Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Critical Research and Perspectives - Paperback

by Melanie A. Medeiros (Editor), Keisha-Khan Y. Perry (Editor), Christen A. Smith (Foreword by)

Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Critical Research and Perspectives employs an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach to examine Black cisgender women's social, cultural, economic, and political experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents critical empirical research emphasizing Black women's innovative, theoretical, and methodological approaches to activism and class-based gendered racism and Black politics. While there are a few single-authored books focused on Black women in Latin American and Caribbean, the vast majority of the scholarship on Black women in Latin America and the Caribbean has been published as theses, dissertations, articles, and book chapters. This volume situates these social and political analyses as interrelated and dialogic and contributes a transnational perspective to contemporary conversations surrounding the continued relevance of Black women as a category of social science inquiry. Many of the contributing authors are from Latin American and Caribbean countries, reflecting a commitment to representing the valuable observations and lived experiences of scholars from this region. When read together, the chapters offer a hemispheric framework for understanding the lasting legacies of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, plantation life, and persistent socio-economic and cultural violence.

Author Biography

Melanie A. Medeiros is an associate professor of anthropology at SUNY Geneseo. She is the author of Marriage, Divorce and Distress in Northeast Brazil: Black Women's Perspectives on Love, Respect and Kinship (Rutgers University Press). She is also the co-editor of Ethnographic Insights on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Keisha-Khan Y. Perry is an associate professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Black Women against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil, winner of the 2014 Gloria Anzaldua Book Prize from the National Women's Studies Association and a Choice Review Outstanding Title for 2014.