Women in Agriculture / Globalization, Democracy, and Revolutionary Nationalist Movements || Contesting Racism: Democratic Citizenship, Human Rights, and Antiracist Politics in Argentina

Contesting Racism: Democratic Citizenship, Human Rights, and Antiracist Politics inArgentinaAuthor(s): Barbara SuttonSource: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 35, No. 6, Women in Agriculture / Globalization,Democracy, and Revolutionary Nationalist Movements (Nov., 2008), pp. 106-121Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27648140 .

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Contesting Racism

Democratic Citizenship, Human Rights, and

Antiracist Politics in Argentina by

Barbara Sutton

In Argentina, racism is a relatively hidden but entrenched social problem that has undermined democratic citizenship and social justice efforts. An analysis of ethno-racial discourses {by the state, in the media, and in self-identity representations) as well as

political strategies for contesting racism reveals that civil society and governmental organizations have extended frameworks that already had resonance in Argentina, bor rowed approaches from other places, and formulated strategies in the context of interna tional dialogue.

Keywords: Argentina, Racism, Citizenship, Human rights, Politics

In Argentina, racism is a relatively hidden but entrenched social problem that has undermined democratic citizenship and the possibility of social jus tice. Argentines' widespread perception that "we don't have racial problems" is reflected in the work of many scholars, who tend to overlook racism and focus exclusively on other important issues such as economic crisis, party pol itics, poverty, and the legacy of state terrorism. While many of these studies

would benefit from attending to the way racism intersects with the problems under examination, a small body of literature addresses racism explicitly (e.g., Andrews, 1980; Margulis and Urresti, 1998; Courtis, 2000; Villalpando et al., 2005). Galen Joseph (2000: 337) notes that, for many Argentines, race, "like class in the US, is taboo: the proverbial elephant in the room."

While still a marginalized issue, racism in Argentina has received increas

ing attention in academic and political circles during the past decade. Recent studies reveal racism to be an important mechanism of exclusion, one that per

meates other cleavages such as inequalities based on class, gender, national

origin, and citizenship status. This article examines responses by civil-society groups and government institutions to Argentina's specific configurations of racism. First I provide a brief account of the historical promotion of whiteness

Barbara Sutton is an assistant professor of women's studies at the University at Albany, State

University of New York. She is interested in social inequalities, body politics, human rights, women's and global justice movements, and Latin American societies (particularly Argentina, her country of origin). Research for this article was supported by the Woodrow Wilson

International Center for Scholars and the Ford Foundation. The author thanks the following scholars for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article: Guillermo O' Donnell,

Enrique Peruzzotti, Joseph S. Tulchin, Khaya Clark, Beth Piatote, Kari Norgaard, Elizabeth

Borland, Hava Gordon, and Marcela Mendoza.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 163, Vol. 35 No. 6, November 2008 106-121 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X08326022 ? 2008 Latin American Perspectives

106



Sutton / CONTESTING RACISM IN ARGENTINA 107

and marginalization of people signified as ethno-racial "others." Then I analyze contemporary ethno-racial discourses by the state, in the media, and in self

identity representations. Finally I discuss governmental and nongovernmental political strategies and frameworks for contesting discrimination based on

race-ethnicity, describing in particular the interp?n?tration of antiracist and other human rights struggles, the politics of visibility/invisibility, and the

impact of transnationalism. I draw on several sources of information. In 2002-2003 I conducted a qual

itative project focused on the politics of women's bodies in Argentina in which a number of interviewees drew on prevailing racial discourses, shared experi ences of racist discrimination, and/or described their antiracist efforts.1 In 2005-2006 I looked more specifically at the connections between racism and the lack of effective democratic citizenship. I conducted interviews with

members of governmental and nongovernmental organizations that include racial discrimination among the problems they address and studied docu

ments that they had produced.2 I also analyzed the coverage of racism and

xenophobia in the print media.

ARGENTINA "THE EUROPEAN": PROMOTING WHITENESS, SUSTAINING RACISM

Processes of exclusion with racial overtones have deep historical roots in

Argentina. The nineteenth-century nationhood project was geared toward

making Argentina more economically powerful, white, and "civilized"

(Carballude, 2005; Quijada, Bernand, and Schneider, 2000; Shumway, 1991). This involved the decimation of indigenous populations (especially during the "Conquest of the Desert" in the late 1870s) and the annexation of the lands

they inhabited. The government also encouraged European immigration, diluting the presence of non-European groups, including Afro-descendents

(Andrews, 1980; Liboreiro, 2001). The project's result was the unjust imposition of a dominant model of citizenship based on the legacy of white Europeans (Rotker, 2002; Vi?as, 2002), particularly Spaniards and Italians. The seemingly inclusive idea of the crisol de razas (melting pot), popularized at the dawn of the twentieth century (Devoto and Otero, 2003), failed to incorporate on an

equal footing those groups rendered invisible. The national narrative posits that Argentines "descend from the boats" that

brought (white) Europeans. The "others" who have also inhabited the country are seen as having conveniently disappeared. In the case of indigenous people, disappearance is attributed to conquest, framed either as genocide or, with no remorse, as a successful military campaign. The alleged disappear ance of Afro-descendents is often attributed to their having been killed in wars

and by disease in the nineteenth century. Villalpando et al. (2005: 96) point out that the dominant narrative also marked the discrimination against Jewish, Roma, Armenian, and Arab peoples, deemed "inassimilable" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Miller (2004: 90) suggests that Argentina "circum vented" the notions of mestizaje common in other parts of Latin America: "As

processes of miscegenation and mixture are purified or simply denied,



108 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Argentina is established as a site of whitened and enlightened mestizaje" (82; see also Oboler and Dzidzienyo, 2005: 8).

In Argentina, class inequality is one of the ways in which racism has done its work. In El cabecita negra, Hugo Ratier (1971) delineated how notions of

class, civilization, and race were intertwined in the thinking of nineteenth

century ideologues such as Domingo F. Sarmiento and Juan Bautista Alberdi. While positions of economic privilege are often associated with people of

European descent, people with mestizo or indigenous features have histori

cally been located among the poor and the working class (Villalpando et al,

2005). The racial coding of class continued well into the twentieth century,

shaping specific sociopolitical developments such as internal migration and Peronism. The industrialization that took place in Argentina after 1930 was

accompanied by the massive migration of people from rural areas to urban centers in search of work. Buenos Aires was a prime destination, and here

indigenous or mestizo ("brown") migrants met with the scorn and even

hatred of members of the middle and upper classes. The working class found a champion in Juan D. Per?n, who won the presidency in 1946 with the help of this new political force (Brennan, 1998). The swelling presence of poor and

working-class people from the "interior" horrified the privileged of Buenos

Aires, who described these internal migrants in racialized and pejorative terms such as cabecitas negras (little black-heads) and referred to their migra tion as an aluvi?n zool?gico (zoological flood). Ever since, the term cabecita negra has invoked images of poor dark- or brown-skinned people. Nowadays it is

replaced by other derogatory labels such as negro villero (black from the shan

tytown), eliciting similar images (Villalpando et al., 2005). This common

dynamic, which inscribes racialized bodies and cultures into social class, has been called the "racialization of class relations"3 (Margulis and Urresti, 1998).

Although the marginalization of racialized individuals is part of the

Argentine social fabric, the hegemonic discourse has provided few ways to articulate experiences of racism (Farred, 2004; Joseph, 2000). In the Latin American context, the playing down of racism is not unique (Dulitzky, 2005; Warren and Twine, 2002), but different countries have developed specific forms of racism, often tied to their own nationhood projects. Several writers have

argued that inattention to racism in different Latin American countries is related to an implicit (or explicit) comparison with the United States (Dulitzky, 2005;

Wade, 2003; Warren and Twine, 2002). With this reference in mind, racism is construed as tension between blacks and whites associated with the legacy of

slavery, racial segregation, and discrimination. From this perspective, racism is

presented as almost the monopoly of the United States. However, as Warren and Twine (2002: 540) argue, the "use of racial conflict, rather than racial senti

ments, disparities, or discrimination, as the principal measure of the 'race prob lem'" can blind observers to local racist dynamics. Joseph (2000: 336) points out that the alleged lack of racial problems in Argentina is sometimes explained by saying that "there are no blacks" in the country.

The dominant culture in Argentina promotes a deracialized "common sense"4 that obscures the racial hierarchies that permeate everyday life, the

history of the nation, and its formally democratic institutions. While this common sense, in practice, evokes racialized images (e.g., valuing whites over




"others"), it appears to be deracialized in that it eschews the concept of race, racial identity, racial tension, or any other consciously racial discourse for

understanding Argentine society. The prevailing emphasis is on an "Argentine" national identity, but since this identity is coded as white and Europeanness is

repeatedly asserted, we can conclude that "race" matters to many Argentines

despite rhetoric to the contrary. While race has no scientific basis, racism has real consequences. For

Argentines who have been signified as ethno-racial "others" and have experi enced invisibility, everyday mistreatment, physical violence, erasure from

history, economic disadvantage, expulsion from their land, harassment by the

authorities, racist media representations, and environmental injustice, racism

continues to be very real even though the culture does not provide sufficient

tools to name it.

