Plenary/ Racialized anthropologies and their effects: Background and critical views from today’s Chile.

Professors

Shelene Gomes

Professor of Department of Behavioural Sciences, The University of the West Indies

Anthropology has had a reflexive and critical component with respect to the conditions of knowledge generation. Various investigations have pointed out that the discipline is organized in geopolitical and hierarchical terms from the so-called “Global North,” with its variants of national and native anthropologies in the “Global South.” Given the colonial relationship of the origin of anthropology, local subjects are turned into “Others” to be studied, so that anthropologists belonging to these nations or geographical zones, become “native” and/or “racialized” anthropologists.

Although there is a rich global and Latin American literature and debate on racialization and “native” anthropologies, in Chile these debates are still in the process of maturing.

Racialized anthropologies and their effects: Background and critical views from today’s Chile  aim to investigate how the racialization of researchers conditions the production of ethnographic knowledge in order to reflect on: a) the effects of disciplinary geopolitical hierarchization in Chilean anthropology and b) the effects of racialization on the generation of anthropological knowledge in Chile.

The activity will include an introduction to the topic, followed by a group discussion exercise and finally a plenary session to share the discussions of each group. 

This activity has as guest speaker Dr. Shelene Gomes, professor at the University of the West Indies and has been prepared by the doctoral students of the School of Anthropology UC Luis BriceƱo and Loreto Tenorio.