Histories of Race and Racism

The Andes and Mesoamerica from Colonial Times to the Present

Laura Gotkowitz

Publication Year: 2011

Ninety percent of the indigenous population in the Americas lives in the Andean and Mesoamerican nations of Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala. Recently indigenous social movements in these countries have intensified debate about racism and drawn attention to the connections between present-day discrimination and centuries of colonialism and violence. In Histories of Race and Racism, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists consider the experiences and representations of Andean and Mesoamerican indigenous peoples from the early colonial era to the present. Many of the essays focus on Bolivia, where the election of the country’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, sparked fierce disputes over political power, ethnic rights, and visions of the nation. The contributors compare the interplay of race and racism with class, gender, nationality, and regionalism in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. In the process, they engage issues including labor, education, census taking, cultural appropriation and performance, mestizaje, social mobilization, and antiracist legislation. Their essays shed new light on the present by describing how race and racism have mattered in particular Andean and Mesoamerican societies at specific moments in time.

Published by: Duke University Press

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This book first began to take shape at a conference convened at the University of Iowa in October 2002, where historians and anthropologists working in the United States and Latin America presented papers on racial meanings, mestizaje, indigenous social movements...

Introduction: Racisms of the Present and the Past in Latin America

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pp. 1-53

‘‘The wounds are open . . . and it will be a long time before they heal.’’¹ This somber phrase sums up widespread sentiment about the violence that broke out in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on January 11, 2007. On that day, hundreds of men and women assaulted...

Part I: The Uses of "Race" in Colonial Latin America

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pp. 55-91

Unfixing Race

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pp. 57-71

The word ‘‘race’’ has never been stable. Old dictionaries make this clear, while pointing up the persistent racism that avails itself of categories even as they change.¹ Covarrubias, for example, begins his definition of raza with ‘‘the caste of purebred...

Was There Race in Colonial Latin America? : Identifying Selves and Others in the Insurgent Andes

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pp. 72-91

If the enormous, charged literature concerning ‘‘race’’ in twentieth-century social science has shown anything, it is that the category itself is extremely slippery, resisting even the most strenuous efforts to contain its semantic potency. It has proven easier to take...

Part II: Racialization and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century

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pp. 93-156

From Assimilation to Segregation: Guatemala, 1800–1944

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pp. 95-112

After independence in 1821, ideas and practices of assimilation and segregation shaped the formation of a Guatemalan nation. As a national project began to be constructed over the course of the nineteenth century, Indians were subjected to institutionalized relations...

The Census and the Making of a Social "Order" in Nineteenth-Century Bolivia

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pp. 113-133

Indio, indígena, mestizo, and blanco are terms that seem to transcend both history and community in the Andean region. But what do they refer to in specific historical contexts, and how have their meanings changed over time?∞ One much-discussed change...

Forging the Unlettered Indian: The Pedagogy of Race in the Bolivian Andes

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pp. 134-156

Ever since Angel Rama first bundled writing, imperial power, and urbanism into the powerful metaphor of ‘‘the lettered city,’’ scholars have been fascinated by the role that alphabetic literacy played in the cultural and spatial colonization of the...

Part III: Racialization and Nationalist Mythologies in the Twentieth Century

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pp. 157-217

Indian Ruins, National Origins: Tiwanaku and Indigenismo in La Paz, 1897–1933

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pp. 159-178

The storied archaeological site at Tiwanaku became the source of local, regional, and national appropriations and dissensions in early twentieth-century Bolivia. A landscape of abandoned ruins was intellectually reconstructed into a political monument that stood...

Mestizaje, Distinction, and Cultural Presence: The View from Oaxaca

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pp. 179-203

On July 20, 2002, some 3,000 protestors headed by the Coordinadora Oaxaqueña Magonista Popular Antineoliberal (COMPA) marched through the tourist-filled streets of Oaxaca’s historic center. COMPA’s official list of demands covered an impressive range...

On the Origin of the ‘‘Mexican Race’’

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pp. 204-217

A few years ago I became interested in the following questions: How is national unity forged? What role does racialization—that is, naturalizing social differences—play in forming the national subject? What is the relationship between...

Part IV: Antiracist Movements and Racism Today

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pp. 219-317

Politics of Place and Urban Indígenas in Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement

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pp. 221-239

The 2002 restoration of the Bennett Stela, ‘‘a massive symbol of the Aymara past,’’ from a traffic roundabout in La Paz to the ruins of Tiwanaku near Lake Titicaca captures in a single event many currents of contemporary Andean native politics. The repatriation...

Education and Decolonization in the Work of the Aymara Activist Eduardo Leandro Nina Qhispi

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pp. 240-253

Through his work in education in the late 1920s, the Aymara intellectual Eduardo Leandro Nina Qhispi developed a remarkable proposal for an intercultural and decolonized Bolivian nation. Although Nina Qhispi did not use the word...

Mistados, Cholos, and the Negation of Identity in the Guatemalan Highlands

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pp. 254-277

The mistado are an intermediate social group in the Guatemalan highlands, a group increasing in size, and whose members refuse both of the region’s major identity categories, ‘‘indigenous’’ and ‘‘ladino.’’ Guatemala’s ‘‘ethnic ideology’’ has transformed, especially...

