Black Motherhood Politics in Costa Rica: Diasporic Genealogies and Links to the State

Abstract

Black women who seek and win elected office are changing the political landscape in the Americas. In Latin America, this shift became widely recognized when Epsy Campbell Barr became the first Black woman vice president in Costa Rica in 2018. Her election builds on the work of three generations of women whose engagement in formal politics is rooted in their intertwined identities as Black, women, and of West Indian descent. By recovering a racialized, gendered, and ethnicized lineage of community activism, relationships, and networking—which I call “Little’s links” to honor the legacy of the writer and activist Eulalia Bernard Little—I argue that in Costa Rica, Caribbean identity and Black motherhood politics have influenced Black women’s engagement in national politics. This account of these other (and mothers’) political routes to state power for Afro-Caribbean women in Costa Rica complements current explanations of Black women’s participation in national politics elsewhere.

Keywords

• Black women
• Black motherhood
• Afro-Costa Ricans
• Caribbean
• intersectionality
• mujeres negras
• maternidad negra
• afro-costarricenses
• Caribe
• interseccionalidad