Whitening via Erasure: Space, Place and the Census in Costa Rica
2014; Routledge; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13260219.2014.995879
ISSN2151-9668
Autores Tópico(s)Cuban History and Society
ResumoAbstractThe Costa Rican national imaginary is predicated on a notion of whiteness and homogeneity as defining of the nation. As such, no recasting or expansion of the myth of whiteness can explain an indigenous presence in the nation, for a story predicated on such a foundational myth is fundamentally at odds with the prior existence of a non-white population. This paper asks how the national imaginary of whiteness develops in such a context. I focus on the mechanisms that buttress the process of indigenous erasure, arguing that a combination of racialization of space, use of the census, and contradictory indigenous policies function as critical means of whitening.Keywords:: indigenouswhitenessCosta Ricaracializationnational identitycensus Notes 1. Edward Telles and René Flores, ‘Not Just Color: Whiteness, Nation, and Status in Latin America’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 93:3, 2013, pp. 411–49. 2. Trevor W. Purcell, Banana Fallout: Class, Color and Culture among West Indians in Costa Rica, Los Angeles, UCLA, 1993. 3. Lara Elizabeth Putnam, ‘Ideología racial, práctica social y estado liberal en Costa Rica’, Revista de historia, 39, January–July 1999, pp. 139–86; Megan Rivers-Moore, ‘No Artificial Ingredients?: Gender, Race and Nation in Costa Rica's International Tourism Campaign’, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 16:3, 2007, pp. 341–57; Frederick Wherry, ‘The Nation-State, Identity Management, and Indigenous Crafts: Constructing Markets and Opportunities in Northwest Costa Rica’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29:1, 2006, pp. 124–52; Carlos Sandoval-García, Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica, Athens, Ohio UP, 2004. 4. I will use the term white-identified throughout the article. By this, I mean the widespread domestic and international associations of some countries with whiteness, contextually defined. 5. Sandoval-García, Threatening Others, 2004. 6. The black slave population of Costa Rica was small, and fairly independent. This was particularly the case among slave men, many of whom lived and worked unsupervised, and who were unimpeded in earning an independent living on the coasts of Costa Rica. These circumstances, along with the traditions of (often forced) miscegenation between slave women and Spanish men created the conditions for significant, and unplanned (as a state project), mestizaje of black slaves and slave descendants into the wider population. By the eighteenth century the black population had already begun to shift away from a specific and visible group to blend with the mestizo population. Thus, mestizaje properly defined includes Spanish, indigenous and black mixtures. Yet the more common understanding of mestizaje as limited to European and indigenous mixtures created the space for the contemporary West Indian-descended population to be understood as the black population of Costa Rica. See Russell Lohse, ‘Cacao y esclavitud en Matina, Costa Rica, 1650–1750’, in Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe (eds), La negritud en Centroamérica: entre raza y raíces, San José, EUNED, pp. 75–120; and Mauricio Meléndez Obando, ‘El lento ascenso de los marginados: los afrodescendientes en Costa Rica y Nicaragua’, in Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe (eds), La negritud en Centroamérica: entre raza y raíces, San José, EUNED, pp. 441–57. 7. As several persuasive accounts have noted, the reduction of black populations to those of more recent immigrant origins both negates the historical presence and contribution of slave and free black populations to mestizaje and the construction of contemporary Latin American nation-states and detracts from the national identity claims of identifiably black contemporary populations. See Juliet Hooker, ‘La raza y el espacio de la ciudadanía: la Costa de la Mosquitia y el lugar de lo negro y lo indígena en Nicaragua’, in Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe (eds), La negritud en Centroamérica: entre raza y raíces, San José, EUNED, pp. 325–66; Mauricio Meléndez Obando, ‘El lento ascenso de los marginados’; Lara Putnam, ‘Foráneos al fin: la saga multigeneracional de los Antillanos Británicos en América Central, 1870–1940’, in Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe (eds), La negritud en Centroamérica: entre raza y raíces, San José, EUNED, pp. 367–403. 