In the past two years, we have seen an intensification of demands for racial equity in the United States and in Latin America, through massive mobilizations protesting systematic inequality, organized corruption, and abuse within state apparatuses. However, the problem of social justice and racial inequality looms large in Latin American history. Specifically, related to how modernity has positioned itself as a violent and discriminatory project in the region. Latin Americanist scholarly work is increasingly emphasizing a reflection upon racial discrimination and historical reparation. On one hand, we examine the role of academia in creating spaces to deconstruct our privileges and also to position marginalized subjects at the center of the discussion. On the other hand, we foster conversations on how literary critical work addresses historical accountability and processes of healing and reappraisal of disregarded legacies.

This panel responds to the endeavors in our field to encourage conversations on anti-racist reflections both in our classrooms and the literary and cultural production. We believe that the power of creative thought and the importance of symbolic and political representation are at the core of struggle and resistance against hegemonic knowledge. In conversation with Kevin Quashie, James Walvin, and Paulo Freire, this panel will address how race, ethnicity, and language challenge exclusionary spaces on several scales: body, streets, and national territory. Moreover, Lugones, Quijano, and Lorde will allow us to see how gender-race-class intersectionality affects other forms of discrimination such as coloniality, Modernity, and capitalism. Also, intersectionality and the environment will be illuminated by Robert Bullard’s seminar definition of environmental racism and environmental justice, in dialogue with Henri Acselrad’s definition of these terms from the Brazilian context.

This session proposes three formal presentations of 15 minutes each, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. First, Maia’s paper “Radical Geographies: Confronting Environmental Racism in Brazil” analyzes the role of contemporary cultural productions in addressing the ecological crisis in the Brazilian context. Through a dialogue established between environmental justice studies (Robert Bullard and Henri Acselrad ) and ecocritics studies (Rob Nixon and Katherine McKittrick) Maia's paper focuses on 1) how racialized communities are portrayed as active subjects in the claiming for environmental justice in Brazil, 2) the role of ancestrality in the recognition of other political and ethical relationships in the production of knowledge, 3) the importance of personal and collectives experiences towards environmental practices, and 4) the role of anti-racist narratives in challenging anti-environmental agendas in Brazil. Second, Del Aguila’s paper,“Black Women’s Political Representation: Feminist Killjoy in Afro-Peruvian and Garifuna poets,” aims to reflect on the process of writing and poetic creation in afro-Peruvians and Garifunas poets and performers, insofar as poetic writing is a tool that allows women of color to be positioned as political subjects. Del Aguila’s main goals will be 1) to discuss women’s political representation, 2) Feminist’s awareness of race/class discrimination, 3) the importance of personal experience for restructuring feminist political practices among women of color, and 4) the conception of feminist killjoys within poetic creation. Finally, building upon black Atlantic studies (James Walvin) and poetics of black aliveness (Kevin Quashie), Barja’s paper “Sublime Objects: Loss and Spaces in Contemporary Caribbean Literature” proposes to underline the power of material traces of memory in intersectional presentations of the body in contemporary pieces by Achy Obejas and Mayra Santos Febres. Her paper mainly explores (1) how forced displacement triggers the return of transhistorical trauma, (2) how the presentation of intersectional identities and nautical objects defy neocolonial relationships, and (3) in which terms these literary pieces produce forms of anti-racist knowledge.