To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965
... 6 Black women's presence in Costa Rican state politics warrants consideration precisely because of the country's racial formation processes. Unlike the founding narratives of mestizaje in the majority of Central and Latin American countries, which celebrates Hispanic and Indian-and exceptionally Black-racial mixture (Euraque, Gould, and Hale 2005;Gould 1998;Hooker 2010), Costa Rica embraces the imaginary of the White nation (Putnam 1999;Molina 2002). 7 As seen in data from the last census, these mythologies influence the dynamics of self-identification to this day. ...
... Along the same lines, the experiences of the majority of Campbell's predecessors (included in Figure 1) illustrate a Black Caribbean legacy of women's activism that increased their public visibility and led to them being invited to run by a political party or a male political leader. For example, the congresswomen Thelma Curling Rodríguez, Marcelle Taylor Brown, and Joycelyn Sawyers Royal were each invited to join the race by their parties' respective leaders, former presidents Luis Alberto Monge (1982-1986), Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier (1990-1994), and José María Figueres Olsen (1994-1998. But having the support of a caudillo/male leader or a party invitation, although crucial, was preceded by decades of their political activism and that of other Black women. ...
Black women who seek and win elected office are changing the political landscape in the Americas. In Latin America, this shift became widely recognized when Epsy Campbell Barr became the first Black woman vice president in Costa Rica in 2018. Her election builds on the work of three generations of women whose engagement in formal politics is rooted in their intertwined identities as Black, women, and of West Indian descent. By recovering a racialized, gendered, and ethnicized lineage of community activism, relationships, and networking—which I call “Little’s links” to honor the legacy of the writer and activist Eulalia Bernard Little—I argue that in Costa Rica, Caribbean identity and Black motherhood politics have influenced Black women’s engagement in national politics. This account of these other (and mothers’) political routes to state power for Afro-Caribbean women in Costa Rica complements current explanations of Black women’s participation in national politics elsewhere.
... El día cinco, caminadas siete leguas, llegué a Jalapa; este pueblo en lo antiguo era de indios: se han extinguido de forma, que ocho únicamente han quedado en dos familias; se han agregado otras tres de Mosonte y sesenta y dos de los ladinos: todas tienen doscientas cuarenta y siete personas de confesión y comunión. La Asunción es la titular, pero sin Iglesia, la que hay ni aún sirve para cocina y tal vez se ha dedicado para el baile profano de la sarabanda 67 . Gran lástima me causó y así en dos sermones que prediqué esforcé cuanto pude los ánimos para la continuación de otra, también, de paja que se ha principiado". ...
... Pareciéndome, en fin, que en fuerza de mi obligación debía interesarme en el bien espiritual y temporal de estos dos pueblos, escribí sobre ellos al Presidente de Guatemala las dos cartas que, aunque posteriores en la fecha, insertaré en este lugar como propio de ellas" «Excelentísimo Señor: Muy Señor mío de mi mayor estimación: Participo a V. E. cómo Don Bernabé de Partida Aguilar, Cura Rector de la Iglesia Parroquial de la Ciudad de Nueva Segovia, se presentó ante mi exponiendo:: que los dos pueblos de El Jícaro y Jalapa tenían antes su curato separado: que en la vacante del Ilustrísimo Sr. Obispo Fray Dionisio de Villavicencio, fue su muerte en 25 de Diciembre del año de 35, se suprimió, agregándolos al de la dicha ciudad, y que hacia dejación de ellos por la dilatada e incómoda distancia en que se hallaban; recibida la información sobre el asunto, proveí auto en que haciéndome cargo de la necesidad y utilidad, no sólo del restablecimiento del mencionado curato, sino también de la erección de otro en Jalapa, se compulsase testimonio para remitirlo a V. E. y determinase lo que tuviere por más conveniente, y en el ínterin deposité las Iglesias de los pueblos mencionados en Don Miguel Jeróni mo Saldaña, Pbro. Sacristán Mayor interino de la dicha ciudad, para que cuide de aquellos infelices feligreses, tan destituidos de consuelo, según parece del testimonio adjunto» Con este motivo debo hacer presente a V. E. que el Cura de Segovia tiene a su cargo cuatro iglesias, es a saber: las de los dos pueblos expresados, la de la ciudad donde reside y Mosonte, que está a distancia de cuatro leguas hacia el Sur y aquellos a ocho y catorce al Norte; cómo un solo Ministro únicamente podrá 67 Nota del editor: Zarabanda: según la RAE, "Danza popular española de los siglos XVI y XVII, que fue frecuentemente censurada por los moralistas". atender a cuatro feligresías tan separadas las unas de las otras, no es fácil comprender. ...
