Actualité scientifique
September 2011
The diaspora of
Afro-descendants in
Mexico and Central
America takes on many
guises, as reflected in
names used such as
Colonial Blacks,
Afro-Antilleans, Garifuna.
Status and levels of social
recognition and integration
are highly diverse and this
distinguishes the countries
of this region from the rest
of the Latin-American
continent. Researchers
from the IRD and their
partners1 involved in the
programmes AFRODESC
and EURESCL2 are
studying the historical
construction of these
communities, which
developed from successive
waves of migrations, and
of their identities.
Three hundred years of
slavery, from the 16th to 19th
Centuries, have left their
scars. After abolition, there
was exclusion, which drove
descendants of slaves to
migrate to the major
centres of employment
around the Caribbean rim.
Now they represent a
second diaspora and
experience persisting
inequality and
stigmatization. Unlike Brazil
and Colombia, symbols of
multiculturalism, the “Black
question” in Mexico and
Central America has not
attracted the strong
interest of politicians and
researchers.
The scars of slavery
© IRD / C. Dejoux
N° 382
Actualidad cientifica
© MG de la Parra
Scientific news
Afro-descendants are today integrated in the poorest sections of society in South America, shown here in the streets of La Paz in Bolivia (left). Lower right, in
Colombia, a festival group called “Son de negros”.
From the 16th to the end of the 19th Centuries, slave
ships plied the Atlantic Ocean to serve the triangular
trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas. This
slave trade deported millions of Africans across the
Atlantic. The progressive abolition of slavery during
the 19 th Century emancipated men and freed
consciences. However, 300 years of the slave trade
left scars still visible today. These traumatic events
firmly shaped the historical construction and contemporary evolution of societies rife with inequality and
exclusion, as in Latin America. The social status the
Black Atlantic, the term used for this diaspora of Afro
descendants, is a core issue in political debate, to a
background of persisting racism and discrimination
and questions of inter-racial mixing, multiculturalism
and identity. Going beyond western societies’ feelings
of guilt, IRD researchers and their partners1 involved
in the AFRODESC and EURESCL programmes2 are
studying how slavery and its abolition have shaped
present nations, recognition of black communities
and the policies implemented in each country.
Example set by
Brazil and Colombia
Since the 1980s, two countries have been attracting
all the attention of researchers in multiculturalism in
Latin America: Brazil and Colombia3. These states
are like laboratories of multiculturalism, experiencing wide-ranging social and political changes in the
course of the 20th Century. More recently, taking
inspiration from these models, other Latin-American
countries like Ecuador began setting up measures
to further integration and facilitate access to
resources and services (like land, education and
jobs). Others, such as Bolivia, have introduced even
more radical changes.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Central America:
situation more complex
In contrast, the situation in the isthmus of Mexico and
Central America are characteristically different.
Debate has long been dominated by issues concerning autochthonous Indian populations. But even a
few years ago the communities of African descent still
had no real political presence. Moreover, these
countries do not come into researchers’ classical
schemes for investigation and analysis –ranging from
negation of the Afro descendants via their neglect to
their recognition. Although linked by a common
regional history, they present a complex heterogeneous picture borne of strong national specificities.
A second diaspora
Up to now, this great diversity of situations and the relative immobilism of politicians meant that the so-called
“black question” had not stimulated a great effort from
international research. The research team is now
applying its attention to a community called the “second
diaspora”, no longer linked only to the slave trade and
colonization, but more recent, stemming from a second
wave of economic migration. After abolition, although
the descendants of slaves were now emancipated,
most often they had no access to either land or employment. From the end of the 19th and up to the mid-20th
Century, they were to migrate from the islands
(Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, etc.) but also from the mainland (Belize,
Honduras) all over the Caribbean to work in the banana
plantations, on the Panama Canal construction, in
forestry or railway construction. These major sectors of
employment were strongly developed in Mexico and
Central America owing to the capitalist influence from
the United States from the end of the 19th Century,
which gradually replaced the European colonial
powers. More recently, this diaspora became involved
with the tourist industry, as a labour force but also to
promote the value of an Afro-Caribbean culture.
