The Growth of Ethnic Minorities in Uruguay: Ethnic Renewal or Measurement Problems?

Abstract

Racial and ethnic identities constitute one of the most important sources of inequality and social solidarity in the Americas. Although race and ethnicity have a notable social impact, it is not easy to produce reliable ethno-racial statistics. This is especially true for the Latin American region, where ethnic and racial identities are more fluid, contextual and unstable than in the U.S. Several studies show that racial statistics vary substantially according to the specific methodological devices used to measure race. In Brazil, for instance, Telles and Lim (1998) show that racial inequality is higher when the race variable is constructed according to the interviewers’ perceptions of the respondents’ race than when race is measured through respondents’ self-classification. In Colombia, in turn, while Afro-descendants were 1.5 % of the total population according to the 1993 Census, they were 9.8 % according to the National Household Survey of 2004 (Urrea 2005). This substantial difference is probably explained by the different dimensions of race captured by each survey question. While the 1993 census asked individuals if they were members of an Afro-descendant community, the 2004 survey asked them if according to their physical characteristics they were black, white, mestizos or mulattos.