... 255-259), with the entire population now structurally incorporated in increasingly modern times. Whatever remnants might have been observed by earlier 19th-century Western travellers in central Nicaragua, such as Ephraim Squier, Thomas Belt, or Frederick Boyle, were historically regarded as significantly different by the start of the 20th century (for a comprehensive discussion of the historical idea of mestizaje and ladinoisation, see Gould, 1998). Effectively, from the early 20th century onwards, the inconsequential and marginal presence of Indigenous ways of relating to lands was common sense and is still widely accepted across Nicaragua today. ...
... 255-259), with the entire population now structurally incorporated in increasingly modern times. Whatever remnants might have been observed by earlier 19th-century Western travellers in central Nicaragua, such as Ephraim Squier, Thomas Belt, or Frederick Boyle, were historically regarded as significantly different by the start of the 20th century (for a comprehensive discussion of the historical idea of mestizaje and ladinoisation, see Gould, 1998). Effectively, from the early 20th century onwards, the inconsequential and marginal presence of Indigenous ways of relating to lands was common sense and is still widely accepted across Nicaragua today. ...
... 2. Most Honduran Miskitu live within the limits of the RPBR, established to protect the cultural and natural heritage of the region, an internationally designated protected area by the UN-MAB program. However, they are a threatened population in the broader national and international contexts (Gould 1998;Stonich 2001). Today they are losing their lands and resources as the Honduran government implements neo-liberal economic policies and the colonization front pushes further north into their autochtonous homeland. ...
Volume of original research papers celebrating William V. Davidson's geographical career by his students and colleagues, with emphasis on Honduras and Central America, and also South America.
... As this homogeneous identity solidified, there were concrete repercussions for Indigenous groups who were dispossessed of their ethnic heritage and lands. On the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua, Indigenous people lost their land, their communities, cultural heritage, and identity and became known as peasants (Gould, 1998). On the Atlantic, they were forgotten and became nonexistent within the perception of Nicaragua's mainstream politics of identity as was the case for the Mayangna (González, 2011). ...
Decisions related to policies and practices that strive for environmental protection and rural development often impact Indigenous people across the globe in ways that affect their traditional livelihoods. However, Indigenous leaders, knowledge systems, and their relationship with the territories they occupy tend to be excluded from conversations that inform these policies and practices. This paper adds to the ongoing conversation on conceptualization of territory and landscapes by bringing to the forefront the contribution of Indigenous epistemologies such as the Mik’maw framework of Two-Eyed Seeing. This framework highlights the complementarity of Western and Indigenous knowledge systems and posits that considering both systems, we can enact more effective approaches to sustainability and relationship with the land. Drawing on a qualitative case study research carried out by the author, the paper examines the impact of the top-down process of territory demarcation in the Biosphere Reserve of Bosawas in Nicaragua and the negative repercussions that excluding Indigenous knowledge systems can have at the local level. The paper concludes by offering possible ways to address ongoing colonialist conceptualizations and demarcations of territories.
... En cambio, algunos hicieron uso de la noción de raza para describir la biología de los indios, mientras otros hablaron del "factor étnico" para describir su espíritu y psicología. En contraste con investigaciones recientes (Hale 1996;Clark 1998b;Gould 1998;De la Cadena 2000;Field 2002) que proyectan una imagen de un discurso uniforme y asimilativo del mestizaje, yo encuentro que en el Ecuador la idea de mestizaje fue escasamente debatida y, cuando se la utilizó, tuvo una variedad de significados. El concepto de mezclas raciales y culturales muestra una diversidad de traducciones y oposiciones y, en contraste con Perú y México, solo hizo parte de la estrategia oficial a partir de mediados de la década de 1940. ...
El “lupino paisano” se refiere no solo a la semilla andina (Lupinus mutabilis Sweet) sino también a una red alimentaria. Argumentamos que esta red no está basada en una ontología moderna que separa la cultura y la naturaleza sino en lo que consideramos como “ontología relacional u ontología rizoma-actante”. Fundamentándonos en la teoría del actor-red de Bruno Latour (Actor Network Theory (ANT). Seguimos la ruta recorrida por la semilla de lupino desde la comunidad andina de Guayama San Pedro (el lugar de producción) hasta los valles de Cotopaxi (lugares de procesamiento y consumo) y su retorno a Guayama San Pedro. Todo esto es analizado como una serie de alianzas entre actantes. Concluimos que la red de lupino paisano abarca un grupo de entidades y de relaciones dinámicas entre ellos; no tiene una disposición centralizada ni es una “organizing memory”.
