Entre o "ser" e o "pertencer" : a intelectualidade negra uruguaia e a revista Nuestra Raza (1933-1948)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to reflect on how the intellectual activists involved in the political, social, and cultural project of the magazine Nuestra Raza produced by Uruguayan black intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century sought to contradict the prevalent discourse of the period, which claimed that Uruguay was composed only of a melting pot of “white races” and tried to ignore the presence and contributions of the Black population in national construction. Additionally, this group aimed to improve the cultural, political, economic, and social situation of the Black community in the country. Nuestra Raza emerged as a space of convergence of many actions of an articulated group that, beyond the social change of their peers, tried to include the Black past and present in the national repertoire. It became a space capable of bringing together Uruguayan and international Black intellectuals and was the cradle of one of the most important political actions carried out by the Uruguayan Black intellectual movement in the 20th century: the creation of their own political party. For this reason, I intend to show what preceded the magazine and led to its creation, its circle of activists, what its pages said, and how this Black intellectual movement, using the agenda set by the Uruguayan republican project, attempted to achieve transformations in the reality in which they lived.