Scenes from the Shadows challenges one of the most enduring myths of Argentine history: that Afro-Argentines had disappeared by the twentieth century. Bringing together leading scholars of race, culture, and history, the volume demonstrates that Afro-descendant communities remained a vital part of Argentine society even as official narratives, public institutions, and popular memory rendered them increasingly invisible. Drawing on oral histories, community newspapers, family archives, ethnography, and archival research, the contributors recover the lives, organizations, and cultural worlds that persisted beneath the surface of Argentina’s self-image as a White, European nation.

Focusing on Buenos Aires—home to the country’s largest Afro-descendant population and the epicenter of debates over race and national identity—the book situates Argentina within the broader history of the African diaspora in Latin America and examines how ideologies of Whitening (blanqueamiento), racial classification, urban development, and national identity obscured Afro-descendant presence throughout the twentieth century. The chapters explore Black celebrity and performance culture, tango, Afro-Porteño associational life, community journalism, public employment, migration, gender, and the formation of Afro-descendant social networks, revealing how Afro-Argentines negotiated exclusion while sustaining vibrant traditions of community, creativity, and belonging.

More than a recovery of forgotten histories, Scenes from the Shadows offers a new interpretation of modern Argentina itself. It shows how race continued to shape social life even in a society that denied its importance and how Afro-descendant communities endured despite powerful pressures toward erasure. A major contribution to Afro-Latin American studies, Argentine history, and diaspora scholarship, the volume restores Afro-Argentines to their place in the story of twentieth-century Argentina and provides a powerful framework for understanding the relationship between race, memory, and nationhood.

Contributors

Paulina L. Alberto
Judith M. Anderson
Laura Colabella
Robert J. Cottrol
Alejandra Egido
Alejandro Frigerio
Lea Geler
Lucas Glasman
Miriam Gomes
Chisu Teresa Ko
Eva Lamborghini
Marta Maffia
Carmen Yannone

Robert J. Cottrol is the Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law and a professor of history and sociology at the George Washington University. He is also an adjunct professor in the Facultad de Ciencias Juridicas de La Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires. His books include The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere.

Lea Geler is a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and at the Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana “Dr. Emilio Ravignani,” Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Her publications include Cambundá: Historia de una nación afroargentina.