CONTEMPORARY ETHNO-RACIAL DISCOURSES: STATE, MEDIA, AND IDENTITY

STATE DISCOURSES

Historically, the Argentine state has fostered racism both with concrete poli cies and practices (e.g., military campaigns, immigration laws, the justice system) and with the promotion of particular "stories" about Argentina's population

(e.g., through public education, the media, official information). Yet the state is

not a monolithic structure but a site where conflicting interests and worldviews

play out. Since the restoration of democracy in 1983, gestures toward progressive

policies have coexisted with racist governmental discourses.

One way the state reproduces racism is through the construction of restric

tive categories of belonging and suspicion. For instance, police harassment of

members of the Bolivian community for portaci?n de cara (carrying face)?

profiling based on physical appearance?has been one of the preoccupations of the Federaci?n de Asociaciones Civiles Bolivianas (Federation of Bolivian

Civil Associations?FACBOL). The director of Africa Vive (Africa Lives), a

nongovernmental organization that promotes Afro-Argentines' rights, also

suffered this type of discrimination when she was detained at the airport on

suspicion of holding a false passport. The officers apparently could not believe

that she could be both Argentine and black (Kiningsberg, 2002). The state is

thus implicated in racist practices not only through the ideas it helps to spread about the "authentic" Argentine but also by policing the perceived "deviant"

subject. In the aftermath of 9/11, the surveillance of racialized groups took a

new twist. As the U.S. government waged the "war on terror" and asked other

countries to join it, a number of people with Arab last names and from Muslim

countries were detained in airports, border towns, and tourist destinations in

Argentina (e.g., Carbajal, 2005; Fourcade, 2005; La Naci?n, 2005b). The image that the state projects abroad also provides a lens for examining

ethno-racial politics at home. World fairs, travelers' guides, tourist brochures, and other official information for visitors are sites where national identity is

performed and packaged as an export product. A visit to the web site of

Argentina's Secretariat of Tourism during 2006 revealed the reiteration of old




tropes. While the web site called attention to "colorful" attractions (fiestas, rituals) related to indigenous traditions, Buenos Aires (which in the dominant

imaginary is coded as European) was presented as "the most elegant and the busiest city in South America which represents the Argentine essence"

(Secretar?a de Turismo de la Naci?n, 2006). This vision of civilization and

modernity is closely tied to racialized portrayals of the population. The official web site also informed prospective visitors that

95% of the population is white and most are descendants of Italians and Spaniards. As a result of the massive European immigration, the white and Indian half-castes [mestizos] were slowly reduced and at the present they amount only to 4.5% of the

population. The pure indigenous population?Mapuches, Collas, Tobas, Matacos, and Chiriguanos?amount to 0.5% of the population.

Another official web site, that of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, has offered ethno-racial statistics, stating that Argentina's "ethnic groups" are the following: "Whites (85%), mestizos (10%), aborigines and others (5%)" (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Internacional y Culto, 2006).

While it is not my intention to challenge the importance or magnitude of

European immigration to Argentina, I do want to raise some questions about this official information. First, one wonders where the data for these quantitative statements came from. These kinds of statistics are reproduced by different sources

and accepted as truths, but it is unclear how the numbers were calculated and the categories constructed. Were these results calculated on the basis of self identification? Are these projections based on historical immigration figures?

How is mestizaje accounted for? How is "whiteness" conceptualized? Who did the count? My inquiries of various government agencies5 did not yield precise information regarding the research from which these data originated.

The national census?a major official instrument?has traditionally not

used race-ethnicity as a category of information.6 It has collected data on

immigration but has generally not accounted for ethno-racial variation among

people born in Argentina. A few years ago the census included a question to

determine how many people identify themselves as descending from or

belonging to an indigenous group (INDEC, 2001)7 Activists from the Afro descendent community have been demanding that government agencies acknowledge their existence as well. While the census does not use race as a

category of information, the alleged irrelevance of racial categories has not

impeded other governmental branches (e.g., the Secretariat of Tourism, the

Ministry of Foreign Relations) from making statements and even presenting numbers about the population's racial makeup.

MEDIA DISCOURSES

As in other parts of the world, and despite claims of objectivity, the media

play a key political role in Argentina, affecting public opinion, government deci

sions, and political agendas. I examined the coverage of issues related to racism

during 2005 in a collection of newspaper articles on all sorts of discrimina tion kept by the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and

Racism8?mainly from the nationally circulating newspapers Clar?n, La Naci?n,




and P?gina 22. From this corpus I analyzed 178 pieces broadly related to racism.