On the surface, plantations are vast settled spaces in which neatly aligned rows of crops and disciplined workers produce profits for corporations. Yet despite their seemingly orderly, regimented, and enduring form, many aspects of plantation life are unsettled, dynamic, and fragile. In this conversation, we discuss the practices and meanings of plantation settlements and unsettlements in Melanesia, highland South America, and Indonesia. In doing so, we explore the intrinsic coloniality and racial character of contemporary plantations and the possibilities of anthropology in this domain. We call for a critical, comparative agenda exploring 'the plantation multiple' as an enduring yet contingent socio-ecological, spatio-temporal, and racial-capitalist formation, enacted through contextually situated sets of practices, ideologies, and epistemologies. Such an agenda centers attention to mutually constitutive colonial and capitalist logics, relationships of force and failure, violence and care, and the multispecies nature of plantation-driven simplification, proliferation, and resistance.
La prensa nicaragüense durante el siglo XIX evidenció lo confuso y contradictorio del proyecto de nación de la intelligentsia nicaragüense, una parte de ella defendía una identidad y patrimonio centroamericano, en tanto que la otra apoyaba un concepto de identidad nacional ligado alrededor del suelo donde se nació, es decir de Nicaragua. Unos textos mantenían un concepto de inferioridad étnico-cultural y desvaloraban el proyecto de nación ligado al canal interoceánico. Sin embargo, en 1874 se hace más notorio el interés de crear un sentimiento patriótico ligado al lugar de nacimiento. La Guía Ilustrada del Estado de Nicaragua de 1898 contribuyó a la formación de la identidad nacional en cuanto a que presenta al nicaragüense como un ser mayoritariamente mestizo, y señala las características étnico-culturales del nicaragüense como un pueblo defensor del orden político, sencillo y hospitalario. Tales rasgos se derivan de las conferidas al héroe nacional José Dolores Estrada. Revista de Museología "Kóot" No.14 2023: 79-91
More than a Massacre is a history of race, citizenship, statelessness, and genocide from the perspective of ethnic Haitians in Dominican border provinces. Sabine F. Cadeau traces a successively worsening campaign of explicitly racialized anti-Haitian repression that began in 1919 under the American Occupiers, accelerated in 1930 with the rise of Trujillo, and culminated in 1937 with the slaughter of an estimated twenty thousand civilians. Relatively unknown by contrast with contemporary events in Europe, the Haitian-Dominican experience has yet to feature in the broader literature on genocide and statelessness in the twentieth century. Bringing to light the massacre from the perspective of the ethnic Haitian victims themselves, Cadeau combines official documents with oral sources to demonstrate how ethnic Haitians interpreted their changing legal status at the border, as well as their interpretation of the massacre and its aftermath, including the ongoing killing and land conflict along the post-massacre border.
In much of the southern Caribbean (i.e., Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana), ethno‐political tensions between numerically commensurable populations of South Asian and African diasporic populations have structured narratives of postcolonial conflict between an “African” and an “Indian” political party, setting the limits of national narratives. This article challenges this narrative on a number of points, drawing on oral histories and ethnographic research. I look at how the assumption of homogenous African and Indian groupings ignores important differences of class and political ideology that disrupt racial essentialism and create what I have called “altered solidarities.” I argue that dominant postcolonial frameworks of creole nationalism, state multiculturalism, and securitization in the Anglophone Caribbean have been unable to recognize these alternate solidarities in the region. [race, nationalism, diaspora, Caribbean, ethnic conflict] En gran parte del Caribe del sur (es decir, Trinidad y Tobago y Guyana) las tensiones etnopolíticas entre poblaciones numéricamente conmensurables de poblaciones de la diáspora tanto del sur de Asia como de África han estructurado narrativas de conflicto postcolonial entre un partido político “africano” y uno “indio”, estableciendo los límites de las narrativas nacionales. Este artículo desafía esta narrativa, basándose en historias orales e investigación etnográfica. Expongo cómo las suposiciones acerca de las agrupaciones africanas e indias homogéneas ignoran importantes diferencias de clase e ideología política que interrumpen el esencialismo racial, creando lo que he llamado “solidaridades alteradas”. Sostengo que los marcos poscoloniales dominantes del nacionalismo criollo, el multiculturalismo estatal y la seguridad militarizada en el Caribe anglófono no han podido reconocer estas solidaridades alternativas en la región. [racismo, nacionalismo, diáspora, Caribe, conflicto étnico]
