The idea of "racial democracy" in Latin American populations has
traditionally assumed that class is a more significant factor than race.
But despite the emergence of a mestizo class - people who are culturally
and racially mixed in the broadest sense - there remains a complex
discrimination against blacks. To explain this phenomenon, Peter Wade
focuses on the black population of the Choco province in Colombia - an
area where the typical Latin American ambiguity surrounding racial
identity is countered by the more definitive "black" identity of the
local inhabitants. Drawing on extensive anthropological fieldwork, Wade
shows how the concept of "blackness" and discrimination are deeply
embedded in different social levels and contexts - from region to
neighborhood, and from politics and economics to housing, marriage,
music, and personal identity. By uncovering what "blackness" means to
the Chocoanos and how "blackness" is reproduced and transformed in
different contexts, Wade brings to the study of race a perspective
sophisticated enough to account for the real complexities of "blackness,
" "mixedness, " and "whiteness"; the conflicts among race, ethnicity,
and national ideologies; the development and transformation of cultural
identities; the persistence of racial inequality and racism; and the
constitution of society through topography and regionality.