reifies and homogenises regions as distinct “cases”, obscuring common ground. In contrast, a relational approach... more
It has often been asked if Latin America has any lessons in anti-racism for other regions. This kind of comparative approach reifies and homogenises regions as distinct “cases”, obscuring common ground. In contrast, a relational approach highlights commonalities and suggests that learning experiences in developing anti-racism can be shared across and within different contexts. Examples from Ecuador and Mexico suggest that the historical relation between race and class in Latin America has produced a “racially-aware class consciousness” that could be mistaken as a simple “lesson” for other regions about how to balance a politics of recognition with one of redistribution. A relational approach highlights that this “lesson” also applies within Latin American countries, because this racially-aware class consciousness is not simply a fully-formed given, but instead needs to be activated and developed in progressive directions, pushing against the currents of history and coloniality.
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We are currently witnessing a turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America. The recognition of racism is not new, but the attention and challenge to racism, in such an orchestrated way, is. What are the signals of such turn to racism... more
We are currently witnessing a turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America. The recognition of racism is not new, but the attention and challenge to racism, in such an orchestrated way, is. What are the signals of such turn to racism and anti-racism? What are the overall lessons for Latin America and from Latin America to global antiracist efforts? This introduction looks at the arguments of the articles in this special issue to highlight how issues of racial visibility, naming racism, racial data, legal rights and recognition, entrepreneurship, mestizo identity, the possibilities of alliances, racially-aware struggles against class (and gendered) oppression, are key to understanding this turn. While we do not claim that these articles cover the full extent of this turn in Latin America, we suggest that analysing how this turn appears in Latin American opens useful ways of thinking about anti-racism more widely.
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Genomic science values the genetic diversity revealed by advances in genetic sequencing that allow the detailed mapping of diversity at the level of the individual as well as the population group. This has reinforced the idea that humans... more
Genomic science values the genetic diversity revealed by advances in genetic sequencing that allow the detailed mapping of diversity at the level of the individual as well as the population group. This has reinforced the idea that humans share the vast majority of their DNA and that the diversity that does exist cannot be parcelled into biological categories that align with older categories of race, which are deeply implicated in the practices and structures of racism. However, the practice of genomic science and medical genetics continues to make use of collective categories and populations. This paper argues that practices in genomic science in Latin America change but also reproduce and even reinforce (by biologizing) familiar and enduring categories of race at different levels in societyamong scientists and among non-scientists. The Latin American cases are particular in showing that race is often parsed through ideas about the nation, seen as emerging from the mixture of three ancestral populations. Biologisation effects can reinforce the racism (and nationalism) that depend on racialised categories. The paper ends by arguing that these effects are a result of the basic concept of population that has in the past and continues today to organise genetic diversity in science practice, despite the ability of genomic technologies to handle genetic diversity at the level of the individual. The grounding role of the population concept is accentuated by Latin American national identities being based on ideas of mixture, which entails a corresponding idea of original purities.
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This article explores a dual dynamic of simultaneous subordination and limited inclusion of Blackness in Latin America, using the example of a 1920s’ Argentinian comic strip, “Página del Dólar”. The comic's representations of Black people... more
This article explores a dual dynamic of simultaneous subordination and limited inclusion of Blackness in Latin America, using the example of a 1920s’ Argentinian comic strip, “Página del Dólar”. The comic's representations of Black people are racist, but also ambivalent and complex. Going beyond common characterisations of the exclusion/inclusion dynamic as a mask of inclusion hiding the reality of exclusion, I argue that the simultaneity and interpenetration of exclusion-plus-inclusion are important for understanding Latin American racial formations. The dynamic works in multiple ways are not fully appreciated in the literature, which emphasises the reproduction of racial hierarchy: as well, it lends specificity to images of the nation; and it provides a moral benchmark for middle classes, especially in relational and ambiguous class and racial locations. The domain of humour is apt for conveying ambivalent meanings, because it provides distance for the reader (“it's just a joke”), while also transmitting important affective charge.
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In history and anthropology, there has traditionally been a strong tendency to deal with Latin American indigenous and Afrodescendant people as separate categories. The separation has been structured by conceptual distinctions between... more
In history and anthropology, there has traditionally been a strong tendency to deal with Latin American indigenous and Afrodescendant people as separate categories. The separation has been structured by conceptual distinctions between rural and urban, ethnicity and race, anthropology and sociology, and more and less “other.” This academic tendency has deep roots in colonial and postcolonial governance practices, which treated indigenous Americans and Africans as very distinct – in terms of their places in the legal system and in the political-economic divisions of labor, and in terms of their moral-physical constitution – and posited a basic antagonism between them. The practice of colonial authorities tended to assume the separation of the two categories, and this was reproduced in the historical archive, fragmenting and masking evidence of exchanges and interactions. The same separation continued in different ways in regimes of governance after independence and into the present day. This divergence influenced the shape of anthropology in Latin America, when, during the twentieth century, it was institutionalized as a discipline that focused almost entirely on indigenous peoples, often seen as under threat not only from whites and mestizos, but also blacks. The study of Afrodescendants was undertaken by historians and sociologists, but they too obeyed a conceptual distinction that kept apart black and indigenous.
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Naming racism has been usually seen as a necessary step for understanding racism and undertaking anti-racist action. However, the explicit naming of racism does not immediately tell us what kind of understanding of racism is at stake nor... more
Naming racism has been usually seen as a necessary step for understanding racism and undertaking anti-racist action. However, the explicit naming of racism does not immediately tell us what kind of understanding of racism is at stake nor what kinds of action will follow. In the context of an incipient turn to antiracism in Latin America we conducted a project looking at antiracist activities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. It became apparent that different organisations varied markedly in their approaches to the concept and language of racism. Some explicitly use the language of racism, other organisations do not, even though they are engaged in struggles for land, rights, etc., which clearly have a racialised dimension. This difference revealed variations in the awareness of racism, which came in and out of focus in their practice. With examples from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador, we discuss the antiracist effects of what we call "alternative grammars of antiracism" and the "racially-aware class consciousness" they imply. We end by questioning the assumption that the explicit naming of racism as such is necessary to advance antiracist work, and suggest that employment of more indirect ways of evoking racism, which imply an awareness of structural racism, have some advantages for antiracist practice.
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This chapter explores the character of Latin American racisms and the way they have been shaped by ideologies and practices of mestizaje (biological and cultural mixture). The chapter traces the historical process of mixture that produced... more
This chapter explores the character of Latin American racisms and the way they have been shaped by ideologies and practices of mestizaje (biological and cultural mixture). The chapter traces the historical process of mixture that produced mestizos (mixed people) and also underpinned the idea of the mestizo nation, seen as founded on racial difference, but as having overcome racism through mixture. Claims to being "racial democracies" were, from the nineteenth century, made on a global stage and, after the Second World War, a global turn to anti-racism prompted social scientists to look at Brazil as a test case of racial democracy. Brazil failed the test and data accumulated documenting racial disadvantage and racism. However, mixture continued to obfuscate the operation of racism, by generating real experiences of racial conviviality. Post-1990 changes towards global trends in multiculturalismand, from the early 2000s, towards an incipient naming of racismaltered the shape of mestizaje-based racial formations in Latin America, but did not displace them.