Contacts
Elisabeth Cunin,
researcher at the IRD
Tel. work: (983) 835 03 00 ext. 221
Mobile: (983) 111 30 78
elisabeth.cunin@ird.fr
Address
Universidad de Quintana Roo
Boulevard Bahía s/n esq. Ignacio
Comonfort, Col. del Bosque Chetumal,
Quintana Roo, México C.P. 77019
Diverse degrees
of recognition and status
The first to arrive, the descendants from slaves or free
Black people associated with colonization, called the
Negros coloniales, are now part of local societies, with
varying identities and levels of economic integration
depending on the particular national history. However,
for economic migrants of the turn of the 19-20th Centuries, also known as Afro-Antilleans, specific questions
of citizenship still arise. Finally, the Garifuna, a transnational community4 descending from Indigenous people
and Black communities, are a special case. Their
status is ambiguous, and they consider themselves as
the only Blacks of the American continent who have
never known slavery. In fact, they are a proportion of
the descendants of escapees from shipwreck of slave
vessels. That diaspora is now rallying around a patrimonialization of its culture and history.
Odile Hoffmann,
director of research at the IRD
Tel.: +33 (0)1 48 02 56 21
odile.hoffmann@ird.fr
UMR 205 URMIS - Unité de recherches
migrations et société (IRD / Université
Paris Diderot - Paris 7/ Université de
Nice Sophia Antipolis)
Address
IRD France-Nord
32, Avenue Henri Varagnat
93143 Bondy cedex
References
Rencontres Afrodesc et Eurescl
« L’autre métissage. Nation,
ethnicité, inégalités (Amériques,
Caraïbe, France) » à Nice du 8 au 10
novembre 2011.
Hoffmann Odile (coord.) Política
e identidad. Afrodescendientes
en México y en América Central,
Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia - Centro de Estudios
Mexicanos y Centroamericanos Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México - Institut de Recherche
pour le Développement, Colección
Africanía, 2010.
Colonial Blacks, Afro-Antilleans, Garifuna and other
communities: the AFRODESC and EURESCL
projects have highlighted these multiple diasporas in
Mexico and Central America, borne of European colonial rivalries and American capitalism of the 19th
Century. But for these communities, although slavery
is becoming one reference among others, it remains
one of the fundamental bases of identity and continues to cause them harm through the racism and
exclusion they experience.
Cunin, Elisabeth (coord.), Mestizaje y diferencia: Lo “negro” en
América Central y el Caribe, Instituto
Nacional de Antropología e Historia
- Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y
Centroamericanos - Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Colección Africanía, 2010.
Copy editor – Gaëlle Courcoux - DIC, IRD
Translation – Nicholas FLAY
Key words
Slavery, Afro-descendants, Latin
America
1. These studies were conducted by the Centre d’Études Mexicaines et Centraméricaines (CEMCA), l’Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia (INAH), Centro de Investigación sobre América Latina y el Caribe (CIALC) of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
(UNAM), the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social and the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios
Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mexico City, Universidad de Cartagena in Colombia, CNRS, Université de Nice,
Université Paris Diderot and Centre International de Recherche sur l’Esclavage (CIRESC).
Coordination
Gaëlle Courcoux
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2. AFRODESC – Afrodescendants et esclavages : domination, identification et héritages dans les Amériques (15e-21e siècles) et
EURESCL – ‘Slave Trade, Slavery, Abolitions and their Legacies in European Histories and Identities’
3. See the programmes ‘Identités, migrations et urbanisation des populations afrocolombiennes’ (Univalle-IRD, Colombia, 1997-2000),
‘Identités et mobilités’ (CIESAS-ICANH-IRD, 2002-2006) and ‘Identités métisses, catégories métisses’ (Universidad de Cartagena –
Observatorio del Caribe Colombiano – IRD, 2004-2007)
Debate in Mexico (left) and the Central America countries have until recently been dominated by questions of integration of the Indian communities. Now, the Afrodescendants (centre, in Cuba, orisha cult) still suffer from inequality for access to resources(right, in Belize).
© IRD / L. Emperaire
© IRD / K. Argyriadis
© IRD / C. Dejoux
4. Today the Garifuna live in Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the USA.
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