ERIGAL is pleased to invite you to the next “ERIGAL Friday”, featuring a lecture by Karma Frierson followed by a presentation of her book Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracruz.
We look forward to welcoming you!
📅 Friday, February 13, 2026
🕝 2:00 - 4:00 PM
📍 McGill University – Room LEA520
855 Sherbrooke West, Montreal
🔗 Registration :
📖 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.