The Decline of the White Idiosyncratic: Racialization and Otherness in Costa Rica

Erica Townsend-Bell, University of Iowa

Abstract

This paper employs comparative historical analysis to trace the development of shifting notions of otherness and changes in the racialization of Nicas and Afro-Costa Ricans over time. I find that both Afro-Costarrican and Nicaraguan minority groups have been central to the national identity, albeit in distinct ways. Racialized comparisons between “dark-skinned” Nicaraguans and “white” Costa Ricans, has created a third way in the Costa Rican context, where traditionally mestizo Nicaraguan immigrants become darkened or “blackened” and Afro-Costa Ricans are simultaneously privileged and disadvantaged as localized and preferred others.