The Lost Ethnic Group - Afro-Latinos in Latin America. A comparative study of the negotiation and reconstruction of ethnic boundaries of Afro-Latinos in Brazil and Colombia

Abstract: This thesis examines the exclusion and socioeconomic marginalization of Afro-Latinos in Latin America. This population has historically been put in the ambiguous position of continuous inclusion and alienation within Latin American societies, which serves as the foundation for their marginalization and social exclusion. One way to investigate this unique position is to analyze the negotiation and reconstruction of ethnic boundaries on a discursive level by utilizing the theory of Fredrik Barth and Norman Fairclough’s methodology of critical discourse analysis. Brazil and Colombia are analyzed to shed light on regional developments and on how demographic, geographic, and historic factors influence and impact the process of social exclusion. The ways in which the discursive negotiation of ethnic boundaries has transformed Brazil and Colombia since 1980s until 2010s is analyzed comparatively. It is discovered that this transformation centers on the dichotomies of past/present, rural/urban, and ethnicity/race among several others. It is concluded that Colombia constructs Afro-Latinos in a negotiation between geographical spaces; between the urban highlands and the tropical Pacific coast, whereas in Brazil, the connection to the past, the history of slavery and a lost connection to Africa is the focal point. Ethnic boundaries are fluid and constantly negotiated, but are also fixed on stable elements in the social world. The exclusion of Afro-Latinos discursively, as well as in the social world, persists.