Indigenous peoples may be the leading antiracist force in Latin America

Evidence

Whatever the reasons for the failure to situate Indians within the study of race, the irony is that Indians may prove to be an epicenter of antiracism in Latin America. In a number of countries, the empirical evidence suggests that Indians - more so than mestizos, blacks, or whites - are consistently and aggressively challenging the ideologies of whitening and racial democracy, producing antiracist narratives of the nation, expanding and developing sophisticated definitions of racism, fighting for representation in institutions and political office and even pushing for the formation of multiracial states. In Chiapas, for instance, the Zapatistas have centered the issue of racism and call for the formation of indigenous schools and political institutions - a clear resistance to the white supremacist project of mestizaje (Harvey, 1998). In Bolivia and Ecuador, Indians have built formidable movements which are demanding the return of their lands, greater political representation, redefinitions of national histories, and an official valuation of indigenous peoples and cultures (Field, 1991; Riveira Cusicanqui, 1991). Indians in Colombia have spearheaded a critique of the mestizo nation and have served as a model for black mobilization (Arocha, 1998; Wade 1995). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3665 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Cultural domination is doubtless a major aspect of imperialist domination as such, and ‘culture’ is always, therefore, a major site for resistance, but cultural contradictions within the imperialized formations tend to be so very numerous – sometimes along class lines but also in cross-class configurations, as in the case of patriarchal cultural forms or the religious modes of social authorization – that the totality of indigenous culture can hardly be posited as a unified, transparent site of anti-imperialist resistance. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 18 (#complicates, via linked claim)

This instability, stabilized only in the mixed product, makes almost any organization ordered around the terms of input difficult, though not impossible. For one, the input categories themselves are kept unstable, people dropping in and out of them depending on personal circumstance and prospect, relationships and social relations more broadly. For another, such organizing is largely reactive, and requires considerable conscientizing and consciousness-raising simply to enable the conditions of conceptual possibility for the organization to emerge. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1200 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Latin American indigenous movements lead antiracist challenges to whitening ideology more than other groups — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3665; Critical race scholarship has largely ignored the indigenous antiracist vanguard in Latin America — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3667; Critical race scholarship has overlooked indigenous communities as antiracist catalysts (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Latin American indigenous movements lead antiracist challenges to whitening ideology more than other groups #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3665
• Indigenous culture cannot be a unified site of anti-imperialist resistance #complicates (0.78) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 18
• Weak indigenous bourgeoisies force anti-colonial struggle through race-based guerrilla alliances. #complicates (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 53
• The instability of racial categories undermines organizing around race in Latin America #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1200