Latin America Today
Afro-Descendants and Democracy: What are We Talking About?
Jorge Rafael Ramírez Peruvian Master Student( CAPES Grant) in Politics and Social Service State University of Londrina( UEL), Brazil
Angie Edell Campos Lazo Peruvian Interdisciplinary Master Student( CAPES) in Community Development UNICENTRO( Irati), Brazil
O
ur discussion is a contribution for understanding the political insertion of the Afro-descendant population in the logic of democracy, not only as an individual expression, but also as a collective action that opens the debate on inequalities and the struggle for better living conditions. The new expressive forms of inequality and poverty bring new critical ways of understanding social justice and organization. This is a challenge for both the society and its interpreters trying to comprehend the diverse social phenomena and to mobilize for the rights of Afro-descendants and for some structural changes. Diverse social aspects of our life are considered as daily routine, and it ´ s unknown that many of them have resulted from norms agreed by the haves for being applied to the havenots. These norms left aside many features of the currently-in-dispute democracy. As the society rapidly progresses, we need to understand its logic to see how social exclusions affecting Afro-descendant communities in Latin America are also in progress. In the electoral campaigns for state representatives, we generally heard a variety of discourses about the importance of political, citizen and democratic participation, especially by the groups in vulnerable situations. But the Afro-descendant population is not properly included in these groups and the discourses are frequently generated in a repetitive way without making clear which actions should be taken. Hence, let’ s ask ourselves: how can we live in a society where such values are hegemonic? Herein we intend to analyze and to discuss democracy, as well as to contextualize its importance for social development and access to decision-making spaces. The process of democratic nationbuilding faces some dilemmas nowadays. They are rooted in a perverse conspiracy between two different processes linked to two different political projects: " a process of expanding democracy, which is expressed in the creation of public spaces [ and ] the increasing engagement of the civil society in the processes of discussion and decision-making related to public issues and policies "( Vianna, Dagnino and Silva, 2002, apud DAGNINO, 2004, 141). The lack of one or the other can drastically affect the quality of the democratic exercise. It’ s important to add that, in recent years, our Latin America society has undergone through various paradigms and challenges for consolidating these practices exerting profound influence on democratic sovereignty.
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