Individuals can assume—and be assigned—multiple roles throughout a conflict: perpetrators can be victims, and vice versa; heroes can be reassessed as complicit and compromised. However, accepting this more accurate representation of the narrativized identities of violence presents a conundrum for accountability and justice mechanisms premised on clear roles. This book considers these complex, sometimes overlapping roles, as people respond to mass violence in various contexts, from international tribunals to NGO-based social movements. Bringing the literature on perpetration in conversation with the more recent field of victim studies, it suggests a new, more effective, and reflexive approach to engagement in post-conflict contexts. Long-term positive peace requires understanding the narrative dynamics within and between groups, demonstrating that the blurring of victim-perpetrator boundaries, and acknowledging their overlapping roles, is a crucial part of peacebuilding processes. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
La rebelión cristera de 1926 a 1930 fue el conflicto civil más importante del México posrevolucionario. La mayoría de los rebeldes se levantaron para defender a la Iglesia Católica contra el régimen anticlerical del gobierno revolucionario, pero muchos miembros del pueblo indígena wixárika (o huicholes), famosos por practicar una religión propia muy lejos del catolicismo ortodoxo, también se incorporaron a la rebelión. En el presente texto, se plantea que los huicholes apoyaron a los rebeldes no por cuestiones religiosas, sino en respuesta a los esfuerzos recientes del estado revolucionario para establecerse en su patria chica. Esto en el contexto de conflictos territoriales ya antiguos, además de rivalidades recién nacidas en la violencia de la revolución. Comprender esta historia permite conocer mejor las contradicciones de la revolución mexicana y la rebelión cristera, y nos lleva lejos de la visión romántica de los pueblos originarios como “incorruptibles” por la política corriente o siempre ubicados del lado de los movimientos “progresistas” en América Latina.
Este texto construye un debate entre las teorizaciones sobre la blanquitud desarrolladas en Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica. Se hace particular énfasis en la propuesta de la blanquitud como ethos capitalista formulada por el filósofo ecuatoriano–mexicano Bolívar Echeverría. A partir de la tesis de Echeverría se lanza una hipótesis de trabajo: la blanquitud puede expresarse como ‘mestitud’ en contextos latinoamericanos concretos.
Memes have become an important linguistic tool not only for communicating emotions and ideas, but also are integral to constructing the self in online space. This paper concentrates on copper miners in northern Chile and the ways they use memes to make claims related to (hetero)sexuality, mestizaje , and nationalism. With men at the mine during week-long shifts and families in towns several hours away, social media is important for maintaining communication as well as representing the self. Miners present their labor as central to their sense of self, with memes that indirectly index heterosexuality, modernity associated with resource extraction, and racial mestizaje linked to nationalism. The visibility of these memes across spaces of both mine and town gives men an opportunity to construct a cohesive digital self, with implications for reinforcing assumptions about what is appropriate gender performance.
Este artículo ofrece una revisión panorámica de las complejas relaciones entre las poblaciones afros, el espacio Caribe y el istmo centroamericano desde la Colonia hasta la actualidad. Para dicho abordaje, propone el concepto de “afrocentroamericanidades” como una circunstancia simultánea de dislocación y translocación geográfica, cultural y política. Por un lado, los países centroamericanos condicionan la exclusión de los espacios racializados y las identidades no mestizas o blancas de su repertorio de lo nacional, conforme sus intereses económicos, culturales y políticos. Por otro, comunidades afrodescendientes se definen desde su relación con el Caribe insular ya en el periodo colonial, afirman su dinámica circun-caribeña durante la época (liberal) de las plantaciones y capitalizan su condición afrolatina, mediante las migraciones a los Estados Unidos y otros territorios de la región desde mediados del siglo XX y hasta la actualidad. En cuanto se articula mediante la formación y movilización de identidades diaspóricas, la experiencia “afrocentroamericaneidades” da cuenta de la maleabilidad cultural (y fragilidad) de las fronteras nacionales; a su vez, de proyectos que desafían los imaginarios mestizos (o blancos) centroamericanos y sus posibilidades de articulación.
