Last Friday, February 13, we held at McGill University the presentation of the book Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracruz.
We were joined not only by the author, who walked us through the different themes addressed in the book as well as her fieldwork experiences in the port of Veracruz, but also by the insightful comments of Professors Tania Islas Weinstein and Julian Durazo Herrmann, who highlighted the strongest aspects of the author’s ethnography.
The event took place to a full room, with a large audience that showed great interest not only in the book’s academic contribution, but also in its careful writing style and the personal anecdotes related to the port of Veracruz.
Thank you all for taking part!
Ebook: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/local-color/epub-pdf
📖 About the book
Local Color is an ethnographic exploration of how everyday people engage with multicultural initiatives to rewrite Blackness into Mexico’s past, present, and future. Drawing on music and dance communities, national and local discourse, and public history, the book argues that prior to the official recognition of Afro-Mexicans, Blackness in Veracruz fostered regional rather than racial identification.
About the author
Karma F. Frierson is a sociocultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. Her research explores the intersections of cultural politics, leisure, and identity formation, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Mellon Mays Fellowship Program, COMEXUS-Fulbright, and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others. Her future research will focus on the realities and consequences of African American expatriatism in Mexico.