8. Russell Leigh Sharman, ‘The Caribbean Carretera: Race, Space, and Social Liminality in Costa Rica’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 20:1, 2001, pp. 46–62. 9. Lara Elizabeth Putnam, ‘Ideología racial, práctica social y estado liberal en Costa Rica’, Revista de Historia, 39, January–July 1999, pp. 139–86.10. Alistair Bonnett, ‘A White World? Whiteness and the Meaning of Modernity in Latin America and Japan’, in Cynthia Levine-Rasky (ed.), Working Through Whiteness: International Perspectives, Albany, SUNY Press, pp. 69–105; Mónica G. Moreno Figueroa, ‘Mestizaje, cotidianeidad y las prácticas contemporáneas del racismo en México’, in Elisabeth Cunin (ed.), Mestizaje, diferencia y nación: lo ‘negro’ en América Central y el Caribe, México D.F., Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2010, pp. 129–70; Putnam, ‘Ideología racial’; Karim Roitmann, Race, Ethnicity and Power in Ecuador: The Manipulation of Mestizaje, Boulder, Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2009; Edward Telles and René Flores, ‘Not Just Color: Whiteness, Nation, and Status in Latin America’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 93:3, 2013, pp. 411–49. See also Harry Hoetink, The Two Variants in the Caribbean Sociology of Segmented Societies, New York, Oxford UP, 1967; Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, Durham, NC, Duke UP, [1974] 1993; Amelia Simpson, Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race and Modernity, Philadelphia, Temple UP, 1993, Winthrop R. Wright, Café con Leche: Race, Class, and National Image in Venezuela, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1990, for somewhat older works on the topic.11. Mara Loveman, ‘Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850–1950)’, Journal de la Société de Américanistes, 95:2, pp. 207–34; Telles and Flores, ‘Not Just Color’, p. 412.12. Ronald N. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority, Montreal, McGill-Queens UP, 2001; Iván Molina Jiménez, Identidad nacional y cambio cultural en Costa Rica durante la segunda mitad del Siglo XX, San José, Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2003; Telles and Flores, ‘Not Just Color’.13. Ruth Frankenberg, White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1993.14. Frankenberg, White Women, Race Matters; Matthew Frye Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1998; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness:Race and the Making of the American Working Class, New York, Verso, 1999; Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle, New York, Taylor and Francis, 1993.15. Joaquín Bernardo Calvo Mora, República de Costa Rica: apuntamientos geográficos, estadísticos e históricos, 1886, San José, Imprenta Nacional, 1887, p. 34.16. Norman E. Whitten, Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador, Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois, 1981, p. 15; Bonnett, ‘A White World?’, p. 71.17. Jorge Ramón González Ponciano, ‘La visible invisibilidad de la blancura y el ladino como no blanco en Guatemala’, in Darío E. Euraque, Jeffrey L. Gould, and Charles R. Hale (eds), Memorias del mestizaje. Cultura política en Centroamérica de 1920 al presente. Guatemala, CIRMA, 2004, pp. 111–132.18. Telles and Flores, ‘Not Just Color’, p. 244.19. Telles and Flores, ‘Not Just Color’, p. 244.20. Trevor W. Purcell, Banana Fallout: Class, Color and Culture among West Indians in Costa Rica, Los Angeles, UCLA, 1993, p. xi, my emphasis.21. M. Maussion de Candé, Notice sur le Golfe de Honduras et la République de Centre-Amérique, Paris, Imprimerie de Paul Dupont, 1842, cited in Ronald Soto Quirós and David Díaz Arias, ‘Mestizaje, indígenas e identidad nacional en Centroamérica: de la colonia a las repúblicas liberales, San José, FLACSO, 2007, p. 57.22. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica; Molina Jiménez, ‘Identidad nacional y cambio cultural’; Putnam, ‘Ideología racial’.23. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica; Molina Jiménez, ‘Identidad nacional y cambio cultural’; Putnam, ‘Ideología racial’; Sandoval-García, Threatening Others.24. Steven Palmer and Iván Molina, The Costa Rica Reader: History, Culture, Politics, Durham, NC, Duke UP, 2004.25. Bernardo Agusto Thiel, ‘Monografía de la población de la República de Costa Rica en el Siglo XIX’, in Juan Fernández Ferraz, Francisco Iglesias and Pablo Biolley (eds), Revista de Costa Rica en el Siglo XIX, Volume I. San José, Tipografía Nacional, 1902, 1, p. 22.26. Thiel, Monografía, pp. 22–23.27. Thiel, Monografía, p. 24, emphasis in original28. Thiel, Monografía, p. 24.29. Thiel, Monografía, p. 24.30. Putnam, ‘Ideología racial’; Ronald Soto Quirós, ‘Desaparecidos de la nación: los indígenas en la construcción de la identidad nacional costarricense, 1851–1942’, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 82, 1998, pp. 31–53; Rivers-Moore, ‘No Artificial Ingredients?’.31. All group names have been translated directly from the denominations used for each census: indigenous = indígena; white = blanco; Indian = indio/a, and so on.32. República de Costa Rica, Censo de Población, San José, Dirección General de Estadísticas y Censos, 1864, p. xv.33. The previous population refers to a population survey conducted in 1844. In Ulloa's words ‘the size of the population is the only statistical element that I can compare with the survey of 1844 which, although it contains some data about age and sex, does not merit the name Census.’ Censo de Población, 1864, p. xv.34.Censo de Población, 1864, p. xviii.35. Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández and Sabine Kradolfer, ‘Race, Ethnicity and National Censuses in Latin American States: Comparative Perspectives’, in Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández and Sabine Kradolfer (eds), Everlasting Countdowns: Race, Ethnicity and National Censuses in Latin American States, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012, pp. 1–40.36. Moíses Vincenzi et al., Geografía de Costa Rica, San José, Imprenta Nacional, 1936, pp. 3–4, quoted in Soto Quiros, ‘Desaparecidos de la nación’, pp. 40.37. Rubén Yglesias Hogan, Nuestros aborigenes: apuntes sobre la población precolombina de Costa Rica. San Jose, Editorial Trejos Hermanos, 1942, p. 9.38. Yglesias Hogan, Nuestros aborigenes, p. 20.39. Miguel Lizano Obregón, Lecturas geográficas: extractadas de la 4. Ed., San José, Imprenta Alsina, 1914, p. 18.40. Obregón, Lecturas, p. 18.41. Jorge León, Nueva Geografía de Costa Rica, San José, Soley y Valverde, 1943, p. 34.42. Luís de Hoyos, Costa Rica en la Mano: San José, Alajuela, Cartago, Heredia, Guanacaste, Puntarenas, Limón. Guía de Interés General, San José: Sin Imprenta, 1926, n.p., quoted in Soto Quiros, ‘Desaparecidos de la nación’, p. 39.43. Vincenzi et al, Geografía de Costa Rica, pp. 48.44. República de Costa Rica, ‘Capítulo VI’, Censo de Población de Costa Rica, San José: Dirección General de Estadísticas y Censos, 1927, p. 91.45.Censo de Población, 1927, pp. 90–91. Amarillos (Yellows) and otros (others), not included in Table 3 due to space constraints, totaled 790 and 672 persons, or 0.1 percent each of the population.46. There are no official estimates available for the indigenous population through the latter half of the twentieth century, hence the frequency of estimates of 3000, or occasionally less. However, the 2000 census, the first to count by race since the 1950 census, estimated the population to be 63,876. Critics of the counting methods that the 2000 census employed indicate that the number is likely higher. Even with a conservative base of 63,876, it is difficult to reconcile how a population of only 3000 as late as the 1970s could have reached more than 20 times that number within just one generation.47. Harpelle, The West Indians of Costa Rica.48. Patricia Vega Jiménez and Juan Manuel Fernández, ‘Los indígenas desde el prisma de la prensa: La República, La Nación y Diario Extra (1990–1994)’, in María Eugenia Bozzoli et al. (eds), Primer Congreso Científico sobre Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica y sus Fronteras: Memoria, San José, EUNED, 1998, pp. 324–345, p. 328.49. Karen Stocker, ‘I Won't Stay Indian, I'll Keep Studying’: Race, Place, and Discrimination in a Costa Rican High School, Boulder, University of Colorado Press, 2005.50. Carlos Camacho, ‘Las paradojas de la identidad indígena: ideologías y realidades en Costa Rica’, in Eugenia Bozzoli et al. (eds), Primer Congreso Científico sobre Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica y sus fronteras: Memoria, San José, EUNED, 1998, pp. 310–14, p. 311.51. República de Costa Rica, Law 13, 1939, Article 8.52. República de