Breaking the Boundaries of the Colombian Socio-Racial Order

In Latin America, the congruence of racial and class hierarchies, structurally and symbolically, is a key factor that facilitates the operations of racism, while also making them easy to misrecognize. Mara Viveros-Vigoya’s ground-breaking book, inspired by personal experience, matured through decades of intensive ethnographic and bibliographic research, and fired by anti-racist and feminist ethics, lays bare the complex and intersectional contradictions of this situation for the Black men and women in Colombia who, following paths opened by previous generations, have broken out of the low-status pigeonhole to which Blackness is assumed to belong. Viveros-Vigoya's powerful intersectional approach analyzes in illuminating detail the diverse trajectories and identifications of these people, highlighting the key roles played by Black women. Her book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in racial formations in Colombia and right across Latin America. -- Peter Wade, University of Manchester
Using sociological, historical, political, and intersectional approaches, Viveros-Vigoya shows that the supposed impossibility of being Black, but not poor, in Colombia is belied by the very existence of the people whose stories she shares.Breaking the Boundaries of the Colombian Socio-Racial Order: Black Middle Classes through an Intersectional Lens is theoretically sophisticated and empirically revealing and will be a defining reference in the global study of stratification, racialization, and political citizenship. -- Mary Pattillo, Northwestern University and author of Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class