This collection brings together innovative historical work on race
and national identity in Latin America and the Caribbean and places
this scholarship in the context of interdisciplinary and
transnational discussions regarding race and nation in the
Americas. Moving beyond debates about whether ideologies of racial
democracy have actually served to obscure discrimination, the book
shows how notions of race and nationhood have varied over time
across Latin America's political landscapes.
Framing the themes and questions explored in the volume, the
editors' introduction also provides an overview of the current
state of the interdisciplinary literature on race and nation-state
formation. Essays on the postindependence period in Belize, Brazil,
Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Peru consider how popular and
elite racial constructs have developed in relation to one another
and to processes of nation building. Contributors also examine how
ideas regarding racial and national identities have been gendered
and ask how racialized constructions of nationhood have shaped and
limited the citizenship rights of subordinated groups.
The contributors are Sueann Caulfield, Sarah C. Chambers, Lillian
Guerra, Anne S. Macpherson, Aims McGuinness, Gerardo Renique, James
Sanders, Alexandra Minna Stern, and Barbara Weinstein.