““Based on imaginative, meticulous, and ambitious comparative research, this pathbreaking book shatters the traditional indigenous-black divide and takes the study of race, color, ethnicity, and mestizaje in Latin America to a whole new level. A must read.” ”
From the Publisher: Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race and Color in Latin America by Edward Telles and the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) University of North Carolina Press, is a richly revealing analysis of contemporary attitudes toward ethnicity and race in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, four of Latin America’s most populous nations. Based on extensive, original sociological and anthropological data generated by PERLA, this landmark study analyzes ethnoracial classification, inequality, and discrimination, as well as public opinion about Afro-descended and indigenous social movements and policies that foster greater social inclusiveness, all set within an ethnoracial history of each country. A once-in-a-generation examination of contemporary ethnicity, this book promises to contribute in significant ways to policymaking and public opinion in Latin America.
Edward Telles, PERLA’s principal investigator, explains that profound historical and political forces, including multiculturalism, have helped to shape the formation of ethnic identities and the nature of social relations within and across nations. One of Pigmentocracies’s many important conclusions is that unequal social and economic status is at least as much a function of skin color as of ethnoracial identification. Investigators also found high rates of discrimination by color and ethnicity widely reported by both targets and witnesses. Still, substantial support across countries was found for multicultural-affirmative policies—a notable result given that in much of modern Latin America race and ethnicity have been downplayed or ignored as key factors despite their importance for earlier nation-building.
Book reviews
“Pigmentocracies presents fascinating new findings about racial stratification and attitudes in contemporary Latin America. No other book exists with data like these; no other book can speak directly to the empirical questions addressed in these chapters. A valuable and distinctive contribution to scholarship on race and ethnicity in a major region of the world.””
Danilo Franca
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Studies in Ethnicities and Nationalism
Cristobal Valencia
10.1111/aman.12331
University of New Mexico
Robert J. Control
10.1215/00182168-3161760
George Washington University
Hispanic American Historical Review 2015
David L. Brunsma
10.1080/01419870.2015.1095308
Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech