Whiteness, Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Polysemy of Ethnoracial Mixings in Latin American Ideologies of National Identity, from “Monocultural Mestizaje” or “Racial Democracy” to Contemporary Multiculturalism
Book Chapter
Rahier, JM. (2026). Whiteness, Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Polysemy of Ethnoracial Mixings in Latin American Ideologies of National Identity, from “Monocultural Mestizaje” or “Racial Democracy” to Contemporary Multiculturalism
. 137-157. 10.1017/9781009091862.009
Rahier, JM. (2026). Whiteness, Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Polysemy of Ethnoracial Mixings in Latin American Ideologies of National Identity, from “Monocultural Mestizaje” or “Racial Democracy” to Contemporary Multiculturalism
. 137-157. 10.1017/9781009091862.009
The chapter discusses the respective locations and “values” of Indigeneity and Blackness vis-à-vis whiteness and ethnoracial mixings in ideological constructions of national identity in two different Latin American historical periods: “monocultural mestizaje” and multiculturalism. After delving into the ideological foundations of monocultural mestizaje and “racial democracy, " the chapter considers the advent of what has been called “the Latin American multicultural turn, " which began emerging unevenly in the region in the late 1980s. The “turn” brought about new official narrations of the nation, in a move away from the “monocultural mestizaje” ideology of national identity that reifies the mestizo as the prototypical national identity, to instead nominally recognize and “embrace” national ethnoracial diversity in a wave of new constitutions and constitutional reforms. The chapter concludes that both racial hierarchy and the mestizaje ideology of national identity remain alive and well, as the colonial racial order has adapted to contemporary circumstances, including the ideological shift from monocultural mestizaje to multiculturalism.