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This paper explores the history and meanings of mestizaje in Latin /America, with a focus on Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, and assessing its relationship to practices of conviviality. A brief overview of the colonial origins and... more
This paper explores the history and meanings of mestizaje in Latin /America, with a focus on Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, and assessing its relationship to practices of conviviality. A brief overview of the colonial origins and significance of mixture is followed by an exploration of the way mestizaje figured as a nation-building discourse in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Challenges to the image of the mestizo nation that were strengthened by the regional turn to multiculturalism are then assessed, before re-evaluating mestizaje as a resilient ideology that has not been easily toppled, partly because it contains within it contradictory tensions between conviviality and racism, which make it adaptable. Finally, the paper review recent work in genomic science that reiterates the image of the mestizo nation.
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This chapter examines two major spatio-temporal narratives embedded within human population genomic science. It explores what these narratives say about the evolution and history of humanity as a whole, and what their political... more
This chapter examines two major spatio-temporal narratives embedded within human population genomic science. It explores what these narratives say about the evolution and history of humanity as a whole, and what their political implications are. One major narrative is embedded in a theory of evolution which explains how human populations developed in specific – often continent-sized – environmental niches, shaped by the classic evolutionary mechanisms of natural and sexual selection, endogamic mating, genetic drift, founder effects, and population bottlenecks. The chapter discusses the implications and affordances of the narratives in terms of the claims that can be made about human unity and diversity. It looks at the more directly political and policy-relevant – what Kirtsoglou and Simpson would call chonocratic – dimensions of the human futures that derive from these claims about unity and diversity, taking as an example the problem of racial disparities in health outcomes, which some people believe genetics can help to resolve.
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Forensic DNA practice is about identification, about establishing the identity of an individual, usually a suspect, a perpetrator or a victim. Yet in order to establish this identity, the individual has to be placed in the context of a... more
Forensic DNA practice is about identification, about establishing the identity of an individual, usually a suspect, a perpetrator or a victim. Yet in order to establish this identity, the individual has to be placed in the context of a population. The contributions in this special issue zoom in on this relation between the individual and the population. Our aim is to attend closely to the kind of work that forensic genetics is made to do; the kind of (legal, political, societal) infrastructures necessary for that work; and the ways it necessarily orders social relations, producing effects of proximity and distance between collectives, while apparently dealing only with the individual. Race-as a particular and highly charged kind of collective category-is a central concern in this special issue and focusing on the tension between the individual and the collective helps us to broaden its scope and view the different kinds of politics at stake when it becomes entwined in the work of forensic technologies. In this introduction to the special issue 'Doing the Individual and the Collective in Forensic Genetics: Governance, Race and Restitution' we will first elaborate the relation between the individual and the population in the context of forensic genetics, and address how 'the population' changed from being a problem for DNA evidence in the early nineties to become a category of value for present-day applications. We will explicate the ways in which the valuing of population comes with a resurgence of race through the controversial UK case of the Night Stalker. We will then address other collectives that are valued and mobilised in forensic genetic research, arguing that this is part and parcel of forensic DNA being not solely an identification tool but also increasingly a tool to generate leads during the criminal investigation. Finally as forensic genetic methods and technologies have nowadays travelled to disparate fields we will briefly address its role in migration and border management regimes and the dual processes of control of migrants and restitution through family reunification.
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It is well-known that genetics carries a double moral and ethical valence: on the one hand, it has been heralded as a way to advance humans' ability to fight disease, increase well-being, reduce criminality and enhance knowledge of the... more
It is well-known that genetics carries a double moral and ethical valence: on the one hand, it has been heralded as a way to advance humans' ability to fight disease, increase well-being, reduce criminality and enhance knowledge of the pre-historical past; on the other hand, alarm bells have been sounded in relation to dystopian futures characterised by ever-more intrusive surveillance and control, and the reinforcing of discriminations and exclusions of various kinds. Forensic genetics has been linked, via the identification of human remains, to restitution, reconciliation and justice in post-conflict situations; and, via the analysis of crime-scene DNA, to the increased apprehension of dangerous criminals. It has also been linked to the creation of databases that are ethically suspect in their racial bias, their handling of privacy and the way they provide tools for increased state and private surveillance and control, which can infringe human rights.
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The chapter starts with Colombia’s 2005 Census, which broke new grounds in ethnic-racial counting. It then reviews how authorities and experts measured racial demography and mixedness from colonial times through the twentieth century,... more
The chapter starts with Colombia’s 2005 Census, which broke new grounds in ethnic-racial counting. It then reviews how authorities and experts measured racial demography and mixedness from colonial times through the twentieth century, focusing on census and survey practice, and touching on citizen identity cards. In 1991, Colombia was constitutionally defined as pluriethnic, and census and survey practice shifted accordingly, with a key milestone being the 2005 Census. The data produced by this shift are critically reviewed, noting when and how mixedness is measured. The chapter ends with an assessment of recent attempts in genomic science to measure mixedness in terms of genetic ancestry, and it emphasizes the difference between genetic profiles and social identities.
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Human population genomics aims to improve health for all, trace human migration histories and refine forensic identification techniques. These aims transcend national borders: geneticists are part of a global community supported by... more
Human population genomics aims to improve health for all, trace human migration histories and refine forensic identification techniques. These aims transcend national borders: geneticists are part of a global community supported by transnational infrastructures. At this level, concerns have been raised that, in its intense focus on genetic difference, genomics re-inscribes “racial” differences. But global genomics is always enacted in specific contexts: although many projects are internationally collaborative, geneticists are embedded in national contexts and their data speak to questions of national identity and ethnic/“racial” diversity. In genomics in Brazil and Mexico “racial” difference is very clear – despite disavowals – because of the role of ideas about race mixture in national identity. Drawing on data collected in a comparative project, I show how genomic data figured in different ways in narratives about the Brazilian and Mexican nations. These national contexts show how “race” is reproduced in genomics more widely.
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Download one of >90 free PDFs at this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/b7b8BmrwmdnhucnJUtzv/full We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class... more
Download one of >90 free PDFs at this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/b7b8BmrwmdnhucnJUtzv/full
We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class and national identity. Drawing on interviews with geneticists and doctors treating obese children, the paper makes two contributions to the literature on race and medical science. First, although our data reveal familiar racializing tendencies among geneticists, a more nuanced view is needed, as medical doctors who are sceptical about genetic explanations nevertheless tend to racialize, using more environmental and cultural explanations, which adduce epigenetic mechanisms. Second, rather than focusing on minority groups, as in much literature on racialization and genetics, in Mexico ideas about racialized genetic (and cultural) ancestry also impinge on the majority “mestizo” (mixed-race) population, opening broader panoramas of racialized pathologization. These two factors represent an overall strengthening of discourses of race in Mexico and probably in much of Latin America.
We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class and national identity. Drawing on interviews with geneticists and doctors treating obese children, the paper makes two contributions to the literature on race and medical science. First, although our data reveal familiar racializing tendencies among geneticists, a more nuanced view is needed, as medical doctors who are sceptical about genetic explanations nevertheless tend to racialize, using more environmental and cultural explanations, which adduce epigenetic mechanisms. Second, rather than focusing on minority groups, as in much literature on racialization and genetics, in Mexico ideas about racialized genetic (and cultural) ancestry also impinge on the majority “mestizo” (mixed-race) population, opening broader panoramas of racialized pathologization. These two factors represent an overall strengthening of discourses of race in Mexico and probably in much of Latin America.
