Modernity and Racial Debate in the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba

Abstract

Despite the scientific body of knowledge accumulated about the actions of the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba, the racial debate promoted within it remains unsystematized from the perspective of Decolonial Thought. The research adopted a qualitative approach, employing theoretical methods in the diachronic reconstruction of the racial debate developed within the framework of the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba and the determination of its synchronic connections with the socio-historical process of Modernity. The article establishes the dialectical linkage of the socio-historical process of modernity, the particularities of colonial Cuba, and their expressions in the discriminatory racial debate that arose within the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba, aimed at rendering the role of non-white ethnic groups invisible in the formative process of Cuban society. Likewise, the imprint of modernity in Cuban anthropological thought is highlighted, supported by the racial debate in the Anthropological Society of the Island of Cuba.