The articles pay special attention to cases involving sports, celebrities, and

people in the political arena. Some space is dedicated to reporting research, court cases, and legislative changes related to discrimination or ethnic minori

ties. Forty-four of the articles refer explicitly to racism, racial discrimination, or

racial hatred. The articles I examined were more likely to talk about racism when there

was a willful agent (e.g., graffiti painting) or interpersonal interaction (e.g.,

physical aggression) than to report cases of institutionalized racism and frame

them as such. In some cases, the news reports themselves reinforced racist

assumptions. For example, a La Naci?n article reporting that 57 percent of

indigenous children in the province of Misiones are malnourished presents an expert opinion attributing the problem to indigenous people's "failure to assess the illnesses that they suffer." The article informs us that indigenous

people "don't have the same assessment of a thin child who has not eaten all

day, they let more time pass before obtaining medical attention" (La Naci?n,

2005a). This cultural explanation of indigenous malnourishment depoliticizes the problem and skirts the question why indigenous children have little access

to food in the first place. Why are indigenous populations likely to be poor? How have the destruction of the natural environment and imposed economic

arrangements affected their ability to produce or obtain food? Do they have

proper transportation? Do they have access to medical facilities and to doctors who speak their language and understand their culture? These are some ques tions that could point in the direction of institutionalized racism but are not even considered. The reader is left with the idea that indigenous people must

be solely to blame for their problems.

Conversely, the same newspaper published a piece that discredited?as too

political and one-sided?a press release signed by a reporter from TELAM

(the official news agency) that called the conquest and colonization of the

Americas the "greatest genocide in history" and opposed the celebration of

October 12, D?a de la Raza (La Naci?n, 2005c). The critique embedded in La

Naci?n was twofold, objecting to the official agency's presentation of a politicized version of history that adopted an "indigenist" tone and disputing the veracity of that version by reporting expert opinions in contradiction?for example, a

historian's view that "while the conquerors mistreated the conquered they did not intend to eliminate a culture" and therefore it was not genocide. While

from some perspectives the TELAM report may have been controversial or

inaccurate, La Naci?n could have used the opportunity to initiate a discussion about the meanings and assumptions behind the D?a de la Raza and could have

given voice to groups that are often not heard, such as indigenous people. While the media do report instances of racism and sometimes disseminate

useful information about the plight of different ethno-racial groups, the

coverage usually does not lend itself to an understanding of institutionalized racism or mundane/"private" forms of racism (e.g., the fact that a Jewish surname may preclude access to a job) (Gomel et al., 2005: 293). Furthermore, the media sometimes perpetuate racism: The radio show host Oscar Gonz?lez

Oro, who had been nominated for an important media award, said in reference to Bolivian women that "the cholas continue to give birth by hanging from a




tree and expelling the fetus in a vertical position on the ground . . .

amazing! And the corpses of the children swim in one of the main rivers that go to La Paz" (as quoted in P?gina 12, 2005). In order to counter racist discourses, members of marginalized groups have developed their own communication

venues, which analyze social problems and disseminate culture in their own

terms. For example, Grimson (2005b) describes the significant role of radio shows

managed by Bolivian immigrants in this respect. Indigenous communities

(e.g., Toba, Mapuche, and Pilagas) have created their own media network, with radio shows and a news agency (Gorodischer, 2005). Yet the ownership structure of the mass media makes it difficult for marginalized groups to reach a wide audience.

IDENTITY DISCOURSES

While in Argentina race is usually not an explicit category of self-identifi

cation, some people are still placed in racialized categories. The imposed placement of people in the "wrong" categories in everyday language and interactions makes self-representation a particularly slippery terrain. People

with indigenous or mestizo ancestry have often been placed in the "black"

category (e.g., cabecita negra or negro) or in the "foreign" category (e.g., "Bolita/' a slur meaning "Bolivian") even if born in Argentina. Grimson (2005a: 26)

argues that in Argentina "'blackness' was constructed around characteristics other than the conventional African phenotype." The stigmatization of the cabecita negra is a case in point. Yet, whereas the "blackness" of the cabecita negra

usually invokes indigenous or mestizo ("brown") phenotypes, the erasure of the Afro-descendent population from Argentine consciousness also suggests a racist connotation of "blackness" as pertaining to black Africa. This poses a

paradox: while Afro-descendents who want to be recognized as such have a

hard time asserting their blackness and their Argentine belonging (hence the

power of labels such as "Afro-Argentine"), many other people who are poor and have indigenous ancestry have been called negros/as. Other people are

also forced into categories that may not describe them correctly, such as "Turks" for people of Arab origin, "Russians" for Jewish people, and "Chinese" for

people of Asian descent. In my study on body politics, I interviewed women who exhibited a spec

trum of skin-color hues and other physical characteristics that can function as

racial signifiers. When I asked them about their ethno-racial identities, many of them were puzzled, reluctant to identify themselves as racialized persons, or evidenced with their questions and comments that race-ethnicity was not an identity category that made sense to them. For example, Viviana, a light skinned middle-class woman, responded, "I ... I think I am ... I don't know,

