Identify and count the Afro-descendants in Venezuela: the socialist ethnological reason and the 2011 census

Abstract

The paper examines how a social movement used the census, an instrument normally employed by States. Chavista policies have sustained popular activism demanding support for communities that identified themselves as “niggers”. The socialism of the XXI century commits to this social redemption by financing social movements while asking these to back the government and the party. In this favorable setting, intellectuals promoted the re-elaboration and re-writing of national history, legitimized “afrodescendant”
as a new identitarian label and denounced the enduring invisibility of “afro” communities.Social movements leaders asked that the acknowledgment of the social and political importance of the communities resulted in a formal calculation of “afrodescendants”. After several years of campaigning, the new ethno-racial categories were inserted in the 2011 census. Results of the self-identification, however, proved counterproductive for those who led the social movement: few Venezuelans declared themselves “afrodescendants”.