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This article explores Latin American genomic studies of mestizaje and the way mestizaje's inherent contradiction between equality and hierarchy—a contradiction typical of liberalism—is managed in genomics. In Latin America, ideologies and... more
This article explores Latin American genomic studies of mestizaje and the way mestizaje's inherent contradiction between equality and hierarchy—a contradiction typical of liberalism—is managed in genomics. In Latin America, ideologies and practices of mestizaje may be seen as an antidote to hierarchies of race and class, but also as a terrain for the enactment of these hierarchies. Mestizaje mediates this contradiction between equality and hierarchy first by deploying the idea of sexual intimacy and family kinship across racial difference, and second by representing blackness and indigeneity as spatially peripheral and temporally backward-looking, thus naturalizing them as other. Multiculturalism can be seen as a recent variant on these themes, as well as a departure from them. Recent genomics research in Latin America strongly reiterates these ideas, while also adding some new twists. Despite its apparent connection with progressive politics and policies (antiracism, better health for all, protection of human rights for victims of oppression), genomics here appears as a mainly conservative force.
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Down load one of >40 free PDF versions with this link https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UqpjGmF8UxWiJKEiJXNZ/full Mestizaje has been theorized as a racial–cultural process of nationalist homogenization, as a mode of subaltern... more
Down load one of >40 free PDF versions with this link https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UqpjGmF8UxWiJKEiJXNZ/full
Mestizaje has been theorized as a racial–cultural process of nationalist homogenization, as a mode of subaltern contestation or inconformity, and as a practice that simultaneously combines both inclusion and exclusion. This exclusive inclusion is characteristic of liberalism generally, and may involve violence. The core meanings of mestizaje are rooted in sex and reproduction, which allow ideas of inclusion (family, kinship) to gain traction. These ideas mask the violence of mestizaje (rape, coercion, enforced assimilation, elimination). In Colombia, the long-standing tension between democracy and violence has recently articulated in a particular way with mestizaje as this has become reconí°gured as inclusive multiculturalism, coinciding with the explosive spread of extreme violence to once peaceful 'black regions' of the country. This violence should not be understood as inherently racial – for example, as purposely targeting black populations. But in placing mestizaje in relation to multiculturalism through a common dynamic of inclusion and exclusion that characterizes liberal social orders in general, I highlight the racialized connections between mestizaje and violence in the Colombian context.
Mestizaje has been theorized as a racial–cultural process of nationalist homogenization, as a mode of subaltern contestation or inconformity, and as a practice that simultaneously combines both inclusion and exclusion. This exclusive inclusion is characteristic of liberalism generally, and may involve violence. The core meanings of mestizaje are rooted in sex and reproduction, which allow ideas of inclusion (family, kinship) to gain traction. These ideas mask the violence of mestizaje (rape, coercion, enforced assimilation, elimination). In Colombia, the long-standing tension between democracy and violence has recently articulated in a particular way with mestizaje as this has become reconí°gured as inclusive multiculturalism, coinciding with the explosive spread of extreme violence to once peaceful 'black regions' of the country. This violence should not be understood as inherently racial – for example, as purposely targeting black populations. But in placing mestizaje in relation to multiculturalism through a common dynamic of inclusion and exclusion that characterizes liberal social orders in general, I highlight the racialized connections between mestizaje and violence in the Colombian context.
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In this paper I argue that the concept of disapora is problematic insofar as it implies a process of traffic outwards from an origin point (usually seen as geographical, cultural and/or " racial "). This origin is often seen as being a... more
In this paper I argue that the concept of disapora is problematic insofar as it implies a process of traffic outwards from an origin point (usually seen as geographical, cultural and/or " racial "). This origin is often seen as being a key to the definition of diaspora—without it, the concept descends into generalized incoherence (Brubaker 2005). I want to argue for the continued usefulness of a concept of diaspora, in which the " origin " is understood as a space of imagination (which is not to say that it is imaginary, although it may also be that) and in which the connections between the " outlying " points of the diaspora are as important, or more so, than the connections between the outliers and the origin. Analytically speaking, diaspora has to be distanced from simple concerns with uni-directional outward dispersals from a single origin point (which may also carry certain masculinist connotations). Specifically, I think the concept of diaspora points at a kind of cultural continuity but one where " cultural continuity appears as the mode of cultural change " (Sahlins 1993, 19). For theorists such as Hall and Gilroy, diaspora serves as an antidote to what Gilroy calls " camp thinking " and its associated essentialism: diasporic identities are " creolized, syncretized, hybridized and chronically impure
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The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics... more
The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics to transfigure and transform existing ways of thinking about human diversity are often overstated. If a range of social contexts are examined, the effects are uneven. Our data show that genomic knowledge can unsettle and reinforce ideas of nation and race; it can be both banal and highly politicized. In this introduction, we outline concepts of genetic knowledge in society; theories of genetics, nation and race; approaches to public understandings of science; and the Latin American contexts of transnational ideas of nation and race.
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Using data from focus groups conducted in Colombia, we explore how educated lay audiences faced with scenarios about ancestry and genetics draw on widespread and dominant notions of nation, race and belonging in Colombia to ascribe... more
Using data from focus groups conducted in Colombia, we explore how educated lay audiences faced with scenarios about ancestry and genetics draw on widespread and dominant notions of nation, race and belonging in Colombia to ascribe ancestry to collectivities and to themselves as individuals. People from a life sciences background tend to deploy idioms of race and genetics more readily than people from a humanities and race-critical background. When they considered individuals, people tempered or domesticated the more mechanistic explanations about racialized physical appearance, ancestry and genetics that were apparent at the collective level. Ideas of the latency and manifestation of invisible traits were an aspect of this domestication. People ceded ultimate authority to genetic science, but deployed it to work alongside what they already knew. Notions of genetic essentialism co-exist with the strategic use of genetic ancestry in ways that both fix and unfix race. Our data indicate the importance of attending to the different epistemological stances through which people define authoritative knowledge and to the importance of distinguishing the scale of resolution at which the question of diversity is being posed.
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This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects – the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ and the... more
This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects – the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ and the ‘Homo Brasilis’ – both of which sought to establish national and genetic profiles. Both have reproduced and strengthened the idea of their respective nations of focus, incorporating biological elements into debates on social identities. Also, both have placed the unifying figure of the mestizo/mestiço at the heart of national identity constructions, and in so doing have displaced alternative identity categories, such as those based on race. However, having been developed in different national contexts, these projects have had distinct scientific and social trajectories: in Mexico, the genomic mestizo is mobilized mainly in relation to health, while in Brazil the key arena is that of race. We show the importance of the nation as a frame for mobilizing genetic data in public policy debates, and demonstrate how race comes in and out of focus in different Latin American national contexts of genomic research, while never completely disappearing.
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This article analyses interrelations between genetic ancestry research, political conflict and social identity. It focuses on the debate on race-based affirmative action policies, which have been implemented in Brazil since the turn of... more
This article analyses interrelations between genetic ancestry research, political conflict and social identity. It focuses on the debate on race-based affirmative action policies, which have been implemented in Brazil since the turn of the century. Genetic evidence of high levels of admixture in the Brazilian population has become a key element of arguments that question the validity of the category of race for the development of public policies. In response, members of Brazil’s black movement have dismissed the relevance of genetics by arguing, first, that in Brazil race functions as a social – rather than a biological – category, and, second, that racial classification and discrimination in this country are based on appearance, rather than on genotype. This article highlights the importance of power relations and political interests in shaping public engagements with genetic research and their social consequences.
