DOCSLIB.ORG

Implementing Human Rights in Afro-Descendant Communities In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Implementing Human Rights in Afro-Descendant Communities In © COPYRIGHT by Silja Aebersold 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To the communities of Tierrabomba, Colombia, and Orinoco, Nicaragua. IMPLEMENTING HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRO-DESCENDANT COMMUNITIES IN COLOMBIA AND NICARAGUA: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECTED HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIMS AT THE INTERSECTION OF LEGAL ORDERS BY Silja Aebersold ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the human rights claims of two Afro-descendant communities, namely the community of Tierrabomba in Colombia and the community of Orinoco in Nicaragua. It analyzes how these human rights claims are protected in international human rights and domestic legal systems and in practice. This dissertation demonstrates that there is not one legal framework applicable to all Afro-descendant communities due to the cultural, economic, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of this population group. There is a need to tailor the nature and scope of the relevant international and domestic legal protections to the specific circumstances of the communities and their territorial States in order to adequately protect their legal claims. A locally focused approach is necessary to highlight the gaps in the different legal orders applicable to Afro-descendants and to shed light on the effectiveness of the relevant legal norms on the ground. To demonstrate this argument, this dissertation employed a multi-method approach, combining legal doctrinal research with a field study in the communities concerned. Field research revealed the communities’ human rights claims and living conditions. Through the doctrinal legal research, this dissertation analyzed the exact nature and scope of the relevant international human rights provisions and their incorporation into the domestic legislations of Colombia and Nicaragua. It then compared these international and domestic legal frameworks with the realities in the communities concerned to identify any gaps in implementation. ii This dissertation found that the applicable international human rights law and legal systems of Colombia and Nicaragua only partially protect the human rights claims of the communities concerned, and any protection implemented on the ground is ineffective. The communities concerned demand use of their ancestral land, access to justice, and other fundamental rights to protect their community-oriented way of life. The legal analysis showed that the applicable legal norms primarily focus on the folkloric and material aspects of culture, such as unique religious rituals and traditional economic activities. This does not reflect the communities concerned’s understanding of culture as a way of life. Additionally, conflicting legal norms applicable to the human rights claims of the communities concerned weaken their legal protections while domestic laws mostly lack effective remedies to enforce human rights provisions. Fear of threats of violence from non-State actors and State neglect further jeopardize the rights’ implementation on the ground. To overcome these legal and practical challenges in the communities concerned, this dissertation suggests a set of recommendations for human rights scholars and practitioners. For human rights scholarship, these recommendations center around the integration of empirical research into legal studies and technical analyses of the law. Human rights practitioners should ensure effective agency of the communities concerned, adopt a more flexible understanding of culture, and strengthen local accountability mechanisms. While these recommendations are tailored to the communities concerned, they also inform human rights scholarship and practice for similarly situated communities in Latin America. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the unconditional support and openness to share information of the communities of Tierrabomba, Colombia, and Orinoco, Nicaragua. I am particularly indebted to Mirla Aarón Freite, Marta Morales, and José Javier Moncaris Padilla in Tierrabomba and Kensy Sambola and Jonathan Gonzalez in Orinoco. During my field research in the summer of 2017, they introduced me to their fellow community members, hosted me in their homes, and gave me access to information that I would not have had without them. I hope that through my research and legal analysis, I can give the communities a voice and contribute to integrating their human rights claims in policy processes that concern them. I also wish to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Diego Rodriguez- Pinzon, for guiding the research process and providing invaluable feedback for the past four years. I am equally grateful to my committee members, Professor Claudia Martin and Siobhan McInerney-Lankford, whose insights were monumental to shape the structure and arguments of this dissertation. I am also grateful to all staff of the S.J.D. program of American University Washington College of Law for their tireless support of this research’s progress. Further, I would like to thank editor Lauren LaVare for her careful work and patience throughout the editing process. My studies would not have been possible without the generous scholarships of the Janggen-Pöhn Foundation, Switzerland, and Helmuth M. Merlin Foundation, Liechtenstein. I owe them a great debt of gratitude. Lastly, I must express my profoundest gratitude to my family who instilled within me the desire to continuously ask questions, study, and learn. They have never failed to encourage me in my journey. I am equally indebted to my friends in Washington D.C. who quickly became iv like family and spent with me days and nights at the library. They provided unconditional support throughout my studies. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1 RESEARCH SETTING ............................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Research Framework ............................................................................................. 15 Research Problems and Questions ............................................................. 15 Research Contributions ............................................................................. 17 Theoretical and Methodological Research Approaches ............................ 20 Relevant Terminology ........................................................................................... 32 Minorities .................................................................................................. 32 Indigenous Peoples .................................................................................... 33 Tribal Peoples ............................................................................................ 34 Vulnerable or Disadvantaged Groups ....................................................... 37 Application of the Relevant Human Rights Terminology to Afro- Descendants ............................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 2 THE COMMUNITIES OF TIERRABOMBA AND ORINOCO: HISTORIES AND SELECTED HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS .................................. 52 Conceptualization of Afro-descendants in Latin America from Colonial Times to the 21st Century ...................................................................................... 52 Slavery, Slave Trade, and Colonial Societies ............................................ 53 After the Abolition of Slavery: Racial Stratification in the New Latin American Republics ......................................................................... 55 Attempts to Overcome the Myth of Racial Democracy Through Legal Tools ................................................................................................ 57 Demographics of Afro-Descendants in Latin America ............................. 62 The Afro-descendant Community of Tierrabomba ............................................... 69 Historic Significance of the Community ................................................... 69 Human Rights Claims of the Community of Tierrabomba ....................... 73 The Garifuna Community of Orinoco ................................................................... 81 The Garifuna’s History of Migration ........................................................ 82 vi Human Rights Claims of the Community of Orinoco ............................... 85 CHAPTER 3 REFLECTIONS ON KEY CONCEPTS RELEVANT TO THE LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIMS OF THE COMMUNITIES CONCERNED ..................................................................................... 92 Indivisible, Interdependent, and Interrelated Understanding of Human Rights ..................................................................................................................... 93 Cultural Rights as “Empowering Rights” for the Communities Concerned ......... 96 State Obligations Resulting from Cultural Human Rights .................................. 101 State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfill .................................... 101 State Obligations
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ever Faithful
    Ever Faithful Ever Faithful Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba David Sartorius Duke University Press • Durham and London • 2013 © 2013 Duke University Press. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Tyeset in Minion Pro by Westchester Publishing Services. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Sartorius, David A. Ever faithful : race, loyalty, and the ends of empire in Spanish Cuba / David Sartorius. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 8223- 5579- 3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978- 0- 8223- 5593- 9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Blacks— Race identity— Cuba—History—19th century. 2. Cuba— Race relations— History—19th century. 3. Spain— Colonies—America— Administration—History—19th century. I. Title. F1789.N3S27 2013 305.80097291—dc23 2013025534 contents Preface • vii A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s • xv Introduction A Faithful Account of Colonial Racial Politics • 1 one Belonging to an Empire • 21 Race and Rights two Suspicious Affi nities • 52 Loyal Subjectivity and the Paternalist Public three Th e Will to Freedom • 94 Spanish Allegiances in the Ten Years’ War four Publicizing Loyalty • 128 Race and the Post- Zanjón Public Sphere five “Long Live Spain! Death to Autonomy!” • 158 Liberalism and Slave Emancipation six Th e Price of Integrity • 187 Limited Loyalties in Revolution Conclusion Subject Citizens and the Tragedy of Loyalty • 217 Notes • 227 Bibliography • 271 Index • 305 preface To visit the Palace of the Captain General on Havana’s Plaza de Armas today is to witness the most prominent stone- and mortar monument to the endur- ing history of Spanish colonial rule in Cuba.
