Reconstrucciones identitarias en el proceso Bolivariano : Los afrovenezolanos (1998-2008)

Abstract

Venezuelan black organizations have advanced in a profound process of identitary reconstruction, structuring new social movements in the context of hegemonic struggle and political-institutional change in the country since the late 1990’ decade. This process is beyond the traditional defense of the right to cultural diversity to set a new ethnopolitical discourse aimed at the decolonization of the state and nation project under the Bolivarian revolutionary process. Our paper attempts to make an approach to the analysis of the main factors which have influenced in the identitary construction of “African descent” in the period 1998-2008 in Venezuela. It is based on interviews with leaders and members of Afro Venezuelan organizations, and reviewing literature and various documents which were produced and disseminated by their activists.