Costa Rica, Decree 45, 1945, Article 8.53. República de Costa Rica, Plan nacional de desarrollo de los pueblos indígenas de Costa Rica: ‘Por el Respeto y la Participación de los Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica’, Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica, 2002.54. As Stocker affirms neither the Law of Empty Lands, nor the 1945 decree (meant to implement the 1939 law) that accompanied it actually define, even informally, who constitute indigenous tribes, Stocker, ‘I Won't Stay Indian’ p. 47.55. República de Costa Rica, ‘Definiciones y explicaciones de conceptos’, Censo de Población de Costa Rica 1950, San José, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, pp. 19–31, p. 20.56. Sharman, ‘The Caribbean Carretera’.57. Jiménez and Fernández, ‘Los indígenas desde el prisma de la prensa’.58. Marcos Guevara and Rubén Chacón, Territorios indios en Costa Rica: orígenes, situación actual y perspectivas. San José, Garciá Hermanos S.A, 1992.59. República de Costa Rica, Law 5251.60. Bartolomé Clavero, Geografía jurídica de América latina. Pueblos indígenas entre constituciones mestizas, México, Siglo XXI, 2008, p. 2.61. As of the construction of the last reserve in 2001 there are currently 22 officially recognized indigenous reserves in Costa Rica, which include all eight recognized indigenous groups: the Bríbri, Cabécar, Brunka, Guatuso, Chorotega, Ngöbe (Guaymí), Térraba, and Huetar. The Chorotega, Huetar and Maleku indigenous groups are the only three indigenous groups that reside in the central or western portions of the country. The remaining groups live primarily in the eastern provinces of Limón and Puntarenas. Thus, there remains a large population relegated to the eastern provinces, although it is probably smaller now than historically was the case.62. República de Costa Rica, Law 6172, Article 1.63. The understanding that the indigenous population was small at the moment of colonization (Thiel's estimation of 27,000) undergirded the idea that much of the country was literally unpopulated, meaning that only some parts of the country would be understood to have been historically indigenous lands. Stocker, ‘I Won't Stay Indian’.64. Elizabeth Solano Salazar, ‘La población indígena en Costa Rica según el Censo 2000’, in Luis Rosero Bixby (ed), Costa Rica a la luz del Censodel 2000, San José: Imprenta Nacional, pp. 341–73, p. 363.65. The Altos de San Antonio Reserve, designated in 2001, has 98 percent of its three acres in non-indigenous hands. This is certainly an exceptional case, but it is not the only one. In twelve of the twenty-two designated reserves fifty percent or greater amounts of land are held in non-indigenous hands. República de Costa Rica, Plan Nacional de Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas de Costa Rica, p. 67.66. Solano, ‘La población indígena’, p. 368.67. Solano, ‘La población indígena’, p. 369. Solano identifies unmet needs via ‘four dimensions: access to decent shelter, a healthy life, education, and other goods and services’. Solano, ‘La población indígena’, p. 359.68. Solano, ‘La población indígena’, p. 369.69. República de Costa Rica, Law 6172, Article 1.70. Guevara and Chacón, Territorios Indios.71. Author Interview with G.B., San José, 17 July 2009; Author Interview with G.C., San José, 22 July 2009.72. Francesca Schaller, Identity Politics in Search of Community-Based Development: A Case Study of the Indigenous Movement in Costa Rica, M.A. Thesis, The University of New Mexico, 1998.73. República de Costa Rica, Law 7426.74. Elizabeth Solano Salazar, ‘El estudio de los grupos étnicos a través del IX Censo de Población y Vivienda, 2000: población indígena’, San José, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos, 2001, pp. 1–20, p. 6.75. Salazar, ‘El estudio’, 2001, p. 7.76. Salazar, ‘El estudio’, 2001, p. 7.77. República de Costa Rica, ‘Características sociales y demográficas’, IX Censo Nacional de Población, San José, Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, 2000, pp. 1–318, p. 23, my emphasis.78. Solano, ‘El estudio’, 2001, p. 7.79. Solano, ‘El estudio’, 2001, p. 8, my emphasis.80. Epsy Campbell Barr, ‘Costa Rica Afrodescendientes’, Instituto Afrodescendiente para el Estudio, la Investigación y el Desarollo, http://afrodes.com/costa-rica-afrodescendientes, accessed 18 October 2013.81. Campbell, ‘Costa Rica Afrodescendientes’.
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