    [Show full text]
  • Multiculturalism, Afro-Descendant Activism, and Ethnoracial Law and Policy in Latin America
    Rahier, Jean Muteba. 2020. Multiculturalism, Afro-Descendant Activism, and Ethnoracial Law and Policy in Latin America. Latin American Research Review 55(3), pp. 605–612. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.1094 BOOK REVIEW ESSAYS Multiculturalism, Afro-Descendant Activism, and Ethnoracial Law and Policy in Latin America Jean Muteba Rahier Florida International University, US [email protected] This essay reviews the following works: Seams of Empire: Race and Radicalism in Puerto Rico and the United States. By Carlos Alamo-Pastrana. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. xvi + 213. $79.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813062563. Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth-Century United States. Edited by Brian D. Behnken. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016. Pp. 270. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780820349176. Afro-Politics and Civil Society in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. By Kwame Dixon. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. xiii + 174. $74.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813062617. Black Autonomy: Race, Gender, and Afro-Nicaraguan Activism. By Jennifer Goett. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 222. $26.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781503600546. The Politics of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Behavior in Contemporary Brazil. By Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvi + 266. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316637043. The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space. By Ulrich Oslender. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. xiii + 290. $25.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822361220. Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil. By Tianna S. Paschel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Place, Race, and the Politics of Identity in the Geography of Garinagu Baündada Doris Garcia Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 Place, Race, and the Politics of Identity in the Geography of Garinagu Baündada Doris Garcia Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Garcia, Doris, "Place, Race, and the Politics of Identity in the Geography of Garinagu Baündada" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3744. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3744 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. PLACE, RACE, AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF GARINAGU BAÜNDADA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Geography & Anthropology by Doris Garcia B.A., City College of New York, 2002 M.S., Central Connecticut State University, 2006 December 2014 Belize Caribbean Sea Islas de la Bahía Colón Atlántida Guatemala Cortés Yoro Gracias a Dios Santa Bárbara Copán Olancho Comayagua Lempira Ocotepeque Francisco Morazán Intibucá La Paz El Paraíso El Salvador Valle Nicaragua Choluteca P a c i f i c O c e a n Miles 0 50 100 Map of Honduras in Central America Prepared by: Paul Karolczyk and Doris Garcia ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I extend my most profound gratitude to several people who contributed to the completion of this dissertation and my evolution as a scholar.
    [Show full text]
  • CRITICA / REVIEW Black Latin America on Fire
    CRITICA / REVIEW Herman L. Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro- Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. Indiana University Press, 2003. 312 pp. Black Latin America on Fire KWAME DIXON Syracuse University Black Latin America is on fire. After years of being relegated to the margins of history, politics, literature, and civil society, Afro-Latin Americans are demanding civil, political, and economic, social, and cultural rights. At the same time, these formally excluded populations are opening new democratic spaces in Latin America and the Caribbean. Due to intense grassroots mobilization and sophisticated political organizing, black communities in Latin America and the Caribbean are more visible than ever. As a result, new academic works are emerging that explore new terrain and provide alternative narratives for understanding and reconstructing the African experience in Latin America. Africans in Colonial Mexico, by Herman Bennett, is exemplary of the new scholarship. Africans in Colonial Mexico is a compelling new historical narrative that examines the unexplored history of the urban African experience in Mexico City from approximately 1570 until 1640. It is mainly focused on the ways in which Christian absolutism shaped the African experience in New Spain, the colonial name for Mexico. From this point of view, Bennett provides a fresh angle to see and comprehend the Black Latin America A contracorriente African presence in colonial Mexico. Using ecclesiastical records and inquisition sources from this period, Bennett offers a novel interpretation of the complexities of multiple African identities in New Spain. Africans in Colonial Mexico argues that slavery per se, as a juridical category, did not fully constitute the totality of the African slave experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Afro-Colombian Social Movements’
    ‘Afro-Colombian Social Movements’. In Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America, edited by Kwame Dixon and John Burdick (Gainesville: University Press of Florida): 135-155. 2012 Afro-Colombian Social Movements Peter Wade By some estimates, Colombia has the second largest population of Afrodescendants in Latin America, after Brazil (Sanchez and Bryan 2003). It also arguably has the most comprehensive array of legislation aimed at Afrodescendant people, covering special land titles for “black communities” (as defined by the law), ethno-education programs in schools, university places reserved for candidates from black communities, representation on committees and decision-making bodies at various levels of the local, regional and national state, a special Directorate of Black Community Affairs, and two seats in the Chamber of Representatives of the Congress reserved for candidates representing black communities.1 Yet before the 1990s, when these laws came onto the statute books, Afro-Colombian social mobilization was not very well developed and, indeed, many academics and activists bemoaned the fact that Afro- Colombians were “invisible” in the eyes of the state and in the nation more generally. Even academic disciplines, such as history, anthropology and sociology, were said to ignore Afro-Colombians, preferring to concentrate on slavery, indigenous peoples and the poor (defined in terms of class, rather than ethnic identity). In this chapter, I will outline the background and current situation of Afro-Colombians and try to explain how the changes in their “visibility” came about (which will also involve arguing that they were not quite as invisible as often maintained). My own experience of Colombia and Afro-Colombian people began informally in 1980, when I spent some time in the city of Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where there is a substantial Afro-Colombian population.