Arian [laughs]." Candela, a brown-skinned poor woman, said, "I never paused to think about it [laughs]. I don't know, I have no idea. Uhhm, I think that? based on the movies?I'm Latina." Rosal?a, a woman of working-class back

ground, looked at me confused and said, "I have no idea!" Race is more often invoked in Argentina when making derogatory comments than as positive self-identification. Furthermore, in that country it is not customary to include

questions about race-ethnicity in surveys, business forms, or government




documents. Finally, major social conflicts and confrontations (e.g., Peronists versus anti-Peronists) have not been defined in terms of race-ethnicity even

when this was an implicit component in the conflict (e.g., in constructions of

working-class Peronists as cabecitas negras). Yet some groups have organized around their ethno-racial identities to redress social injustice and racist

discrimination.

ANTIRACIST POLITICS: CONTESTING DISCRIMINATION, EXCLUSION, AND OBLIVION

A number of civil-society groups and government institutions have taken

antiracist action in contemporary Argentina, particularly since the transition to democracy. Grimson (2005b) and Briones (2004) observe that international

attention to questions of diversity and multiculturalism has also influenced

the local level, politicizing identities, affecting the flow of funds from transna

tional agencies, and shaping political debates about the distribution of eco

nomic and symbolic resources.

The Argentine government has moved to redress discrimination based on

race, ethnicity, and national origin, among other things by adopting the

International Convention against Racism, which has constitutional rank. In

1988, Law 23.592 established the legal bases for antidiscrimination claims and

set penalties for crimes driven or aggravated by hatred of a racial, ethnic, or

religious group or nation. In 1995, a government agency, the Instituto

Nacional contra la Discriminaci?n, la Xenofobia y el Racismo (National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism?INADI), was cre

ated to design and ensure the application of antidiscrimination policies. In

2003, Law 25.871 established the right of immigrants to be admitted to private or public educational facilities and to receive medical attention, no matter

what their immigration status. Currently, the Patria Grande program aims

to regularize the immigration situation of migrants from Mercosur and

associated countries.

While many of these policies are positive steps, there is a gap between the

letter of the law and its implementation. Human rights organizations like the

Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Center of Legal and Social Studies?

CELS) have reported the deficiencies of the antidiscrimination law, its almost

nonexistent application, and insufficient dissemination of information about

its existence (CELS and CAJ, 2001). Institutions like the INADI, while neces

sary, also have shortcomings described by people both outside and inside

them. Among the problems observed are insufficient funding, vulnerability to

political changes, political appointments for technical positions, short-term

contracts for workers, lack of rotation of nongovernmental organizations on

the board, and discontinuity for projects as a result of both internal restruc

turing and the country's precarious economic conditions.

The INADI and other government agencies, with the support of the United

Nations, have produced a National Plan against Discrimination that includes

proposals to fight racism and other forms of discrimination based on gender, age, sexual identity, religion, disability, nationality, and economic status,




among others. The document presents racism as a key axis of discrimination

that permeates other forms. It also analyzes the situation of "ethnic-national"

groups that have been targets of severe discrimination (indigenous, Afro,

Jewish, Arab, Roma, and Latin American and Asian immigrants [see also

Braylan and Jmelnizky, 2006; Casaravilla, 1999; Courtis, 2000]). In December

2005, Presidential Decree 1086 approved the plan and assigned the INADI the task of coordinating efforts to implement it. The plan consists of 247 propos als to change aspects of legislation, the justice and penitentiary system, secu

rity forces, public administration, education, mass media, health care,

religious institutions, and migration and refugee policies. The implementation of the plan requires political will to allocate resources to sectors traditionally

neglected and to infringe on the privileges of groups with more power.

THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights frameworks gained momentum in Argentina with the return

of democracy in 1983. Such discourses demand justice in relation to the actions

of state terrorism during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983): torture,

disappearance, concentration camps, illegal executions, and appropriation of

children. However, they can also foster public understanding of racism,

particularly since the language of human rights is increasingly familiar to

people because of the activism of human rights organizations. State agencies such as the Secretariat of Human Rights reflect this connection: its mission

includes "reparatory" initiatives related to state terrorism as well as work to

protect the rights of groups (e.g., indigenous peoples) whose members have

historically been discriminated against. Expanded definitions of human rights resonate with antiracist struggles given that various forms of racism under

mine the actualization of human rights to food and shelter, physical integrity, free speech, decent work, and so forth. In fact, not to suffer discrimination

based on "race" has been defined as a human right in itself (Secretar?a de

Derechos Humanos and Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos, 2005). Some civil-society organizations composed of ethno-racial minorities have

shown the interconnections between racism and human rights violations asso

ciated with state terrorism. For example, the Delegaci?n de Asociaciones

Israelitas Argentinas (Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations?DAIA), a major Jewish organization, has established this link by disseminating infor

mation about how anti-Semitism infused the "special treatment" that the

military inflicted on the Jewish disappeared (Braylan et al., 2000). In 2006, the DAIA organized a number of activities repudiating both state terrorism and racism in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the last military coup. Africa Vive also draws on and contributes to public understanding of human rights in Argentina by pointing out that Afro-Argentines were "the first

disappeared" (Baig, 2002). This way of framing the plight of Afro-descendents calls attention to the parallel between the erasure of Afro-Argentines and

the disappearance of groups also labeled "Others" (i.e., "subversive") during the dictatorship. Similarly, the Organizaci?n de las Naciones y Pueblos

Ind?genas en Argentina (Organization of Indigenous Nations and Peoples in

Argentina?ONPIA) issued a declaration for the thirtieth anniversary of the




military coup suggesting a longer history of genocide: 1876-2006. While

ratifying its "repudiation of the genocidal dictatorship of 1976, as it is the con

solidation of a systematic genocidal process that victimized indigenous

Peoples and Nations," it also names concrete "genocidals and ethnocidals"

including not only generals from the last dictatorship but also nineteenth

century generals who attacked indigenous peoples. The link between relatively recent and older human rights violations frames current demands for "the

restitution of indigenous lands and territories that were usurped and given to

private and foreign [holders] before, during, and after the dictatorship" (ONPIA, 2006).

From a different entry point, human rights organizations initially concerned

with state terrorism have also linked aspects of their struggles to efforts to create a more culturally inclusive, democratic society. While the political work of the

Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is not centered on racism, their activism

around the "right to identity" of the children appropriated by the military (i.e., the right to know who they are) can be extended to issues of racist discrimi

nation. Among the Grandmothers' initiatives is the Schools for Identity

program, which approaches identity from a broad perspective, including cultural and ethnic diversity as relevant to democratic citizenship (Educar, 2005; Keve, 2005). The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Founding Line (mothers of those disappeared by the dictatorship) have supported immigrant rights groups such as the Alejandro Almeida Space of Popular Reconstruction, named after the son of one of the Mothers. In a letter to Nestor Kirchner

(Argentina's former president) asking for the regularization of undocumented

immigrants, the group recalled his stated commitment to human rights,

invoking the disappeared to lend greater authority to its claim: "The undocu

mented are also disappeared, given that they do not have legal identity here.

That's why we support them, because that's what the 30,000 [disappeared by the dictatorship] would have done" (ERP Almeida, 2005). As these cases illus

trate, the link between human rights and antidiscrimination struggles can be a fruitful path for politically tackling racism in Argentina.

THE POLITICS OF VISIBILITY/INVISIBILITY

A key issue that activist organizations confront in their efforts to redress

racist practices is the problem of invisibility. Grimson (2005b) argues that in

the 1990s and in the context of global discussions on multiculturalism, tradi

tionally marginalized groups became increasingly visible, organizing along ethno-racial lines to demand rights and recognition. In a nation that insists that

it has no blacks, Afro-descendents know what it is to grapple with invisibility. Africa Vive's director, Maria Magdalena Lamadrid, countered that she "was

not born from a bullet" from the nineteenth-century wars that supposedly killed all black people (Ecos de Africa, n.d.) and has worked to show the ways in which the African legacy survives in Argentine culture and in the bodies of

people who may not recognize their African ancestry. Africa Vive's political

struggle for visibility is reflected in its past work with the Public Defender's

Office of Buenos Aires to produce a report on the life conditions of people of

African ancestry (Defensoria del Pueblo and Africa Vive, 2001). It has continued




to demand the counting of Afro-descendents at the national level (Heguy, 2002). In 2005 the National Institute of Census and Statistics and the National

University of Tres de Febrero started a pilot study to survey Afro-descendents in two areas: the city of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. These efforts can also be traced to international influences such as the world conference on racism (held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001), which, according to the anthropologist Laura

L?pez, asked the Argentine government "to include questions about Afro descendents in the next census" (as quoted in Downes, 2005: 49).

