Hiding in Plain Sight

Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8173-2036-2
Verlag: The University of Alabama Press

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Details how African-descended women's societal, marital, and sexual decisions forever reshaped the racial makeup of Argentina.

Argentina values the perception that it is only a country of European immigrants, making it an exception to other Latin American countries, which can embrace a more mixed-African, Indian, European-heritage. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic traces the origins of what some white Argentines mischaracterize as a 'black disappearance' by delving into the intimate lives of black women and explaining how they contributed to the making of a 'white' Argentina. Erika Denise Edwards has produced the first comprehensive study in English of the history of African descendants outside of Buenos Aires in the late colonial and early republican periods, with a focus on how these women sought whiteness to better their lives and those of their children.

Edwards argues that attempts by black women to escape the stigma of blackness by recategorizing themselves and their descendants as white began as early as the late eighteenth century, challenging scholars who assert that the black population drastically declined at the end of the nineteenth century because of the whitening or modernization process. She further contends that in Córdoba, Argentina, women of African descent (such as wives, mothers, daughters, and concubines) were instrumental in shaping their own racial reclassifications and destinies.

This volume makes use of a wealth of sources to relate these women's choices. The sources consulted include city censuses and notarial and probate records that deal with free and enslaved African descendants; criminal, ecclesiastical, and civil court cases; marriages and baptisms records and newsletters. These varied sources provide information about the day-to-day activities of cordobés society and how women of African descent lived, formed relationships, thrived, and partook in the transformation of racial identities in Argentina.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Time Line
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Miscegenation, Marriage, and Manumission in Córdoba
- Chapter 2. Regulating and Administering Freedom in Córdoba
- Chapter 3. 'Her Best Performance': From Slave to Señora
- Chapter 4. 'A Woman of His Class': Contested Intermarriages
- Chapter 5. (En)gendering Freedom: Maternity and the Manumission Process
- Chapter 6. Lessons of Motherhood: The Beginning of Institutionalized Whitening
- Conclusion: Visualizing Black Invisibility
- Glossary
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Erika Denise Edwards is associate professor of colonial Latin American history and Latin American studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.