Race Mestizaje:Latin America

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Although “race” is not a biological reality, it is a social construct that has developed over time, producing forms of social hierarchy and discrimination, representations, and symbols that impact upon the lives of people. This course will explore how “race,” “race mixing,” and cultural hybridity have unfolded since colonial times in Latin America, with a special focus on the comparison between how Latin American scholars have studied the topic, and how it has been studied by foreign scholars. In terms of disciplinary focus, the course will highlight ethnographic and historical works by authors from Latin America and North America. Course Reading List: de la Cadena, Marisol, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991 (Duke, 2000) Candelario, Ginetta, Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops (Duke, 2007) Freyre, Gilberto, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (Knopf, 1956)/ Casa-grande & senzala: Formação da familia grasileira sob o regime de economia patriarcal (Recife, 1966-70) / Casa-grande y senzala: Formación de la familia brasileña bajo el régimen de la economía patriarcal (Bib. Ayacucho, 1977) Hale, Charles, Más que un Indio: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala (School of American Research, 2006) Hernández Castillo, R. Aída, Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico (Texas, 2001) / La otra frontera: Identidades múltiples en el Chiapas poscolonial (CIESAS, 2001) Rappaport, Joanne, The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada (Duke, 2014) Sartorius, David, Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba (Duke, 2013)— Sansone, Livio, Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil (Palgrave, 2003) Segato, Rita Laura, “The Color-Blind Subject of Myth; Or, Where to Find Africa in the Nation,” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 129-51 Sheriff, Robin E., Dreaming Equality: Color, Race, and Racism in Urban Brazil (Rutgers, 2001) Torres-Saillant, Silvio, “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity,” Latin American Perspectives 25 (1998) 3: 126-46 Wade, Peter, et. al., Mestizo Genomics: Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America (Duke, 2014)