Nineteenth-century republicans across the political spectrum agreed: the Spanish monarchy produced ‘miserable Indians’. Abolishing tribute and privatising communal lands, known as resguardos in New Granada (roughly today's Panama and Colombia), would transform that wretched class into equal citizens. Drawing on late eighteenth-century privatisation efforts by the Spanish Crown, early republican leaders in Gran Colombia inaugurated an era seeking equal access to wealth from communal land for all indigenous community members. After Gran Colombia (the first Colombian Republic, 1819–30) dissolved into New Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela in 1830, New Granada's experiments with indigenous resguardo policies went further. By then, legislative efforts considered the needs of all resguardo members, including unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Complex laws, diverse ecological terrain and nuanced social realities required well-trained surveyors to ensure each eligible indigenous family received a fair share of land. Whereas indigenous communities in Pasto, Santa Marta and the Cauca river valley resorted to armed insurrection against liberal policies through the War of the Supremes (1839–42), those in the highlands near Bogotá did not. Instead, these republican indígenas – with their greater access to the levers of power housed in the national capital – chose to engage in the reforms of a decentralising state. This article reveals how contentious experiments seeking republican equality within indigenous resguardos as a path towards abolishing the institution were consistently stymied by efforts to ensure that indigenous community governance and communal landholding remained intact.
en This article analyzes Giorgio Agamben’s state of exception and evaluates its implications for understanding the crisis in Nicaragua in 2018. The lens of exception fails to encourage critical questions about the complicated social and historical dynamics of Nicaragua’s contentious politics. Conflict transformation and global civil society could open a space for the social forces struggling to redefine state power and resolve the crisis.
Abstract
es Este artículo analiza el andamiaje conceptual de Giorgio Agamben sobre el estado de excepción, y evalúa las implicaciones de usar este enfoque para entender la crisis en Nicaragua en 2018. Dicho enfoque no permite realizar preguntas críticas que aborden la complicada dinámica social e histórica de la política contenciosa de Nicaragua. La transformación del conflicto y la sociedad civil global podrían abrir un espacio para que las fuerzas sociales redefinan el poder estatal y resuelvan la crisis.
Abstract
zh 本文分析了乔治·阿甘本提出的例外状态，评价了其对理解2018年尼加拉瓜危机的意义。例外状态所持的视角并不能对尼加拉瓜的斗争性政治中复杂的社会历史动态提出批判性质疑。冲突转化和全球公民社会则能为努力重新定义国家权力和解决危机的社会力量提供空间。
This research examines the experiences of librarians in Bluefields, Nicaragua. Semi-structured interviews and photovoice activities were used to investigate librarians’ professional development, daily operations, and ways of meeting the information needs of Costeños—or, Miskitu, Rama, and Sumu indigenous groups as well as African-descending Creoles. The findings suggest that librarians’ accounts coincide with established knowledge on Nicaragua's library landscape: libraries are predominantly formal and education-related; Nicaraguan society values oral knowledge or word-of-mouth information; and when compared with academic libraries, Nicaraguan public libraries are fewer and lack resources. Libraries on the Atlantic coast can strengthen their services through collaborations as well as culturally-based services. Additionally, the photovoice technique was found to be an effective tool for conducting research involving multicultural communities.
During the 1980s, El Salvador was engaged in a brutal civil war; massacres, torture, and rape pervaded the countryside. This social and economic upheaval created approximately 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced persons throughout Central and North America. Gender is a critical yet understudied aspect of this mass displacement. I analyze humanitarian publications and government documents to examine the discursive gendering of Salvadoran refugees on the international stage. I argue that U.S. activists portrayed Salvadorans as feminized civilian victims in need of rescue by the paternalistic United States to change public opinion of the Salvadoran Civil War and its refugees. These gendered and infantilized constructions belie the reality that the vast majority of Salvadoran refugees to the United States were men of military age. I examine the Salvadoran refugee from a new perspective that foregrounds gender as a category of analysis.
This article examines the Miskitu peoples’ efforts to gain equal rights in mid-20th-century Nicaragua through a discourse of citizenship within the larger ideological framework of Latin American mestizaje (interracial and intercultural mixing as the basis for Latin American identity in refutation of European and/or Anglo-American values). Specifically, it explores Miskitu recollections and reactions to Nicaraguan efforts to integrate them into the national identity through an indigenist programme known as the Río Coco Pilot Project for Basic Education. Acknowledging Miskitu accommodation and even embracement of this assimilationist project provides an alternative interpretation of 20th-century indigenous social activism and validates an earlier Miskitu generation's achievements in advancing the cause of Miskitu social and political equality in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast region before the era of multicultural autonomy.
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