Authenticating Indians and Movements: Interrogating Indigenous Authenticity, Social Movements, and Fieldwork in Contemporary Peru

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pp. 278-298

In May 2003, we traveled to Cochabamba, Bolivia, to present a cowritten paper at a conference on Indigenous movements and the state in Latin America. Our paper examined recent Indigenous mobilization in Peru and responded critically to assertions...

Transgressions and Racism: The Struggle over a New Constitution in Bolivia

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pp. 299-310

Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly was inaugurated on August 6, 2006, following a protracted process of social mobilization and the election of Evo Morales, the nation’s first indigenous president.¹ In the city of Sucre, 255 delegates came together to draft...

Epilogue to ‘‘Transgressions and Racism’’: Making Sense of May 24th in Sucre: Toward an Antiracist Legislative Agenda

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pp. 311-317

Every 25th of May, Bolivia marks the anniversary of one of the first revolts in the long process that culminated in independence in 1825, the revolt that took place in Sucre in May 1809. Almost like a paradox of history, one year before the bicentennial of the uprising...

Part V: Concluding Comments

A Postcolonial Palimpsest: The Work Race Does in Latin America

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pp. 321-336

In the past generation, the linguistic turn’s emphasis on the constructed nature of all categories and forms of explanation has grown to dominate much intellectual discourse. Those of us still committed to politically relevant analysis have repeatedly faced...

Bibliography

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pp. 337-376

Contributors

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pp. 377-379

Index

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pp. 381-400

E-ISBN-13: 9780822394334
Print-ISBN-13: 9780822350439

Page Count: 416
Illustrations: 13 illustrations
Publication Year: 2011

Histories of Race and Racism

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Racisms of the Present and the Past in Latin America

Part I: The Uses of "Race" in Colonial Latin America

Unfixing Race

Was There Race in Colonial Latin America? : Identifying Selves and Others in the Insurgent Andes

Part II: Racialization and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century

From Assimilation to Segregation: Guatemala, 1800–1944

The Census and the Making of a Social "Order" in Nineteenth-Century Bolivia

Forging the Unlettered Indian: The Pedagogy of Race in the Bolivian Andes

Part III: Racialization and Nationalist Mythologies in the Twentieth Century

Indian Ruins, National Origins: Tiwanaku and Indigenismo in La Paz, 1897–1933

Mestizaje, Distinction, and Cultural Presence: The View from Oaxaca

On the Origin of the ‘‘Mexican Race’’

Part IV: Antiracist Movements and Racism Today

Politics of Place and Urban Indígenas in Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement

Education and Decolonization in the Work of the Aymara Activist Eduardo Leandro Nina Qhispi

Mistados, Cholos, and the Negation of Identity in the Guatemalan Highlands

Authenticating Indians and Movements: Interrogating Indigenous Authenticity, Social Movements, and Fieldwork in Contemporary Peru

Transgressions and Racism: The Struggle over a New Constitution in Bolivia

Epilogue to ‘‘Transgressions and Racism’’: Making Sense of May 24th in Sucre: Toward an Antiracist Legislative Agenda

Part V: Concluding Comments

A Postcolonial Palimpsest: The Work Race Does in Latin America

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Research Areas

Subject Headings

Welcome to Project MUSE

Connect with Project MUSE

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3

Histories of Race and Racism

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Racisms of the Present and the Past in Latin America

Part I: The Uses of "Race" in Colonial Latin America

Unfixing Race

Was There Race in Colonial Latin America? : Identifying Selves and Others in the Insurgent Andes

Part II: Racialization and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century

From Assimilation to Segregation: Guatemala, 1800–1944

The Census and the Making of a Social "Order" in Nineteenth-Century Bolivia

Forging the Unlettered Indian: The Pedagogy of Race in the Bolivian Andes

Part III: Racialization and Nationalist Mythologies in the Twentieth Century

Indian Ruins, National Origins: Tiwanaku and Indigenismo in La Paz, 1897–1933

Mestizaje, Distinction, and Cultural Presence: The View from Oaxaca

On the Origin of the ‘‘Mexican Race’’

Part IV: Antiracist Movements and Racism Today

Politics of Place and Urban Indígenas in Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement

Education and Decolonization in the Work of the Aymara Activist Eduardo Leandro Nina Qhispi

Mistados, Cholos, and the Negation of Identity in the Guatemalan Highlands

Authenticating Indians and Movements: Interrogating Indigenous Authenticity, Social Movements, and Fieldwork in Contemporary Peru

Transgressions and Racism: The Struggle over a New Constitution in Bolivia

Epilogue to ‘‘Transgressions and Racism’’: Making Sense of May 24th in Sucre: Toward an Antiracist Legislative Agenda

Part V: Concluding Comments

A Postcolonial Palimpsest: The Work Race Does in Latin America

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Research Areas

Recommend

Subject Headings

Related Content

Welcome to Project MUSE

Connect with Project MUSE

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3