The Protection of Cultural Diversity: Reflections on its Origins and Implications (original) (raw)
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This paper is an ethnography of the articulation of ethnicity in the politics of blackness in Colombia. Based on the author's fieldwork in the southern Pacific region over the last 10 years, the paper briefly describe the ethnicization of blackness in Colombia and shows how this process implies a particular articulation of memories and identities in the politics of representation of alterity. The ethnicization of blackness involves a specific 'imagined (black) community' both within and beyond the nation. The specificity of this imagined black community is anchored in the objectification of memory, culture, nature and identity. Therefore, it is argued that the ethnicization of blackness is not a new euphemism for race, but that to understand the particular inscriptions of blackness as an ethnic group one has to problematize the 'racial closure' assumed by most scholars in the study of blackness.
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Journal of Cultural Studies, 2018
This article examines the terms that shape the notion of ethnic group for black communities. This notion allows one to understand the singularity of Colombia’sturn to multiculturalism in the 1990s, and how it has impacted the political and theoretical imaginations of cultural otherness. I will argue that this shift to multiculturalism has not meant the disappearance of the talks and disputes of racism and the beginning of a kind of post-racial social formation. On the contrary, old and new forms of talk and disputes of racism could be traced after this shift to multiculturalism, not only in relation to the dense legislation for the recognition of black communities as ethnic groups, but also in regard to other realms such as social media, activist struggles and academic paradigms
Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y …, 2006
During the past two decades Latin American projects of nationhood have experienced an unexpected shift towards multiculturalism. This move, accompanied by the reconfiguration of local and translocal ethnicities and constitutional reforms recognizing cultural diversity, has produced a surge of recent and provocative acafrom a different perspective, the role of ideologies and practices of mestizaje has also provoked sustained scholarly inquiry and political debate. Erstwhile cast within polar approaches that highlighted either the inclusive or the exclusive consequences of hegemonic ideologies of racial mixing, in the past years the debate has shifted focus to include a plurality of discourses and practices. This article interweaves these two key threads of investigation. We argue that academic discussions about pluralism and multiculturalism in Latin America have paid little attention to mestizaje as a crucial dimension of nation-making projects. Following a critical examination of the pluralist as well as the neoliberal inclination towards 'la nación mestiza' linking cultural recognition with rising social inequalities, we examine recent cases of indigenous resurgence and strategies of reindigenización of subaltern groups in Colombia. We explore the current pluralist turn of the Colombian imagined national community to ponder the shifting political and social elements of mestizaje, understood as a multifaceted and conflicting terrain. We argue that while in the recent past mestizaje promised a secure but ambiguous avenue to becoming white (blanqueamiento), it has now become an equally muddled path to becoming indigenous again (reindigenización).
During the past two decades Latin American projects of nationhood have experienced an unexpected shift towards multiculturalism. This move, accompanied by the reconfiguration of local and translocal ethnicities and constitutional reforms recognizing cultural diversity, has produced a surge of recent and provocative acafrom a different perspective, the role of ideologies and practices of mestizaje has also provoked sustained scholarly inquiry and political debate. Erstwhile cast within polar approaches that highlighted either the inclusive or the exclusive consequences of hegemonic ideologies of racial mixing, in the past years the debate has shifted focus to include a plurality of discourses and practices. This article interweaves these two key threads of investigation. We argue that academic discussions about pluralism and multiculturalism in Latin America have paid little attention to mestizaje as a crucial dimension of nation-making projects. Following a critical examination of the pluralist as well as the neoliberal inclination towards 'la nación mestiza' linking cultural recognition with rising social inequalities, we examine recent cases of indigenous resurgence and strategies of reindigenización of subaltern groups in Colombia. We explore the current pluralist turn of the Colombian imagined national community to ponder the shifting political and social elements of mestizaje, understood as a multifaceted and conflicting terrain. We argue that while in the recent past mestizaje promised a secure but ambiguous avenue to becoming white (blanqueamiento), it has now become an equally muddled path to becoming indigenous again (reindigenización).
Multiculturalism in Colombia: Twenty-Five Years of Experience
This paper is part of a new publication series from the Global Centre for Pluralism called Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies. Focused on six world regions, each "change case" examines a specific moment in time when a country altered its approach to diversity, either expanding or eroding the foundations of inclusive citizenship. The aim of the serieswhich also features thematic overviews by leading global scholars -is to build global understanding of the sources of inclusion and exclusion in diverse societies and the pathways to pluralism.
Multiculturalism in Colombia. Twenty-Five Years of Experience.pdf
This paper is part of a new publication series from the Global Centre for Pluralism called Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies. Focused on six world regions, each "change case" examines a specific moment in time when a country altered its approach to diversity, either expanding or eroding the foundations of inclusive citizenship. The aim of the serieswhich also features thematic overviews by leading global scholars -is to build global understanding of the sources of inclusion and exclusion in diverse societies and the pathways to pluralism.
'Disenchanted with the State': Confronting the Limits of Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Colombia
The Colombian government's embrace of multicultural policies in the 1990 s had far-reaching implications for black and indigenous struggles for self-determination and autonomy. In the context of widespread violence, multicultural policies seemed to o er a semblance of protection. However, after nearly three decades of multicultural reforms, black and indigenous communities continue to face disproportionate violence and dispossession at the hands of the state, multinational corporations, drug tra ckers, and other armed groups. This article explores the autonomy/inclusion dialectic in order to understand why some black and indigenous social movements are turning away from the state's recognition policies.