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This essay explores the argument that David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín make in their book Culling the Masses about the relationship between liberalism and racism, in terms of a balance between inclusion and exclusion. I... more
This essay explores the argument that David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín make in their book Culling the Masses about the relationship between liberalism and racism, in terms of a balance between inclusion and exclusion. I challenge their dismissal of approaches that see an integral connection between the two and of approaches that see liberalism as inherently opposed to racism. I also discuss their characterization of Latin American ‘racist anti-racism’ and finish by questioning the way that they separate racism from economics.
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This article examines the role that vernacular notions of racialized-regional difference play in the constitution and stabilization of DNA populations in Colombian forensic science, in what we frame as a process of public science. In... more
This article examines the role that vernacular notions of racialized-regional difference play in the constitution and stabilization of DNA populations in Colombian forensic science, in what we frame as a process of public science. In public science, the imaginations of the scientific world and common-sense public knowledge are integral to the production and circulation of science itself. We explore the origins and circulation of a scientific object – ‘La Tabla’, published in Paredes et al. and used in genetic forensic identification procedures – among genetic research institutes, forensic genetics laboratories and courtrooms in Bogotá. We unveil the double life of this central object of forensic genetics. On the one hand, La Tabla enjoys an indisputable public place in the processing of forensic genetic evidence in Colombia (paternity cases, identification of bodies, etc.). On the other hand, the relations it establishes between ‘race’, geography and genetics are questioned among population geneticists in Colombia. Although forensic technicians are aware of the disputes among population geneticists, they use and endorse the relations established between genetics, ‘race’ and geography because these fit with common-sense notions of visible bodily difference and the regionalization of race in the Colombian nation.
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In this article, we explore the ways in which genetic research reconfigures historically rooted debates on race and national identity by analyzing the intense debates that have taken place in the past decade in Brazil around the genetic... more
In this article, we explore the ways in which genetic research reconfigures historically rooted debates on race and national identity by analyzing the intense debates that have taken place in the past decade in Brazil around the genetic profile of the nation's population. Such debates have not only featured a significant variety of interpretations by different geneticists but also involved the media, policy makers, and social movements. Here we focus in particular on the ways in which genetic knowledge and the arguments it makes possible have reproduced, contested, or transformed pre existing narratives about race and national identity in Brazil. A central underlying tension in these debates is that between unity and diversity—between views that consider the Brazilian population as a single unit that cannot be differentiated except at the individual level and alternative interpretations that emphasize the multiplicity of its populations in terms of race, region, and genetic ancestry.
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Recent work on genomics and race makes the argument that concepts and categories of race are subtly reproduced in the practice of genomic science, despite the explicit rejection of race as meaningful biological reality by many... more
Recent work on genomics and race makes the argument that concepts and categories of race are subtly reproduced in the practice of genomic science, despite the explicit rejection of race as meaningful biological reality by many geneticists. Our argument in this paper is that racialized meanings in genomics, rather than standing alone, are very often wrapped up in ideas about nation. This seems to us a rather neglected aspect in the literature about genomics and race. More specifically, we characterize race as an absent presence in Latin America and argue that genomics in the region finds a particular expression of race through concepts of nation, because this vehicle suits the deep-rooted ambiguity of race in the region. To make this argument we use data from an ethnographic project with genetics labs in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
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In this paper, I explore the ways regimes of citizenship and national imaginaries in Latin America depend on simultaneous and co-existing processes of inclusion and exclusion. Part of this is channelled through ideologies of mestizaje or... more
In this paper, I explore the ways regimes of citizenship and national imaginaries in Latin America depend on simultaneous and co-existing processes of inclusion and exclusion. Part of this is channelled through ideologies of mestizaje or racial-cultural mixture, in which indigenous and black peoples are both included as populations that help constitute the mixture that most Latin American nations proclaim themselves to be; and yet also excluded as backward, undeveloped participants who are racially-culturally inferior. I relate this simultaneous inclusion and exclusion to Agamben’s state of exception, which is also characterised by an ambiguous inclusive exclusion, and examine this in the context of the co-existence in Colombia of a durable democracy and elaborate judicial system with extreme modes of state, but more especially non-state or paramilitary, violence. I then trace the relationship between these political processes of inclusion (democracy, law) and exclusion (violence) and processes of mestizaje. I look first at the late nineteenth and early to mid twentieth centuries, before examining the post 1991 context of official multiculturalism and the spread of extreme violence to once peaceful “black regions” of the country. I argue that multiculturalism has dethroned mestizaje as the official sign of the nation and made more evident the distance between inclusion and exclusion.
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‘Service’, particularly ‘domestic service’, operates as a specific articulation or intersection of processes of race, class, gender and age that reiterates images of the sexual desirability of some women racially marked by blackness or... more
‘Service’, particularly ‘domestic service’, operates as a specific articulation or intersection of processes of race, class, gender and age that reiterates images of the sexual desirability of some women racially marked by blackness or indigeneity in Latin America. The sexualisation of racially subordinated people has been linked to the exercise of power. This article focuses on an aspect of subordination related to the condition of being a servant, and the ‘domestication’ and ‘acculturation’ that domestic service implies in societies where black and indigenous people are often linked to ‘backwardness’. Perceived racial otherness, class subordination, gender, age and domesticated servitude together reinforce an erotic image of sexual availability, particularly in younger women.
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Genomic research in Latin America has researched the African, Amerindian and European ancestry of local populations. This article explores how indigeneity and blackness figure in genomic science in the light of previous and current... more
Genomic research in Latin America has researched the African, Amerindian and European ancestry of local populations. This article explores how indigeneity and blackness figure in genomic science in the light of previous and current representations of indigenous and Afrodescendent people. These categories have been cast as ‘other’ in Latin America, but they have occupied different locations in ‘structures of alterity’. I look briefly at these similarities and differences in the colonial and republican periods and in recent multiculturalist reforms. I look at the gendered sexual imagery surrounding each concept, before examining in detail how blackness and indigeneity figure in gendered ways in genomic science research on admixture and ancestry, mainly in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. I conclude that, in the context of multiculturalism, genomics works to re-centre imaginaries of the nation around the mestizo and mixture, while casting blackness and indigeneity, in sexualised and gendered ways, as different kinds of others.
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Download one of 50 free PDF copies at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SDrd6xvaBUvaKuQm3t2t/full?target=10.1080/01419870.2011.632428
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Download a free PDF copy at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/vJ3yxpVb9MqPzyURhI9S/full?target=10.1080/03085147.2011.548941
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This paper looks at the complex relationship between concepts employed by social scientists and those used in everyday practice and discourse, arguing that the standard ideas about how ideas travel from one domain (state, academe, social... more
This paper looks at the complex relationship between concepts employed by social scientists and those used in everyday practice and discourse, arguing that the standard ideas about how ideas travel from one domain (state, academe, social movements, everyday usage) to another, and become essentialised or destabilised in the process, are often too simple. Changing definitions of blackness in Colombia, through the process of multiculturalist reform and after, are examined with a view to exploring which categories of actors were influential in shaping these definitions and which were involved in essentialisations and de-essentialisations.
