Discreet Diversification in Latin America

Abstract

Abstract In contrast to the various hubs where superdiversity is commonly studied, Latin America experiences a discreet form of diversification. This is due partly the subcontinent’s slower globalization speed, but also, crucially, to the resistance to acknowledging such processes by locals and migrants. Such disinclination to openly accept an increasing number of outsiders and their influence can be historically linked to a regional preference for mestizaje and indigenismo as ways of addressing national identities. Both concepts have helped maintain power structures that include unspoken hierarchies along ideas of ethnicity and race. Difference is preferably not talked about but performed because people are expected to know their place in society and act accordingly. Outsiders thus enact their belonging and take a place in the existing hierarchies according to the circumstances of their arrival, their individual characteristics, and/or their personal preferences. In all cases, sympathies, empathies, and antipathies end up shaping social relations into what are here termed “bubble interactions.” In such a fragmented context, studies using superdiversity as an analytic approach may yield interesting results, but they will first need to break through the various efforts to hide diversification processes.