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This essay explores the intersection of race science and plant taxonomy in the creation of evolutionary taxonomies (phylogenies) of populations of Zea mays , also known as maize or corn. Following recent work in the history and sociology of race, it analyzes maize taxonomy as technology. Through an analysis of successive attempts to classify diverse maize varieties, especially those originating in Mexico, it shows that taxonomy created possibilities for researchers to intervene in commercial agriculture, state development projects, biological conservation, and domestic and international politics and policy. It further underscores that the modern science of maize taxonomy was distinct but never inseparable from assessments of maize's human cultivators. Attending to particularities of this relationship is crucial, because it reveals the application of maize taxonomy as a technology for ordering human diversity and intervening in human lives, as well as managing the impressive diversity of Zea mays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay studies the New York City, Hartford, and Santurce photographs by Puerto Rican documentary photographer Pablo Delano and scrutinizes the aesthetics of precarity displayed in them. Delano focuses upon people and settings marked by precarity and dispossession, especially impoverished and and other Caribbean peoples, and depicts alterity in ways that engender artistic sophistication, ethical depth, and epistemological complexity. Informed by Butler, Derrida, Levinas, Rancière, Sommer, and others, I locate tensions between aesthetics and politics, as well as highlight ethical concerns in Delano's production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illuminates why Nicolás Palacios's 1904 monograph, Raza chilena: Libro escrito por un Chileno i para los Chilenos [Chilean Race: A Book Written by a Chilean for Chileans], is central to the creation of a myth of Chilean racial homogeneity at the turn of the twentieth century. Placing Palacios in the context of Latin American eugenic discourse, it demonstrates how he selected a specific racial origin story in order to accommodate his belief in racial hierarchy while also depicting race mixing in a positive light. Specifically, the article highlights how the myth of Chilean racial homogeneity elided the difference between the term 'mestizo,' which was applied to people of mixed racial heritage, and 'white.' I contend that Palacios sought to differentiate Chileans from other Latin Americans by emphasizing their racial distinctiveness. The article therefore highlights that Latin American eugenics was concerned with the creation of national narratives that historicized particular racial mixtures in order to reify and affirm national differences. As such, it connects to literature regarding the history of eugenics, race, nation, and the creation of whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina has been a country of immigration since the Republican period. Moreover migration has played a key role in the construction of Argentinian nationhood. This paper traces migration policies and official accounts of migration from the nineteenth century to the present day in order to analyse the role of migration in nation-making. We argue that migration policies and official accounts of migration have changed significantly over the last 150 years. Yet, at least until the most recent migration policy reforms, these changing representations of migrants indicated major continuities of nationhood—namely, the persistent construction of Argentina as a white nation of European descendants. By tracing changes in migration policies and discourses then and now, this article addresses the relative absence of comparative works linking ‘new’ and ‘old’ migrations in Argentina. The article also shows how a historical perspective on migration continues to be relevant for understanding the experiences of contemporary migrants. The final section identifies recent changes in migration policy and discusses whether they indicate a radical departure from previous understandings of nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the racial identity of whites throughout Latin America and attempts to determine if whiteness varies by country. The author discusses the history of racial classification in relation to whites, blacks, and indigenous peoples, examines the history of interracial marriage in the region, and explores the social aspects of ethnoracial identity.

Latin American elites authored and disseminated ideologies of mestizaje or race mixture, but does the general population value them today? Using the 2010 Americas Barometer, we examined public opinion about mestizaje in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru using survey questions that modeled mestizaje both as a principle of national development and as tolerance for intermarriage with black or indigenous people. We found that most Latin Americans support mestizaje, although support varies by country and ethnicity. Across countries, we find partial evidence that the strength of earlier nation-making mestizaje ideas is related to support for mestizaje today, and that strong multicultural policies may have actually strengthened such support. Ethnoracial minorities showed particular support for the national principle of mestizaje. Finally, we discovered that the national principle of mestizaje is associated with more tolerant attitudes about intermarriage, especially in countries with large Afro-descendant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Social heterogeneity has always been a critical problem in Latin American societies. The paper analyzes how Latin American democratic governments tackle social inequality and what effects these strategies have. Five countries are compared qualitatively-two countries with moderate left governments, following moderate strategies (Chile, Brazil) and two cases with radical left governments, following more radical strategies (Venezuela, Bolivia). In addition, Mexico is included as a control due to its conservative government. Different policy strategies are described and the effects of the policies are analyzed. Do radical efforts yield a better result regarding social equality? The results show a remarkable trend: the radical left seems to fare better than the moderate, the left better than the conservative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the migration of Africans to be used as slaves in the Americas beginning in the 16th century and lasting until the mid-19th century. The author analyzes the social conditions faced by these African immigrants and the development of racial tensions during the time period studied. He also examines the geographical distribution of the African population throughout Latin America, citing a database containing information from slave ships. The influence of the influx of African slaves on demography, socioeconomics, and culture through the 20th century is also considered.