    [Show full text]
  • Hooker Cv Aug 2012
    Juliet Hooker Departments of Government and African and African Diaspora Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1800, Austin, TX 78712-0119 [email protected] Office: (512) 232-7273, Fax: (512) 232-1485 Education Ph.D., Government, Cornell University, 2001. M.A., Government, Cornell University, 1998. B.A., Williams College, Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Political Science, 1994. Academic Positions Associate Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Sept. 2009-Present. Associate Professor of Government and African and African Diaspora Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Sept. 2009-Present. Assistant Professor of Government, The University of Texas at Austin, 2002-2009. Publications Book: Race and the Politics of Solidarity (NY: Oxford University Press, 2009). Articles: “Indigenous Inclusion/Black Exclusion: Race, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Citizenship in Latin America,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37, no. 2 (May 2005): p. 285-310. Translated as “Inclusão indígena e exclusão dos afro-descendentes na América Latina,” Tempo Social [Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil] 18, no. 2 (November 2006): p. 89-111. “‘Beloved Enemies’: Race and Official Mestizo Nationalism in Nicaragua,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (October 2005): p. 14-39. “Afro-descendant Struggles for Collective Rights in Latin America,” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society 10, no. 3 (July-September 2008): p. 279-291. Reprinted in Leith Mullings (ed.), New Social Movements in the African Diaspora: Challenging Global Apartheid (New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2009), p. 139-153. Translated as “Las Luchas por los Derechos Colectivos de los Afro-descendientes en América Latina,” in Odile Hoffman (ed.), Política e identidad: Afrodescendientes en México y América Central (Mexico, D.F.: CEMCA, INAH, IRD, UNAM-CIALC, 2010), p.
    [Show full text]
  • Kwame Dixon ACES Cases, No. 2005.1
    SKETCHES OF SPAIN: RACE, JUSTICE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS By Kwame Dixon American Consortium on European Union Studies (ACES) EU Center of Excellence Washington, D.C. ACES Cases, No. 2005.1 Stephen J. Silvia, American University, editor Kwame Dixon is currently a distinguished visiting Professor of Black Studies at Depauw University. His primary research is focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. He is interested in the social construction of racial categories; how racial and gender discrimination intersect to create particular forms of discrimination that lead to human rights violations; and the ways in which Afro-Latinos create alternative forms of political participation that expand the narrow parameters of Democracy in the Americas. Dr. Dixon is a Fulbright scholar and has conducted extensive field research on Afro American communities in Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Currently he lives in Madrid, Spain. He can be reached at: [email protected] Copies of the case can be downloaded free of charge, and information on other cases in this series can be found, at the ACES website: www.american.edu/aces/cases.htm Copyright © 2005 American Consortium on European Union Studies Dixon Page 1 ACES CASES 2005.1 Summary This article analyzes racism, racial discrimination and other forms of intolerance in Spain from a human rights perspective. It will critically evaluate Spain’s formal legal obligations relative to the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racism Discrimination (CERD), and Article 13, as well as the recently enacted antidiscrimination measures of the European Union commonly known as the Race and Employment Directives (Race Council Directive 2000/43/CE, June 29, 2000 and the Employment Council Directive 2000/78/CE November 27, 2001).
    [Show full text]
  • Dixon Syllabus Fall 2008
    Dr. Kwame Dixon Office Sims 206 Ext. 3097 PLACA Seminar (Fall 2008) AAS/400/600 Race and Gender in Latin America: Comparative Perspectives This seminar will explore the significance of contemporary race and gender relations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The main idea is to probe in a critical manner the meaning of race and gender as broad social constructs with specific social and political meanings. Students will be introduced to many of the current debates on race, gender, democracy, social movements as discussed by Afro, women, indigenous and civil society groups and other progressive sectors. Specifically, it will examine black, women and indigenous movements in Ecuador, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. This course is mainly aimed for students in the social sciences (Anthropology, African American Studies, Sociology, Political Science, International Relations, Women Studies, Latina/o Studies,). Speakers Series: Additionally, the course will have a speaker series and some of the leading thinkers on Latin America/Caribbean will be invited to our class to share their views on important issues of the day. Books: Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power and Democracy, Edited by Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry Vanden, and Glen Kuecker (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008) Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops, Ginetta E.B. Candelario (Duke University Press 2007) Racial Politics in Post Revolutionary Cuban Society, Mark Sawyer (Cambridge University
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Citizenship As We Know It: Race and Ethnicity in Afro
    7 Beyond Citizenship as We Know It race and Ethnicity in afro-colombian Struggles for citizenship Equality BEttina Ng’wEno I could see that she was agitated. She did not want us to be here at her front porch asking her questions about land tenure, black communities, and her aspi- rations for the future. On hearing I was from Africa, she told me in no uncertain terms that she believed I was there to take her land and the community’s land and that I would bring people from Africa to do so. As I excused myself, letting her know that participation in our survey was completely voluntary, she said, “The indigenous people here tell us to go back to Africa, but we have noth- ing to do with Africa.” We left without talking to her, feeling the weight of her words. Go back to Africa! What a powerful and terrible comment for those who have never been there. What an effective means of distancing citizens from their citizenship, their nationality, and their land. What histories of restrictions of citizenship and nationality these words frame. Go back to Africa! The depth of discrimination they call up. In these four short words are held slavery and its legacies, the creation of an African diaspora, and finally the exorcism of African culture in the Americas. Go back to Africa! Emplacement and displacement in time and space. This was the first time I had heard the words “we are told to go back to Africa,” but it was definitely not the last during the fourteen months of ethno- graphic research I conducted in 1999 in the northern part of the department of Cauca in southwestern Colombia.
