Diffusion without Isomorphism: The Interstitial Politics of the Official Categorization of Blackness in Mexico (1994-2015)

Abstract :
Over the past thirty years, Latin American censuses have introduced self-identification questions for people of African descent. After decades of demographic invisibility, most states in the region now enumerate Afrodescendent populations using several ethnoracial categories of Blackness. Census categories are crucial in estimating the demographic composition and ethnoracial inequality affecting these populations. However, few studies have examined the conditions that allowed for the heterogeneous diffusion of categories of Blackness in Latin America. This article analyzes Mexico’s 2015 Intercensal Survey, the first official instrument to enumerate Black people in this country's history, to uncover the enabling conditions for this shift. Using a convergent mixed methods design, the analysis shows that the official enumeration of Blackness unfolded through an institutionally liminal space of classification struggles. While the category “Afrodescendant” was endorsed by internationally oriented state actors and ethnohistorical researchers, “Black” gained legitimacy from activists focused on cultural politics and researchers mobilizing ethnographic knowledge, and “Afromexican” was supported by activists advocating for development politics and locally oriented state actors. This article advances a constitutive argument that helps explain under what conditions census politics emerge as an interstitial space of contention that challenges the routine exercise of the symbolic power of the state to enumerate its populations.