Conferences

Race and Politics in Central America

February 24-25, 2006
The University of Texas at Austin
February 24: Mulitpurpose Room, San Jacinto Dormitory, 309 E. 21st St.
February 25: Jester A232A, 201 E. 21st St.

General Information

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together scholars from Central and North America to analyze the way that race operates in contemporary in Central America, particularly as it affects people of African descent. Its main objective is to map the specific racial formations that have emerged in four Central American countries-Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica-and the place of blacks within them. Particular attention will be paid to some of the following themes: the specific racial orders that have developed in each country and the role of anti-black racism within them, the kids of black identities and anti-racist ideologies formulated by people of African descent, the state of research into the effects of anti-black racism, the effect of transnational processes (such as migration and drug trafficking) on ideas about blackness in general and black people's identities in particular in the different countries.

Participants:

Alberto Barrow (Panama)
Professor, Universidad de Panama; Member, Comité Panameño contra el Racismo

Dario Euraque (Honduras)
Associate Professor, History Department, Trinity College

Gregoria Flores (Honduras)
Garifuna activist; Past president, OFRANEH (Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras)

Miguel Gonzalez Pérez (Nicaragua)
Director, Dirección de Investigación y Postgrado, URACCAN (University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua); Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department, York University, Canada

Charles R. Hale
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin

Ray Hooker Taylor (Nicaragua)
President, FADCANIC (Foundation for the Advancement & Development of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua); ex-National Assembly Deputy for the Southern Atlantic Coast 1986-1996

Ann McKinley (Costa Rica)
President, Centro de Mujeres AfroCostarricenses

George Priestley (Panama)
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Queens College, CUNY; Senior Researcher, Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos (CELA), Panama City

Brooklyn Rivera (Nicaragua)
President, YATAMA (Yapti Tasha Masrika Nani, the largest indigenous political party in Nicaragua)

Diana Senior-Angulo (Costa Rica)
Member, Asociación para el Desarrollo de las Mujeres Negras Costarricenses; Master's Candidate, History Department, Universidad de Costa Rica