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Abstract If the question of the humanity of 'the other' may become a question, and not be reinscribed into Western colonizing patterns of thought, then its issuing must concern a limit (always arising beyond Western thought), a delimitation of existence that is risked and put at risk without recourse to the project or operation of that colonizing thought that situates it. Ideas of subjectivity, agency, and power-knowledge potential for progress, as well as rationalist instrumental thought used to recognize those peoples and cultures excluded and oppressed under the Western Modern tradition, must be put into question by the very agents claiming recognition, as well as the epistemic structures that sustain these concepts and the dispositions and subconscious expectations constituted by the colonizing practices of bodies and imaginaries that project the very horizons of one's existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to use census information to measure the level of occupational segregation of workers of African descent with respect to whites in various Latin American countries. I further investigated the extent to which segregation levels can be accounted for by different workers' characteristics. The results show that Afro-Latinos are generally highly segregated across occupations but with high heterogeneity across countries. A large proportion of this segregation would not exist if Afro-Latinos had attained the same education as whites in Brazil and Ecuador, where most segregation occurs across major occupational categories. However, the proportion of occupational segregation explained by educational inequalities is much lower in other countries, where most segregation occurs within the major occupational groups. Further, occupational segregation would be even higher, especially in Costa Rica, if the geographical distribution of black and white populations were similar across these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is often used as a backdrop against which U.S. race relations are compared. Yet research on race in Latin America focuses almost exclusively on countries in the region with a large recognized presence of individuals of African descent such as Brazil. Racial categories in these countries are based on skin color distinctions along a black-white continuum. By contrast, the main socially recognized ethnic distinction in Indo-Latin American countries such as Mexico, between indigenous and non-indigenous residents, is not based primarily on phenotypical differences, but rather on cultural practices and language use. Many Mexicans today nevertheless express a preference for whiter skin and European features, even though no clear system of skin color categorization appears to exist. In this study, I use data from a nationally-representative panel survey of Mexican adults to examine the extent of skin-color-based social stratification in contemporary Mexico. Despite extreme ambiguity in skin color classification, I find considerable agreement among survey interviewers about who belongs to three skin color categories. The results also provide evidence of profound social stratification by skin color. Individuals with darker skin tone have significantly lower levels of educational attainment and occupational status, and they are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to be affluent, even after controlling for other individual characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Veritas is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal is the property of Vervuert Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on various views on "mestizaje" and racial discourse during the twentieth century as it pertains to the Conquest of Mexico. It focuses on the works of both José Vasconcelos and Gloria Anzaldúa and the change in the meaning of the word "mestizaje" from purely a racial term to defining identity. The article discusses Vasconcelos' essay "La raza cósmica" and the mix of races in Latin American as opposed to the United States. In her book "Borderlands/La Frontera," Gloria Anzaldúa discusses organic and intentional hybridization, not only of race, but of gender, language, and historical perspective.

From a perspective located at a considerable distance from an admission without any problematics of the cultural program of the Dominican humanist Pedro Henríquez Ureña, we propose a critical reading of the theory of miscegenation as a source of harmony and sociocultural integration of Hispanic-America that threads a great amount of the author's texts. Our working hypothesis tries to question the idea of Miscegenation, in which the autochthonous and Spanish elements interfere, and functions at the mercy of some strategic selections; for example, the clipping of an image of Spanish America at the expense of the Caribbean area and, consequently, of other existing ethnic reserves. On the other hand, we propose that the resource of the merger or miscegenation does not prove, at last, a sly way of eluding the conflict and cultural instability of the continent. Finally, we wish to consider the reasons for which he sticks fast and firmly to humanism as a suitable doctrine to set the course for an argumentation of harmony for these very different elements, without neglecting any positivist notes which might last in the allusions to race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the basis for black identity in Latin America. I begin with a general consideration of the position of black populations in the framework of Latin American nationalism, taking into account the transnational dimensions of this position and then analyzing in theoretical terms the tension between particularism and universalism in ideologies of nationalism and racism. In the second part of the article, I examine some concrete historical cases of Afrodescendent mobilization and/or opening towards racial diversity in order to evaluate these as bases for a Latin American black identity in general (the racial war in Cuba in 1912, the Frente Negra Brasileira of the 1930s, the Creoles in the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the official multiculturalism of various Latin American countries in the 1990s, and the image of "Africa" as the basis for Afrodescendant identification). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a list of congresses and presentations that took place under the direction of the Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho in 2005 which includes such topics as race in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ecclesiastic law in Latin America, and constitutional reform in the province of Córdoba, Argentina.