DISSERTATION
Black Politics in Peru and Ecuador, 1980-2016
From 1970 to the present, Afro-Latino (or “Black”) movements have emerged in every country from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego with an African descendant population. Black mobilization in Latin America centers on the denial of Afro-visibility and full participation in the life of the nation-state since emancipation. In a region known already for its high levels of socioeconomic inequality, Blacks and indigenous persons bear the brunt of these disparities. As a corrective to the current theoretical invisibility of Latin American Black social movements, this project answers the following questions: 1) How did Black movements in Peru and Ecuador emerge?; 2) How have they impacted the “political landscape” of their states? While the movements have succeeded in challenging the invisibility of Afro-descendants by their states, the broader impacts of the movements on the state (i.e. bureaucracy, electoral participation, legal regime) remain to be analyzed. Using a paired case study of the Black movements in Peru and Ecuador from 1980 to 2016, I explain the emergence of these movements as a form of Black politics and the ways in which these movements impacted their states. This project broadens the theoretical understanding of ethnic mobilization in Latin America by evaluating how existing theories of ethnic mobilization explain the mobilization of Black activists in Peru and Ecuador.
PEER-REVIEWED
John Thomas III and Eshe Lewis. 2020. «Me Gritaron Negra»: Surgimiento y desarrollo del Movimiento de Mujeres Afrodescendientes en el Perú (1980-2015). Investigaciones Sociales. 44. 188-199.
Eshe Lewis and John Thomas III. 2019. “Me Gritaron Negra”: The emergence and development of the Afro-descendant women’s movement in Peru (1980-2015). Journal of International Women's Studies, 20(8), 18-39.
BOOK REVIEWS
Thomas, John III (2021). [Review of the book Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal]. National Review of Black Policitics. January 2021. 63-65.
Thomas, John III (2020). [Review of the book Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement
Transformed Brazilian Education by Rebecca Tarlau]. Mobilization 20 (4). 535-536.
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
John Thomas III. 2020. “Interpretando el ser político afroperuano a través del Censo 2017.” In Los Afrodescendientes en las Américas: 200 años de Vida Republicana, Ciudadanías Incompletas. Lima: CEDET, Centro de Desarrollo Étnico.
John Thomas III. 2013. “Etnicidad y nacionalismo en estados multiétnicos desde la perspectiva negra en América Latina.” In Presencia y persistencia: paradigmas culturales de los afrodescendiente., Caja negra; eds. Lilia Mayorga Balcázar and Margarita Ramírez Mazzetti. Lima: Centro de Desarrollo Étnicos - CEDET.
John Thomas III. 2010. “El movimiento hacia los derechos civiles de la población afrodescendiente en los Estados Unidos.” In La libertad inconclusa: entorno a la esclavitud, su abolición y los derechos civiles., Serie Caja negra; ed. CEDET. Lima: CEDET, Centro de Desarrollo Étnico.
REPORTS
John Thomas III 2011. Diagnóstico del Contexto de las poblaciones afroperuanas. Inter-American
Development Bank: Washington, DC.
WORKING PAPERS
John Thomas III “Public Policy and Black Politics in Peru and Ecuador, 1980-2016”
John Thomas III “The 2017 Census and the Afro-Peruvian Population: Points of Departure”
John Thomas III. “La evolución del Movimiento Negro Francisco Congo: una perspectiva teorética.”
