Black Social Movements in Latin America: From Monocultural Mestizaje to Multiculturalism

This collection of essays explores the transformations of the political landscapes within which black social movements in Latin America have been operating since the end of the 1970s. Evaluating black social movements in their various national contexts, the essays reveal that these transformations have mostly consisted in the passage from state-sponsored ideological 'monocultural mestizaje' to state-managed multiculturalism and corporatism or co-optation. As the contributions to this volume show, black personalities and leaders of social movements were incorporated within the apparatus of the state. These new situations have rendered Afro-Latino political struggles more complex, at times even heightening the antagonism they encounter.