Working against racism: lessons from Latin America?

Abstract

ABSTRACT It has often been asked if Latin America has any lessons in anti-racism for other regions. This kind of comparative approach reifies and homogenises regions as distinct “cases”, obscuring common ground. In contrast, a relational approach highlights commonalities and suggests that learning experiences in developing anti-racism can be shared across and within different contexts. Examples from Ecuador and Mexico suggest that the historical relation between race and class in Latin America has produced a “racially-aware class consciousness” that could be mistaken as a simple “lesson” for other regions about how to balance a politics of recognition with one of redistribution. A relational approach highlights that this “lesson” also applies within Latin American countries, because this racially-aware class consciousness is not simply a fully-formed given, but instead needs to be activated and developed in progressive directions, pushing against the currents of history and coloniality.