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This chapter contains sections titled:
Historical Background
Race and Culture in Latin America
Mestizaje, Difference, Multiculturalism, and Globalization
References
Historical Background
Race and Culture in Latin America
Mestizaje, Difference, Multiculturalism, and Globalization
References
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This chapter contains sections titled:
Background
The Emergence and Shape of Ethnic Movements
Context and Causes
Ethnic Movements, Legal Reform, and Social Policy
Achievements and Challenges
bibliography
Background
The Emergence and Shape of Ethnic Movements
Context and Causes
Ethnic Movements, Legal Reform, and Social Policy
Achievements and Challenges
bibliography
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ABSTRACT Peter Wade, Doctor en Antropología Social por la Universidad deCambridge y actualmente profesor en la Universidad deManchester (Reino Unido) ha dedicado la mayor parte de su vidaa explorar las relaciones étnicas y las ideas de... more
ABSTRACT Peter Wade, Doctor en Antropología Social por la Universidad deCambridge y actualmente profesor en la Universidad deManchester (Reino Unido) ha dedicado la mayor parte de su vidaa explorar las relaciones étnicas y las ideas de raza que existenen América Latina, con particular referencia a las poblacionesnegras. A lo largo de su trayectoria académica Peter Wade haestudiado los procesos de discriminación racial, identidad negra,y movimiento social negro, incorporando también la sexualidad asus temas centrales de investigación.Wade es autor de libros como “Raza y Etnicidad en AméricaLatina” o “Música, Raza y Nación”, una de las mejorespublicaciones sobre música popular colombiana, y de artículoscomo Afro-Latin Studies: Reflections on the Field o HybridityTheory and Kinship Thinking. En la actualidad combina su labordocente con su participación en el macro proyecto PublicUndestanding of Genetics (PUG), que cuenta con siete equiposde investigación en diferentes países de la Unión Europea.
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Narrativas poderosas descrevem as nações latino-americanas como fundamentalmente mestiças. Essas narrativas dificultaram o reconhecimento do racismo na região, mas as recentes viradas multiculturalistas aumentaram o reconhecimento das... more
Narrativas poderosas descrevem as nações latino-americanas como fundamentalmente mestiças. Essas narrativas dificultaram o reconhecimento do racismo na região, mas as recentes viradas multiculturalistas aumentaram o reconhecimento das culturas e das identidades negras e indígenas. O multiculturalismo pode focar em questões de identidade e visibilidade e abordar formas despreocupadas de racismo, mas também pode desviar a atenção do racismo estrutural e da desigualdade racializada e, assim, restringir iniciativas antirracistas mais amplas. Além disso, múltiplos entendimentos de como o racismo e o antirracismo se inserem em projetos de transformação social tornam o racismo uma questão complexa e multifacetada. Os sete ensaios de Contra o racismo investigam atores no Brasil, Colômbia, Equador e México que vão além da política de reconhecimento para abordar desigualdades estruturais e construir um terreno comum com outros grupos marginalizados. As organizações deste estudo defendem uma abordagem de transformação estrutural social que promova alianças, seja inclusiva e inspirada por uma imaginação radical.
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Este artículo explora posturas que se oponen al uso de categorías y conceptos raciales en la vida pública, afirmando que dicho uso refuerza la realidad biológica del concepto raza y, por lo tanto, refuerza el racismo. Estos son argumentos... more
Este artículo explora posturas que se oponen al uso de categorías y conceptos raciales en la vida pública, afirmando que dicho uso refuerza la realidad biológica del concepto raza y, por lo tanto, refuerza el racismo. Estos son argumentos válidos y la refutación de la realidad biológica de la raza es una lucha que sigue vigente. Luego exploro argumentos que favorecen el uso de categorías y conceptos raciales, alegando que son herramientas valiosas para combatir el racismo, entendido como un sistema que, si bien ha hecho uso de la idea de raza como una realidad biológica, no depende de esta idea. Esbozo las formas en que las categorías y conceptos raciales van más allá de la idea de realidad biológica. El uso de categorías y conceptos raciales en la vida pública es productivo, siempre que el uso esté ligado a la lucha contra la desigualdad racializada y evite ser desviado por completo hacia una política de la identidad.
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Las formas de racismo en América Latina fueron moldeadas en gran medida por las ideologías y las prácticas del mestizaje, considerado tanto mezcla biológica como cultural. La imagen de la «democracia racial» mostró, por ejemplo en Brasil,... more
Las formas de racismo en América Latina fueron moldeadas en gran medida por las ideologías y las prácticas del mestizaje, considerado tanto mezcla biológica como cultural. La imagen de la «democracia racial» mostró, por ejemplo en Brasil, sus severos límites a la hora de acabar con el racismo. Sin embargo, la imagen de la «mezcla» siguió
operando como un velo sobre la persistencia de este fenómeno. El multiculturalismo en la década de 1990 y el antirracismo en los 2000 alteraron las formaciones raciales basadas en el mestizaje en América Latina, pero no las desplazaron.
operando como un velo sobre la persistencia de este fenómeno. El multiculturalismo en la década de 1990 y el antirracismo en los 2000 alteraron las formaciones raciales basadas en el mestizaje en América Latina, pero no las desplazaron.
Research Interests: Racismo and Anti-racismo
Propongo que, para entender la reproducción de la desigualdad racializada y la operación del racismo, hay que apreciar como la intersección sociedad-espacio acumula dimensiones racializadas a través de la historia. En Colombia, las... more
Propongo que, para entender la reproducción de la desigualdad racializada y la operación del racismo, hay que apreciar como la intersección sociedad-espacio acumula dimensiones racializadas a través de la historia. En Colombia, las diferencias racializadas que iban surgiendo y tomando forma en el orden colonial al mismo tiempo iban adquiriendo unas dimensiones espacializadas. En este artículo, primero se aborda la relación teórica sociedad-espacio y luego se describen los procesos históricas por las cuales la diferencia racializada iban adquiriendo dimensiones regionales en Colombia. Se muestra cómo estas estructuras racializadas de región influyen en las relaciones sociales racializadas, por medio de la colonización fronteriza y la migración a las urbes. La conclusión reflexiona sobre la nación colombiana vista como entidad constituida por dinámicas relacionales que tienen dimensiones a la vez espacializadas y racializadas. ABSTRACT I propose that, to understand the reproduction of racialized inequality and the operation of racism, we must appreciate how the intersection of society and space historically accumulates racialized dimensions. In Colombia, the racialized differences that emerged and took shape in the colonial order simultaneously acquired spatial dimensions. In this article, I first address the theoretical relationship between society and space and then describe the historical processes by which racialized differences acquired regional dimensions in Colombia. I show how these racialized structures of region influence racialized social relations, through frontier colonization and urban migration. The conclusion reflects on the Colombian nation seen as an entity constituted by relational dynamics that have both spatialized and racialized dimensions.
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Resumen: En esta mirada selectiva de los estudios afrodescendientes en Latinoamérica, comienzo con los temas de designación y clasificación racial, antes de explorar aspectos de discriminación racial y racismo, y la manera como estos son... more
Resumen: En esta mirada selectiva de los estudios afrodescendientes en Latinoamérica, comienzo con los temas de designación y clasificación racial, antes de explorar aspectos de discriminación racial y racismo, y la manera como estos son abordados por los gobiernos y los movimientos sociales negros. Esto trae la pregunta sobre la blancura y el privilegio. Luego analizo el estatus de las ideologías y las prácticas de mestizaje, luego de 30 años de movilización política negra.
Abstract: In this selective view of Afrodescendant Studies in Latin America, I start with issues of naming and racial classification, before exploring issues of racial discrimination and racism, and how these are addressed by governments and black social movements. This raises the question of whiteness and privilege. I then review the status of ideologies and practices of mestizaje, in the wake of 30 years of black political mobilization.