Visibility has also been an explicit or implicit strategy of other groups that is particularly apparent in the proliferation of cultural festivals, processions, and fairs to celebrate and educate the public about the diverse cultures that coexist in Argentina. While these activities may be structured not as political events but as cultural venues, they have political meaning in the context of discrimination. For example, in his ethnography on the Bolivian community in Buenos Aires, Grimson (2005b: 96) explains that the "fiestas patronales [orga nized by Bolivian immigrants] are not hidden, clandestine, embarrassing actions but the opposite. They are the key moment in which the meaning of

'Bolivian,' instituted as negative by the larger society, ... is not denied but

proudly and positively reaffirmed." Grimson sees these and other activities that disseminate culture and publicly present a positive Bolivian identity (e.g., radio shows conducted by Bolivians in Argentina) as providing the foundation for political projects and for the "struggle for full citizenship" (116).

The politics of visibility are not neutral. First, there is the visibility of social conflicts with ethno-racial components in venues that portray ethnic minorities as deviant. For instance, this kind of negative visibility is reflected in media

reports of a dispute between the Chinese supermarkets' association and the truck drivers who supply those markets in June 2006, a dispute that was

framed by union members?and broadcast by the media without significant criticism?in ways that reinforced xenophobic and racist interpretations (see Clar?n, 2006). Then, there is the visibility that the state requires in order to control certain groups or gain something from their presence (e.g., the impulse to "legalize" undocumented immigrants may come partly from the idea that the state is better served by identifying, regulating, and taxing those groups). Finally, there is the visibility/recognition demanded by groups that have endured discrimination, which can result in the expansion of rights for the

group and for others.

THE POLITICS OF TRANSNATIONALISM

Global agendas have influenced antidiscrimination politics in Argentina. Many international conventions?on gender inequality, genocide, and torture as well as racism and xenophobia?have been adopted as local legislation. The Argentine government has developed many of its antidiscrimination poli cies through political commitments in international arenas. Furthermore, antiracist activists in Argentina have established transnational connections by sharing information at international conferences and demonstrations, organizing transnational^ through the Internet, drawing on international documents to

gain leverage in local struggles, and sometimes receiving financial support from organizations abroad.




The proliferation of "summits" with state and business leaders from

around the world has given rise to counter-summits that develop alternative

proposals and make activists' voices heard in the streets. Antiracist activists in

Argentina have benefited from transnational dialogues, for instance, during the Durban conference, the World Social Forum, and international women's

meetings. The Fourth Summit of the Americas, which took place in November

2005 in Argentina with the participation of the region's heads of state, provides a good example. This summit's goal was "creating jobs to confront poverty and strengthen democratic governance." The event gained media attention

especially because of the loud protests triggered by U.S. President George W.

Bush's visit and his free-trade agenda. Less advertised events, however, were

the parallel gatherings of groups that have confronted racism, including an

indigenous people's summit. These kinds of events, while transnational in

nature, have local ripple effects.

The narrative of ?eca, a Peruvian immigrant, shows the impact of transna

tional spaces on her struggle against racism and xenophobia. Her activist

efforts were bolstered through her participation in the Durban conference: "It was

there that I started to open my eyes. The great significance of globalization for

people is for us to try to defend our rights." Neca saw the "other side" of glob alization, that is, the intensification of what Grewal (2005) calls "transnational

connectivities" among activists. Neca argued that places like the Durban

conference serve to "give opportunities to organizations ... to be able to

express what are our needs, how we are living in the country, what are the

obstacles we face, all of that." Durban was an empowering experience for

Neca, allowing her to voice her grievances to a wider, international audience.

This strengthened her ability to fight for her rights in Argentina in tangible ways, such as warning government officials that she would call the media if

denied the documentation she was entitled to. Another significant transna

tional site for Neca was the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This

event enhanced her ability to analyze discriminatory practices in Argentina in

connection with global economic processes ("We realized that neoliberal policies

very much harmed us all") and offered her assurances that "another world is

possible" through collective organizing. As Neca established international

ties, she also wanted to extend her organization's membership to Argentine internal migrants, with whom she sees commonalities, "so that we don't exclude."

In her fight for citizenship rights for international migrants in Argentina, she

envisioned a more inclusive and democratic society for everyone.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

While racism has not been a major area of political contestation in Argentina, it is still a significant social problem. Calling attention to racism is not imposing a "foreign" framework but taking a close and fresh look at the beliefs, social

organization principles, and dynamics of exclusion that are influenced by local

racialized histories. Antiracist initiatives have been shaped both by specific

sociopolitical developments in Argentina and by transnational forces. Civil

society and governmental organizations have extended frameworks that




already had resonance in Argentina and have tried out strategies borrowed from other places or emerging from international dialogue.

