Blacks in Latin America and the Caribbean
The aim of this course is to examine black identity, history and politics across a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The course is organized in four parts. It begins with historical texts on the conditions that gave rise to the African Diaspora in this region, including the particularities of transatlantic slave trade. Second, we explore how governments responded to the question of how to incorporate the former enslaved population into the social, political and economic life of their countries. The third part of the course analyzes how these different contexts laid the foundation for different kinds of expressions of black identity and politics over the course of the 20th century. In the final section of the class, we analyze the migration of Afro-Latin Americans to places like New York and Florida and the corresponding emergence of afro-latin@ identity in the U.S. Throughout the course we analyze how processes of racialization and practices of antiblackness intersect with other axes of power and hierarchy, namely class and gender.
