When Ernesto Estupinan Quintero was elected mayor of the city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, in 2000, he was the first self-identifying Black person to reach this position. The city of Esmeraldas is the capital of the only province of the nation where Afro-Ecuadorians are the largest racial and cultural group. Immediately upon his election, Ernesto began commissioning murals and statues that contested traditional representations of Blackness.
Examines Colombia's adoption of policies for black Colombians in 1993. Argues that Afro-Colombian activists were able to seize upon changes in global policy norms around multiculturalism and state disequilibrium both by deploying traditional social movement strategies and by framing their demands in terms of ethnic difference. This case extends our understanding of how social movements make strategic use of political openings and also illustrates the circumstances under which an ethnic difference framing can be a more effective political strategy for achieving rights for black populations than a racial equality framing.
" While the black man's paintings or carvings were considered works of the Devil, music, on the other hand, did not cause much inconvenience. The plantation owners in Cuba, for example, allowed their slaves to beat their drums and dance every evening because this showed that they were in good health and that their "ebony flesh' was fit for hard labour. Meanwhile, the slaves listened to what they heard around them. During the sixteenth century, when they were first taken to America, they assimilated Spanish ballads, songs from Portugal and even French square dancing. They discovered musical instruments unknown in their own lands and learned to play them." --The Author
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Semiannual serial, A journal devoted to the scholarly exploration and study of cultural impact among the literary pursuits of Spanish, Portuguese, French, African and American peoples.
Among the 3.2 million unsafe abortions in young women 15–19 years old, almost 50% are in the Africa region. 22% of all unsafe abortions in Africa compared to 11% of those in Asia (excluding Eastern Asia) and 16% of those in Latin America and the Caribbean are among adolescents aged 15–19 years.
Focuses on CLADEM, an organization that has been championing women's rights in Latin America and the Caribbean for over 25 years. With the target date of 2015 fast approaching, attention is turning to what will follow the Millennium Development Goals - the global action plan to reduce extreme poverty across the world. Here, Jessica Woodroffe considers what the future holds, specifically for women's rights.