Abstract: In this selective view of Afrodescendant Studies in Latin America, I start with issues of naming and racial classification, before exploring issues of racial discrimination and racism, and how these are addressed by governments and black social movements. This raises the question of whiteness and privilege. I then review the status of ideologies and practices of mestizaje, in the wake of 30 years of black political mobilization.
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Este ensayo repiensa el papel que desempeña la racialización en Latinoamérica, y la pone en relación con el multiculturalismo. El multiculturalismo oficial no necesariamente conduce a la disminución del racismo y puede quedarse en gestos... more
Este ensayo repiensa el papel que desempeña la racialización en Latinoamérica, y la pone en relación con el multiculturalismo. El multiculturalismo oficial no necesariamente conduce a la disminución del racismo y puede quedarse en gestos retóricos. Es necesario enfocar el racismo y el concepto de raza como fenómenos con historia y fuerza social propias. En este artículo se mira cómo este concepto ha sido marginado en las discusiones sobre la desigualdad en Latinoamérica, y por qué es necesario ver a Latinoamérica como parte integral de las Américas negras. Además, cómo el concepto de raza se ha manifestado en Latinoamérica más de lo pensado. Se propone también que las cuestiones de raza y de racismo están ganando más espacio público en Colombia (y en Brasil). El multiculturalismo se tiene que entender como un campo de batalla, para definir sus efectos políticos.
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Octava reunión anual del Group for Debates in Anthropological
Theory –GDAT–, realizada en la Universidad de Manchester
el 30 de noviembre de 1996
Theory –GDAT–, realizada en la Universidad de Manchester
el 30 de noviembre de 1996
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En este trabajo quiero presentar una cronología convencional del concepto raza que marca un movimiento en el cual raza cambia de ser una idea basada en la cultura y el medio ambiente, a ser algo biológico, in#exible y determinante, para... more
En este trabajo quiero presentar una cronología convencional del concepto raza que marca un movimiento en el cual raza cambia de ser una idea basada en la cultura y el medio ambiente, a ser algo biológico, in#exible y determinante, para luego volver a ser una noción que habla de la cultura. Resumo cómo la idea de raza ha cambiado a través del tiempo, mirando necesariamente el rol que ha desempeñado la ciencia, y enfocando los diferentes discursos de índole natural-cultural sobre los cuerpos, el medio ambiente y el comportamiento, en los cuales las dimensiones culturales y naturales siempre coexisten. “La naturaleza” no puede ser entendida solamente como “la biología” y ni la naturaleza ni la biología necesariamente implican sólo el determinismo, la &jeza y la inmutabilidad Estar abiertos a la coexistencia de la cultura y la naturaleza y a la mutabilidad de la naturaleza nos permite ver mejor el ámbito de acción del pensamiento racial.
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The files uploaded here are: a) Introduction by Peter Wade, Fernando Urrea Giraldo and Mara Viveros Vigoya, "Identidades racializadas y sexualidades en América Latina: a manera de introducción" b) chapter by Peter Wade, "Debates... more
The files uploaded here are:
a) Introduction by Peter Wade, Fernando Urrea Giraldo and Mara Viveros Vigoya, "Identidades racializadas y sexualidades en América Latina: a manera de introducción"
b) chapter by Peter Wade, "Debates contemporáneos sobre raza, etnicidad, género y sexualidad en las ciencias sociales"
a) Introduction by Peter Wade, Fernando Urrea Giraldo and Mara Viveros Vigoya, "Identidades racializadas y sexualidades en América Latina: a manera de introducción"
b) chapter by Peter Wade, "Debates contemporáneos sobre raza, etnicidad, género y sexualidad en las ciencias sociales"
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Neste artigo, o autor analisa o caso dos estilos musicais associados ao "negro", persistentemente vistos pelas pessoas não negras como "primitivos", mas, ao mesmo tempo, "excitantes". Por isso, o conteúdo principal do artigo é a análise... more
Neste artigo, o autor analisa o caso dos estilos musicais associados ao "negro", persistentemente vistos pelas pessoas não negras como "primitivos", mas, ao mesmo tempo, "excitantes". Por isso, o conteúdo principal do artigo é a análise dos termos "África" e "negritude" através da música popular colombiana das décadas de 1920 a 1950, em particular a música da costa caribenha, porém vendo esses termos em relação à ideologia da mestiçagem. Descreve o fenômeno da nacionalização de formas musicais populares (cumbia e porro) durante esse período, formas estas que, ao final dele, converteram-se na música de representação nacional. Aborda, no caso da cidade de Cáli, a presença de grupos de jovens negros que se identificam com a cultura negra. Alguns desses grupos têm ligações com circuitos acadêmicos e resultam de processos liderados por agentes externos. Para esses grupos, a referência à África tem um peso simbólico muito grande. Por isso, é essencial para o autor mostrar o papel dos contextos sócio-históricos urbanos e rurais naqueles que se reinventam e que recriam os termos "negritude" e "África".
Este artículo revisa en primer lugar evidencia de la exclusion económica, política y social de los grupos descendientes de África e indígenas. A continuación se inspeccionan la multitud de reformas legales y políticas multiculturalistas... more
Este artículo revisa en primer lugar evidencia de la exclusion económica, política y social de los grupos descendientes de África e indígenas. A continuación se inspeccionan la multitud de reformas legales y políticas multiculturalistas que tuvieron lugar en la región durante los últimos 15 a 20 años, antes de analizar los diferentes argumentos que se han propuesto para explicar este cambio en las políticas del Estado hacia las minorías étnicas, balanceando argumentos que destacan los intereses del Estado y del capitalismo contra aquellos que enfatizan los organismos de los movimientos de minorías étnicas. Finalmente, el artículo intenta evaluar el impacto de las reformas sobre los pautas de exclusión social de las minorías étnicas, con enfoque especial en la región costera del Pacífico Colombiano como estudio de caso.
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Las ideologías y prácticas latinoamericanas de mestizaje contienen dentro de sí la dinámica de la igualdad y la diferencia y de la democracia racial y el racismo al mismo tiempo. Aquí se explora cómo esta coexistencia simultánea opera en... more
Las ideologías y prácticas latinoamericanas de mestizaje contienen dentro de sí la dinámica de la igualdad y la diferencia y de la democracia racial y el racismo al mismo tiempo. Aquí se explora cómo esta coexistencia simultánea opera en gran parte mediante complejos enmarañamientos de sexualidad, género y raza/etnicidad, que tienen lugar en el ámbito del cuerpo y de la familia así como de la nación. Esto se analiza mediante varios ejemplos concretos de diferentes periodos históricos y regiones de Latinoamérica. Se termina con un breve examen de los procesos de formación de las subjetividades, en los que las relaciones ser-otro, o en términos de Bhabha, la ‘Otredad del Yo’, asumen una forma particular que permita la coexistencia normalizada de prácticas ciudadanas, de convivialidad democrática y racistas antidemocráticas.
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La ideología del mestizaje en américa Latina ha sido vista con frecuencia como un proceso que involucra la homogeneización nacional y el ocultamiento de una realidad de exclusión racista detrás de una máscara de inclusión. Se cuestiona... more
La ideología del mestizaje en américa Latina ha sido vista con frecuencia como un proceso que involucra la homogeneización nacional y el ocultamiento de una realidad de exclusión racista detrás de una máscara de inclusión. Se cuestiona esta posición usando el argumento que el mestizaje implica una dimensión permanente de diferenciación nacional y que, mientras que la exclusión es sin duda alguna una realidad, la inclusión es más que una máscara. Usando estudios de caso sobre música popular colombiana, religión popular venezolana y cristianismo popular brasilero se ilustra este argumento, presentando la inclusión como un proceso ligado a relaciones de parentesco e identidades personificadas. En conclusión, se critican las aproximaciones a la hibridez que resaltan su potencial para desestabilizar los esencialismos.
