Charles R. Hale (Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin)
The Rise (and Demise?) of Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Central America (1987-2009)
Both terms of this duplet “neoliberal multiculturalism” are now radically in question in Central America. The region’s “multicultural turn” has reached an impasse, partly crippled by its close association with neoliberalism, and in part because more comprehensive alternatives to multiculturalism have gained currency. Charting the future begins with examining transformations since the mid-1980s when neoliberal multiculturalism’s foundations were laid. Drawing on research in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, this paper offers an analytical overview of that era, focused on racial hierarchy, territorial reorganization, and state formation. Leaving aside Black and indigenous agency for subsequent analysis, this overview focuses attention on dominant actors and institutions. In particular, I explore two interconnected hypotheses: first, that neoliberal multiculturalism divided national territories into high priority and redundant economic spaces, with Black and indigenous peoples disproportionately located in the latter; and second, that racial hierarchies have been reconstituted, such that one minority sector of indigenous and Black peoples is positioned to reap modest benefits from newfound multicultural rights, which are rendered increasingly irrelevant to the rest. Exploration (and refinement) of these two hypotheses should yield an understanding of the persisting (albeit transformed) bases of racism in contemporary Central America, and equally important, it should help us identify and assess emergent possibilities for resistance in a post-neoliberal and post-multicultural idiom.
