Paper short abstract:

This paper interrogates the conflicting tensions that emerge when positioning the mestizo as an antiracist subject and her claim of experiencing racism as a worthy object to tackle.

Paper long abstract:

This paper interrogates the conflicting tensions that emerge when positioning the mestizo as an antiracist subject and her claim of experiencing racism as a worthy object to tackle. Mestizaje as a discourse appears as successfully defeating racism via the celebration of mixture and the appearance of inclusion. While the failure of such attempt has been extensively researched, little attention has been given to the analysis of mestizaje as a lived experience that reproduces racism in the everyday life of those who resist an indigenous, black or 'immigrant' racialised position. Although the figure of the mestizo is open to everyone through strategies of inclusion so they can enter the realm of the nation, logics of exclusion are also present, mainly reflected in the possibilities of the mestizo body. The body of the mestizo is read in contrasting and multiple ways. Occupying the category of mestizo exposes the subject to unreliable screening processes that underpin and structure people's opportunities of accessing a 'good life'. Simultaneously, the success of mestizaje in avoiding racialised positions in favour of national ones, means that possible mestizo subjects resist a racialised categorization making anti-racist struggle hard to grasp. So what happens when the will to be considered a mestizo is not encountered or uptaken? What problems do this raise for the subjects and objects of anti-racism?