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La mayoría de los académicos sostienen que «la raza» no tiene relación con la naturaleza humana. Una minoría asevera que la tiene. Yo creo que «la raza» es una categoría cultural que puede convertirse en parte materializada de la... more
La mayoría de los académicos sostienen que «la raza» no tiene relación con la naturaleza humana. Una minoría asevera que la tiene. Yo creo que «la raza» es una categoría cultural que puede convertirse en parte materializada de la experiencia humana. dicha materialización ayuda a explicar la idea de la raza.
Palabras claves: materialización, raza, identidad racial, racismo
Palabras claves: materialización, raza, identidad racial, racismo
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This document summarises a project on "Genomics and child obesity in Mexico: the resignification of race, class, nation and gender"
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This is a 4-minute film in which Peter Wade offers an anthropological analysis of the dispute in which footballer Patrice Evra accused striker Luis Suárez of racially abusing him.
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A piece for general readers published in the the British Academy Review, Summer 2017: 31-33.
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This 2011 Football Association report gives the reasons why they found Liverpool FC footballer Luis Suarez guilty of racist abuse towards Patrice Evra of Manchester United FC. The FA used expert evidence supplied by Peter Wade and James... more
This 2011 Football Association report gives the reasons why they found Liverpool FC footballer Luis Suarez guilty of racist abuse towards Patrice Evra of Manchester United FC. The FA used expert evidence supplied by Peter Wade and James Scorer on the meanings of the word "negro" as used in Latin America.
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Short article for The Conversation online magazine, April 24, 2014
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Existence: Black, white, red, yellow, brown First broadcast: 10:03, January 26th, 2016 Africans, Jews, Asians, Arabs, Native Americans, Caucasians. Skull shape, skin color, hair type, mouth, nose. Human race in all its diversity. Human... more
Existence: Black, white, red, yellow, brown
First broadcast: 10:03, January 26th, 2016
Africans, Jews, Asians, Arabs, Native Americans, Caucasians. Skull shape, skin color, hair type, mouth, nose. Human race in all its diversity. Human beings with their many differences. African Americans are shot by white police officers. Mexicans are deported. Refugees and immigrants are being detained by Europeans. We hear about more and more unfortunate episodes where racial discrimination plays a part. Existence is investigating what is at stake.
Contributors: Professor of Migration and Anthropology at AAU, Peter Hervik. Professor of Social Anthroplogy at the University of Manchester, Peter Wade. Assistant Professor in Political Science at AU, Emily Cochran Bech.
Host & organizer: Carsten Ortmann.
First broadcast: 10:03, January 26th, 2016
Africans, Jews, Asians, Arabs, Native Americans, Caucasians. Skull shape, skin color, hair type, mouth, nose. Human race in all its diversity. Human beings with their many differences. African Americans are shot by white police officers. Mexicans are deported. Refugees and immigrants are being detained by Europeans. We hear about more and more unfortunate episodes where racial discrimination plays a part. Existence is investigating what is at stake.
Contributors: Professor of Migration and Anthropology at AAU, Peter Hervik. Professor of Social Anthroplogy at the University of Manchester, Peter Wade. Assistant Professor in Political Science at AU, Emily Cochran Bech.
Host & organizer: Carsten Ortmann.
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Interview in Spanish in the journal REVISTA DE ANTROPOLOGÍA IBEROAMERICANA, Volumen 2, Número 3. Septiembre-Diciembre 2007. Pp. 421-429
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Interview (in Portuguese) published in Revista de Antropologia, São Paulo, v. 57, n. 2, p. 485-505, dec. 2014. ISSN 1678-9857. Disponível em: <http://www.revistas.usp.br/ra/article/view/89121>.
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This book is now available as an Open Access text
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The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics... more
The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics to transfigure and transform existing ways of thinking about human diversity are often overstated. If a range of social contexts are examined, the effects are uneven. Our data show that genomic knowledge can unsettle and reinforce ideas of nation and race; it can be both banal and highly politicized. In this introduction, we outline concepts of genetic knowledge in society; theories of genetics, nation and race; approaches to public understandings of science; and the Latin American contexts of transnational ideas of nation and race.
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This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects – the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ and the... more
This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects – the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ and the ‘Homo Brasilis’ – both of which sought to establish national and genetic profiles. Both have reproduced and strengthened the idea of their respective nations of focus, incorporating biological elements into debates on social identities. Also, both have placed the unifying figure of the mestizo/ mestiço at the heart of national identity constructions, and in so doing have displaced alternative identity categories, such as those based on race. However, having been developed in different national contexts, these projects have had distinct scientific and social trajectories: in Mexico, the genomic mestizo is mobilized mainly in relation to health, while in Brazil the key arena is that of race. We show the importance of the nation as a frame for mobilizin...
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This essay explores the argument that David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín make in their book Culling the Masses about the relationship between liberalism and racism, in terms of a balance between inclusion and exclusion. I... more
This essay explores the argument that David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín make in their book Culling the Masses about the relationship between liberalism and racism, in terms of a balance between inclusion and exclusion. I challenge their dismissal of approaches that see an integral connection between the two and of approaches that see liberalism as inherently opposed to racism. I also discuss their characterization of Latin American ‘racist anti-racism’ and finish by questioning the way that they separate racism from economics.
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Existe una tensión en la teoría social entre los enfoques que privilegian la práctica y aquellos que parten del discurso. En el análisis de los movimientos sociales este dualismo ha sido recientemente cuestionado desde perspectivas que... more
Existe una tensión en la teoría social entre los enfoques que privilegian la práctica y aquellos que parten del discurso. En el análisis de los movimientos sociales este dualismo ha sido recientemente cuestionado desde perspectivas que buscan sobreponerse a la división entre cultura y política. Sostengo que esos cuestionamientos pueden ser fomentados concentrándose en la tensión entre la cultura como una actividad humana de trabajar en el mundo, en la que lo material y lo simbólico están unificados, y la cultura como un objeto mercantilizado en el contexto de construcciones hegemónicas que la construyen principalmente como un conjunto de representaciones simbólicas. Examino esta temática en relación con los esfuerzos de jóvenes negros en el distrito de Aguablanca, que utilizan la música y el baile rap para forjar una identidad cultural como una forma de vida, al mismo tiempo que construyen su cultura como un objeto diseñado pafa moverse en circuitos mercantiles, estatalesv de ONG...
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This article rethinks the role that racialization plays in Latin America and relates racialization to multiculturalism. Official multiculturalism does not necessarily lead to reducing racism, and may even remain as a set of rhetorical... more
This article rethinks the role that racialization plays in Latin America and relates racialization to multiculturalism. Official multiculturalism does not necessarily lead to reducing racism, and may even remain as a set of rhetorical gestures. It is necessary to focus on racism and the concept of "race" as phenomena with their own history and social strength. The marginalization of the concept of "race" in discussions about inequality in Latin America is examined here, and it is argued that it is necessary to see Latin America as an integral part of the "black Americas". I argue that the concept of "race" has been manifest in Latin America more than has been commonly assumed. I propose that issues of "race" and racism are gaining more public space in Colombia (and Brazil). Multiculturalism has to be understood as a battle ground in order to define its political effects.