As a result of the 2001 economic crisis, Argentina underwent a period of

heightened political protest, including demands for effective democratic citizen

ship. While times of social upheaval may prompt xenophobic or racist sentiments, the crisis also challenged ingrained beliefs and opened the way for unexpected solidarities. These alliances created opportunities to learn from people in different social circumstances and encouraged many people to participate in public affairs and share ideas in transnational spaces. This kind of activist citizenship holds the

potential for a serious challenge to racism that is long overdue.

NOTES

1.1 interviewed 50 women of diverse social backgrounds, about half of them political activists.

I mainly asked questions about their bodily experiences, feelings, and perceptions. Narratives

about race-ethnicity emerged from their responses to questions about their ethno-racial identity and from narratives in which racialization was embedded (e.g., beauty, poverty, class).

2.1 interviewed members of the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and

Racism, the Secretariat of Human Rights, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations, the

Forum of NGOs That Fight against Discrimination, SOS Discrimination International, the Center

of Cultures, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, the Federation of Bolivian Civil

Associations, the Center of Legal and Social Studies, the Organization of Indigenous Nations

and Peoples in Argentina, an organization of migrant women, an organization of indigenous

people, and a member of several Afro-descendents' organizations. 3. The translation of this and all other quotations originally in Spanish are mine.

4. See Hall's (1986) application of Gramscian notions of "common sense" to race relations

and Guano's (2003) borrowing of the term to explain race relations in Argentina. 5. Secretariat of Tourism, Ministry of Foreign Relations, INDEC, INADI. Interestingly, the cur

rent version of the Secretariat of Tourism's web site omits the information quoted in this article.

6. Census authorities asserted as early as 1895 that Argentina did not have race-based prob lems (Andrews, 1980; Quijada, Bernand, and Schneider, 2000). Thus using race as a category of

information was seen as irrelevant. Such assumptions were linked to the alleged "disappear ance" of black people. George Reid Andrews (1980) reveals how census categories influenced the

discursive disappearance of blacks during the nineteenth century, when the census did use race

as a category. 7. According to these results, 2.5 percent of the households in Argentina include at least one

person who recognizes herself/himself as a member or descendent of an indigenous group

(INDEC, 2005). 8. This institution has systematically collected newspaper articles related to discrimination,

including homophobia, ageism, poverty, sexism, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, discrimina

tion against people with disabilities, and state terrorism.

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In Memoria m

Latin American Perspectives has lost one of its most valuable contributors, Stephen (Steve) Niblo, who died on February 29; he was 66.

Steve joined La Trobe University's History Department in early 1977 after six years of teaching at the University of the Americas in Mexico. Before that he had completed his doctoral work in history at the University of Northern Illinois in

DeKalb, where he worked under the distinguished colonial Latin Americanist Benjamin Keen.

Although his early research centered on Mexico in the late nineteenth century, Steve devoted most of his academic research over the past 20 years to exploring issues in contemporary Mexican history. In particular, he became a distinguished pioneer in writing the history of Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s. His two books on this period have now become obligatory readings for scholars and students both in Mexico and in the English-speaking world.

It would be a disservice to him, however, to remember him only in terms of the dry figures of publications, conference papers, and courses taught. Steve Niblo was a man with a large personal following among his students and friends. He was an immensely generous man, giving his time and energy to generations of undergraduates and postgraduates.

He had little sympathy for academic pomposity and aloofness. He knew how to introduce humor and lightness into his

teaching. His jokes and anecdotes enlivened his classes and lectures. He gave wise advice to many and strong support to students and colleagues whose life circumstances had created problems.

Academic life for Steve Niblo was more than a set of narrow, scholarly games. He could always be counted on for

support when academic stupidities and crimes had been committed and, more generally, when social and economic justice was denied. His outlook on life changed dramatically during his two years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, where he first encountered the challenges facing rural workers and small peasant farmers. His career at the University of the Americas in the eastern Mexican town of Cholula ended in 1975 when he helped lead a struggle by faculty against an

administration that sought to transform the university into a business enterprise. Steve died on the deck of his holiday home at Fairhaven, on the Victorian south coast, while enjoying his favorite views

of the ocean, a bottle of fine wine, and the company of his wife, Diane. He enjoyed the good life that Australia can provide it more fortunate citizens, and in return he gave back a good deal. He will be remembered not just as a fine scholar, historian, and Mexicanist but also as a generous colleague, loving father, and supportive husband. He is survived by his wife, Diane Niblo. and his son, Christopher Niblo.



Documents

Women in Agriculture / Globalization, Democracy, and Revolutionary Nationalist Movements || Contesting Racism: Democratic Citizenship, Human Rights, and Antiracist Politics in Argentina