Multiculturalism and Beyond: Identity Politics, Cultural Difference, and Hybridity in the Americas
12 July 2009 Multiculturalism and Beyond: Identity Politics, Cultural Difference, and Hybridity in the Americas. ABSTRACTS Romulo Acurio (Vienna) Identitary Competence and Cultural Freedom in the Andean Region In the Andean countries, racism is peculiar because it refers not only to discrimination against indigenous or Afro-American minorities, but draws a boundary of contempt against those individuals deemed less urban, educated or modern within each region, community or even family. Racism persists even among individuals of similar socio-economic condition because it is a practice of obsessive categorization, based on personal appearance, which is not just a matter of skin color, but includes the subjective traits of intonation, vocabulary, clothing and manners. In Andean societies, every individual is simultaneously a potential object and agent of racism, depending on the mutual categorizations of each social situation. The most influential popular cultures only deepen this problem. On the one side, the official mestizo culture, promoted by the State and the media, instills an abstract and patriotic egalitarianism which masks local and regional memories. On the other hand, global popular culture imposes, with its introspective and expressive power, a demanding model of autonomy, modernity and cosmopolitanism. To confront the fluid boundary of racism, individuals must learn, from early childhood, to obtain in every situation the social recognition they need to articulate their sense of singularity with their sense of local, national or global belonging. Individuals must develop an introspective and expressive competence with which they negotiate their social position and, in some cases, create products and practices of ironic, artistic or intellectual resistance.
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