Black history

Cover of "Becoming Heritage: Recognition, Exclusion, and the Politics of Black Cultural Heritage in Colombia"

Becoming Heritage: Recognition, Exclusion, and the Politics of Black Cultural Heritage in Colombia

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"Since the late twentieth century, multicultural reforms to benefit minorities have swept through Latin America; however, in Colombia ethno-racial inequality remains rife. Becoming Heritage evaluates how heritage policies affected the Afro-Colombian community of San Basilio de Palenque after it was proclaimed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2005. Although the designation partially delivered on its promise of multicultural inclusion, it also created ethno-racial exclusion and conflict among groups within the Palenquero community."
Author
Maria Fernanda Escallón
Publication
2023
Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima Book Cover

Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"Fractional Freedoms explores how thousands of slaves in colonial Peru were able to secure their freedom, keep their families intact, negotiate lower self-purchase prices, and arrange transfers of ownership by filing legal claims. Through extensive archival research, Michelle McKinley excavates the experiences of enslaved women whose historical footprint is barely visible in the official record. She complicates the way we think about life under slavery and demonstrates the degree to which slaves were able to exercise their own agency, despite being caught up in the Atlantic slave trade."
Author
Michelle McKinley
Publication
2016
The Life of Paper: Letters and a Poetics of Living Beyond Captivity Book Cover

The Life of Paper: Letters and a Poetics of Living Beyond Captivity

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"The Life of Paper offers a wholly original and inspiring analysis of how people facing systematic social dismantling have written letters to remake themselves—from bodily integrity to subjectivity and collective and spiritual being. Exploring the evolution of racism and confinement in California history, this ambitious investigation disrupts common understandings of the early detention of Chinese migrants (1880s–1920s), the internment of Japanese Americans (1930s–1940s), and the mass incarceration of African Americans (1960s–present) in its meditation on modern development and imprisonment as a way of life."
Author
Sharon Luk
Publication
2017