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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article analyzes Obama's significance for the African Diaspora in Colombia. I argue that for Afro-Colombians, Obama's election brought an unprecedented sense of collective pride. However, after four years of the Obama administration, many Afro-Colombian activists have begun to evaluate the impact of the Obama administration's foreign policy toward Colombia. I suggest that in order to understand Obama's significance for a broader African Diaspora, we must analyze both his symbolic importance and the material consequences of his administration's policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines racial politics in Brazil by analyzing the city of Salvador da Bahia's cultural policies over time and their relationship to national ideology and racial identity in Brazil more generally. It argues that the re-Africanization of Salvador's Carnival and its historical center, the Pelourinho, although initially products of the mobilization of Afro-Bahians themselves, have become institutionalized and ironically serve today as testaments to Brazil's diversity, tolerance, and integration. In light of increasing “ethnic” tourism to Bahia, this article highlights the paradox behind and the fundamental contradictions in a culturalist approach to race-based political mobilization in the Bahian context, and perhaps Brazil more generally. Because African culture has been such a central part of constructing modern Brazilian national identity and racial democracy, a culturally based movement, even one challenging the deeply embedded racial hierarchy, can paradoxically reify the myth of racial democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensification of ethno-racial protest in Latin America has led to the adoption of targeted legislation for Black and indigenous populations, signaling a new moment in race politics in this region. Existing literature has failed to account for this shift either because it held that race was not salient in Latin America, or it presumed that racial hierarchy existed, but that the obstacles to Black mobilization were insurmountable. We argue the literature must contend with this new reality of what we call “Black politics” in Latin America. While impediments to race-based mobilization, which are rooted in color-blind nationalism, the fluidity of identity, and poverty, do in fact exist, we argue that Black social movement organizations have overcome some of these obstacles. We examine the development of Black social movements in a number of Latin American countries, focusing specifically on the political contexts in which they emerge, their articulation, the nature of their claims, and measures of their effectiveness. We argue that despite many obstacles to Black mobilization in Latin America, Black organizations are beginning to constitute viable political interest groups. In all of the cases that we analyze, we find that Black social movement organizations have been effective not only in bringing about symbolic and material policy changes, but have also shaken national ideologies of mestizaje and racial democracy. We also contend that while Black social movements in Latin America are very much rooted in domestic politics, transnational networks and international institutions are central to the articulation and effectiveness of these movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]