From colonial subjects to post-colonial citizens? Considerations for a contemporary study of Black México

Abstract

The Mexican government is currently attempting to incorporate Black Mexicans into the national cultural landscape. However, the centring of whiteness through mestizaje limits the possibilities of Black inclusion by continuing to imagine the archetypal Mexican citizen as non-Black. Therefore, a colonial inheritance of racial value continues to frame how blackness can be constituted as part of the contemporary nation. This article argues that while the War for Independence may have allowed for the imagination of a new ‘Mexican’, a colonial racial economy continues to endure. This racial economy continues to limit the possibility of citizenship for African descendants in México.