The Hutchins Center’s Afro-Latin American Research Institute is partnering with five institutions to establish the University Consortium for Afro-Latin American Studies after receiving a $1.7 million grant from the Ford Foundation. The consortium, which will be led by Professor Alejandro de la Fuente, was announced this Wednesday at the start of ALARI’s Second Continental Conference on Afro-Latin American Studies.
The partner institutions hope to “forever transform the landscape of studies of African diaspora history and culture in Latin America,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor at Alphonse Fletcher University and director of the Hutchins Center for African Research. and African American. the packed crowd at the Tsai Auditorium.
Many once believed that the experience of the transatlantic slave trade was centered in the United States.
“While we must never lose sight of the legacy of slavery on this continent, we must also shift our focus to embrace the broader world of transatlantic slavery and honor the following numbers of human lives,” he said. Of the 10.7 million Africans who survived the grueling journey, 4.9 million were taken to Brazil, another million to Jamaica and millions more to various Caribbean islands.
Despite these staggering numbers, many Latin American countries have denied the presence of black people in their countries and the importance of slavery in shaping their wealth and economy.
“We are therefore grateful to the Ford Foundation for acknowledging the fact that it is critical that Afro-Latin American studies finally receive the fullest support and resources necessary to pursue crucial lines of research,” Gates said. “Both as part of comparative American studies and as a discipline in its own right.”
The consortium, which includes the Afro-Latin American Studies Group, University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), AFRO Núcleo Pesquisa e Formaçāo Raça, Gênero, Justiça Racial, CEBRAP (Brazil), Center for Afrodiasporic Studies, ICESI University (Colombia), Afro-descendants and Cultural Diversity , INAH/UNAM (Mexico) and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh—will examine the contributions of people of African descent to Latin American history and culture. He hopes to transform higher education in the Americas by reshaping the curriculum and integrating the ideals of racial and social justice into scholarship.
Wednesday’s announcement included a message from Colombian Vice President Francia Elena Márquez, who expressed her support for the initiative and spoke of the inauguration of the Permanent Forum of Peoples of African Descent at the UN. Márquez, the first black woman vice president of the South. American country, she spoke of joining forces in the search for racial, economic, gender and ecological justice.
The consortium representatives from the six partner institutions spoke briefly about the work that has been done in the field and what they hope the consortium will achieve. De la Fuente, director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Hutchins, said the consortium will allow institutions to build momentum within the field, as well as open up opportunities for students and faculty alike.