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Research Interests: Ethnohistory, Evolutionary Biology, Sociology, Geography, Human Geography, and 15 moreNutrition and Dietetics, Anthropology, Art, Political Science, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Applied Economics, Latin American Geography, American Journal of Human Biology, Duke University, The Latin Americanist, University of Texas at Austin, Routledge, Sociology of Ethnicity and Race, Wiley, and Latin Americans
... Muchos trabajos (Whitten y Torres, 1998; Wade, 1993, 1995, 1997a, 1997b; Stutzman, 1981; Arocha, 1992; Friedemann, 1984; Friedemann y Arocha ... Al lado de generales negros tan importantes como Antonio Maceo, el 70% del ejército... more
... Muchos trabajos (Whitten y Torres, 1998; Wade, 1993, 1995, 1997a, 1997b; Stutzman, 1981; Arocha, 1992; Friedemann, 1984; Friedemann y Arocha ... Al lado de generales negros tan importantes como Antonio Maceo, el 70% del ejército independentista en la Guerra de 10 ...
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En algunos círculos, los indígenas nativos de América son de nominados guardianes del medio ambiente. Quiero examinar las nociones de poder, control, empoderamiento y desempoderamiento que están involucradas en dicha percepción. En... more
En algunos círculos, los indígenas nativos de América son de nominados guardianes del medio ambiente. Quiero examinar las nociones de poder, control, empoderamiento y desempoderamiento que están involucradas en dicha percepción. En Colombia, no ...
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This essay explores how academics know when they are looking at something called “race.” Given that the term has an uneven history, there is some disagreement about when the concept fully emerged, and social scientists often now argue... more
This essay explores how academics know when they are looking at something called “race.” Given that the term has an uneven history, there is some disagreement about when the concept fully emerged, and social scientists often now argue that race is implicitly at issue in public discourses, even if it does not appear overtly. I argue that there are significant continuities that allow us to recognize when race is at work; these are linked to “nature” and to colonial histories and categories. This is not a static definition, because nature and colonially derived categories themselves change over time and take on new forms.
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Genomic research in Latin America has looked into the African, Amerindian and European ancestry of local populations. This article explores how indigeneity and blackness figure in genomic science in the light of previous and current... more
Genomic research in Latin America has looked into the African, Amerindian and European ancestry of local populations. This article explores how indigeneity and blackness figure in genomic science in the light of previous and current representations of indigenous and Afro-descendent people. These categories have been cast as ‘other’ in Latin America, but they have occupied different locations in ‘structures of alterity’. I look briefly at these similarities and differences in the colonial and republican periods and in recent multiculturalist reforms. I look at the gendered sexual imagery surrounding each concept, before examining in detail how blackness and indigeneity figure in gendered ways in genomic science research on admixture and ancestry in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. I conclude that, in the context of multiculturalism, genomics works to re-centre imaginaries of the nation around the mestizo and mixture, while casting blackness and indigeneity, in sexualised and gendered way...
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In his article, Banton suggests that skin colour could act as an analytic device that could replace the concept of ‘race’ (Banton, 2011). Banton’s approach is based on the idea that, as social scientists, we can identify a level of... more
In his article, Banton suggests that skin colour could act as an analytic device that could replace the concept of ‘race’ (Banton, 2011). Banton’s approach is based on the idea that, as social scientists, we can identify a level of objective reality and detect patterns in that reality, patterns which can, because of their basis in reality, enjoy the status of ‘culture-free constructs’. In his argument, skin colour has this kind of objective reality it is ‘visible and measurable’. We can then trace the patterns of significance that have been attached to this objective reality and produce a comparative sociology and history of these meanings and their effects. It is a neat, not to say easy, approach. However, it depends on the idea that social scientists are able to identify what constitutes the level of objective reality, which must by definition be culture-free, if the constructs we derive from it are also culture-free. This is not so simple. Looking at attempts to do this in anthropology reveals that what we thought was culture-free turns out not to be so. The objective measurement of skulls to produce ‘scientific’ constructs of race is a notorious example. In kinship studies, the idea that there was a simple biological grid of human relatedness, which was universal, natural and objective, and was simply organized and conceptualized differently in different societies to produce different kinship systems, also turned out to be problematic, because the notion of natural, biological relatedness that was being used to ground the analytic work was seen to be a Western notion of kinship that was being smuggled into the analysis (Schneider 1984). In gender studies, the idea that there was a simple biological difference between ‘sexes’, again natural and universal, upon which different cultures constructed varying concepts of ‘gender’, has run into trouble in a similar way: ‘sex’ turns out to be not such a clear, objective and culture-free objective reality (Fausto-Sterling 1985, 2000). In ‘race’ studies, I have tried to make a similar argument about the idea that the grounding reality behind ‘race’ is something called ‘nature’ or ‘naturalization’; that what holds together all the disparate phenomena classed as ‘racial’ by social scientists is their reference to ‘human Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 35 No. 7 July 2012 pp. 1169 1173
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There is a growing recognition in the social sciences, and especially in anthropology, that traditional and seemingly isolated communities of the world are no longer in fact isolated, that new webs are constantly being spun between such... more
There is a growing recognition in the social sciences, and especially in anthropology, that traditional and seemingly isolated communities of the world are no longer in fact isolated, that new webs are constantly being spun between such communities and broader national and ...
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This article examines the role that vernacular notions of racialized-regional difference play in the constitution and stabilization of DNA populations in Colombian forensic science, in what we frame as a process of public science. In... more
This article examines the role that vernacular notions of racialized-regional difference play in the constitution and stabilization of DNA populations in Colombian forensic science, in what we frame as a process of public science. In public science, the imaginations of the scientific world and common-sense public knowledge are integral to the production and circulation of science itself. We explore the origins and circulation of a scientific object – ‘La Tabla’, published in Paredes et al. and used in genetic forensic identification procedures – among genetic research institutes, forensic genetics laboratories and courtrooms in Bogotá. We unveil the double life of this central object of forensic genetics. On the one hand, La Tabla enjoys an indisputable public place in the processing of forensic genetic evidence in Colombia (paternity cases, identification of bodies, etc.). On the other hand, the relations it establishes between ‘race’, geography and genetics are questioned among po...
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... Afro-Mexicans: Discourses of race and identity in the African diaspora, by Chege Githiora. ... In a similar vein and following Robert Thornton&amp;#x27;s work, Slenes highlights how Christianization processes that occurred in... more
... Afro-Mexicans: Discourses of race and identity in the African diaspora, by Chege Githiora. ... In a similar vein and following Robert Thornton&amp;#x27;s work, Slenes highlights how Christianization processes that occurred in Africa he looks at nativist movements around St Anthony in early ...
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We compare the discourses on obesity found in early- and mid-twentieth century Mexican public discourse with those of Mexican geneticists and doctors today. We argue that postgenomic shifts towards non-determinism, apparently contained in... more
We compare the discourses on obesity found in early- and mid-twentieth century Mexican public discourse with those of Mexican geneticists and doctors today. We argue that postgenomic shifts towards non-determinism, apparently contained in current openness to epigenetics, need to be considered alongside the persistence of racialized genetic determinisms, and alongside the potential for epigenetic environmental determinisms. By exploring the environmentalist explanations of earlier eugenic thinking about obesity, we trace continuities in the gendered and racialized framings of obesity, which risk stigmatizing indigenous ancestry and attributing blame to individual mothers.