Introduction: the turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America

We are currently witnessing a turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America. The recognition of racism is not new, but the attention and challenge to racism, in such an orchestrated way, is. What are the signals of such turn to racism and anti-racism? What are the overall lessons for Latin America and from Latin America to global antiracist efforts? This introduction looks at the arguments of the articles in this special issue to highlight how issues of racial visibility, naming racism, racial data, legal rights and recognition, entrepreneurship, mestizo identity, the possibilities of alliances, racially-aware struggles against class (and gendered) oppression, are key to understanding this turn. While we do not claim that these articles cover the full extent of this turn in Latin America, we suggest that analysing how this turn appears in Latin American opens useful ways of thinking about anti-racism more widely.