    [Show full text]
  • A Proposal for Afro-Hispanic Peoples and Culture As General Studies Course in African Universities
    humanities Article A Proposal for Afro-Hispanic Peoples and Culture as General Studies Course in African Universities Purity Ada Uchechukwu Department of Modern European Languages, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 0000, Nigeria; [email protected] Received: 26 November 2018; Accepted: 18 February 2019; Published: 23 February 2019 Abstract: After centuries of denial, suppression and marginalization, the contributions of Afro-Hispanics/Latinos to the arts, culture, and the Spanish spoken in the Americas is gradually gaining recognition as Afro-descendants pursue their quest for visibility and space in Spanish America. Hand in hand with this development is the young generation of Afro-Latinos who, are proud to identify with the black race. Ironically, the young African student has very little knowledge of the presence and actual situation of Afro-descendants in Spanish-speaking America. This is because many African universities still follow the old colonial system which excludes knowledge of the presence and cultures of the once enslaved Africans in the Spanish speaking world. Thus, while Afro-descendants are fighting for visibility and recognition in Spanish America, they remain almost invisible in the African continent. The aim of this paper is to propose a curriculum, Afro-Hispanic Peoples and Culture, as a general studies course in African universities. Such a curriculum would create in Africa the much-needed visibility and contributions of Afro-descendants in Spanish-speaking America, and also foster collaborative works between young African academics and their counterparts in the Americas. Keywords: Afro-Hispanic peoples and culture; general studies; Afro-Hispanic visibility; mestizaje; African Universities 1. Introduction Every history that is taught likely evokes the bias of the dominant group (Rochin 2016, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Volume 19.2 National Political Science Review. Black Girl Magic
    NATIONAL POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOLUME 19.2 Joie Moore-Harley GENDERED BLACK POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR WITH DUCHESS HARRIS A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK POLITICAL SCIENTISTS GENDERED BLACK POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR WITH DUCHESS HARRIS A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK POLITICAL SCIENTISTS NATIONAL POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOLUME 19.2 BLACK GIRL MAGIC GENDERED BLACK POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR WITH DUCHESS HARRIS A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK POLITICAL SCIENTISTS National Political Science Review | ii THE NATIONAL POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW EDITORS Managing Editor Tiffany Willoughby-Herard University of California, Irvine Duchess Harris Macalester College Sharon D. Wright Austin The University of Florida Angela K. Lewis University of Alabama, Birmingham BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Brandy Thomas Wells Oklahoma State University EDITORIAL RESEARCH ASSISTANTS Jaimee Swift, Howard University Ashley Daniels, Howard University Armand Demirchyan, Georgetown University Deshanda Edwards, Augusta University GENDERED BLACK POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Melina Abdullah—California State University, Los Angeles Keisha Lindsey—University of Wisconsin JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY Anthony Affigne—Providence College Clarence Lusane—American University Nikol Alexander-Floyd—Rutgers University Maruice Mangum—Alabama State University SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR Russell Benjamin—Northeastern Illinois University Lorenzo Morris—Howard University Nadia Brown—Purdue University Richard T. Middleton IV—University of Missouri, St. Louis WITH DUCHESS HARRIS Niambi Carter—Howard University Byron D’Andra Orey—Jackson State University Cathy Cohen—University of Chicago Marion Brown—Brown University Dewey Clayton—University of Louisville Dianne Pinderhughes—University of Notre Dame Nyron Crawford—Temple University Matt Platt—Morehouse College Heath Fogg-Davis—Temple University H.L.T.
    [Show full text]
  • Strategies of the Black Pacific: Music and Diasporic Identity in Peru
    2 Strategies of the Black Pacific music and Diasporic identity in Peru HEiDi carolyn FElDman Peru has not collected census data about racial and ethnic identity since 1940. Reaffirming this decision in 1961, Census Director Pedro Gutierrez stated, “The question about race has been omitted because there is no racial problem in Peru” (La Prensa 1961, 5). Decades later, in 2009, a taxi driver in Lima questioned me about the recent election of the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama. “Pardon my frankness,” he said, “but how is it that a country like yours, with such racial problems, succeeded in electing a black president?” Implicit in his statement was a comparison between Peru (where presidential elections in the 1990s had foregrounded the ethnic backgrounds of Japanese Peruvian Al- berto Fujimori, nicknamed “El Chino,” and mestizo Alejandro Toledo, known as “El Cholo”) as a country with “no racial problem” versus the United States, with its history of legalized segregation and institutionalized discrimination against blacks in housing, restaurants, buses, employment, and other forms of public life (see Oboler 2005).1 For Afro-descendants in Peru, all is not what it seems. Anthropologist Mari- sol de la Cadena (1998) explains that Peruvian national ideology long has held that there is no such thing as race, while at the same time members of non-Euro- pean groups are excluded from membership in the educated and “decent” classes, creating an environment of silent racism. Afro-Peruvian scholar José Campos, similarly, explains that “racism in Peru is felt but not seen” (quoted in Portocar- rero 2000, 208; see also Sims 1996).
    [Show full text]