Who is Afro-Chilean? Authenticity struggles and boundary making in Chile's northern borderland.

Research on Afrodescendant ethnic renewal in Latin America has mostly focused on how identities become politicized as Afrodescendants demand legal recognition, affirmative action policies and multicultural rights. This article instead directs attention to individuals' everyday negotiations and struggles over the definition of who is authentically black and who can legitimately claim an Afrodescendant identity. Through ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with individuals who identify as Afrodescendants in northern Chile, I look at how they construct boundaries to define membership into their community. I find that in their effort to present themselves as both Chileans and Afrodescendants, Afro-Chileans construct boundaries to distance themselves from three groups: "regular" Chileans, Aymara Indigenous people, and recently arrived black immigrants. Each boundary helps them emphasize different aspects of their local, ethnic, and national identity, promoting distinct and sometimes conflicting ways to define what it entails to be Afro-Chilean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]