Race and Politics in Central America (biographies), February 24-25, 2006

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together scholars from Central and North America to analyze the way that race operates in contemporary Central America, particularly as it affects people of African descent. Its main objective is to map the specific racial formations that have emerged in four Central American countries-Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica-and the place of blacks within them. Particular attention will be paid to some of the following themes: the specific racial orders that have developed in each country and the role of anti-black racism within them, the kids of black identities and anti-racist ideologies formulated by people of African descent, the state of research into the effects of anti-black racism, the effect of transnational processes (such as migration and drug trafficking) on ideas about blackness in general and black people's identities in particular in the different countries.