‘Race' and Inequality in Postcolonial Urban Settings Examples From Peru, Jamaica, and Indonesia

In this essay we present three case studies of Peru, Jamaica and Indonesia toillustrate the use of the concept of race in daily life in relation to labour, popularculture and beauty respectively. These cases demonstrate how the use of theconcept of race changes in the transition from a colonial into a postcolonialsetting, depending on the role of the state and nation building. In Peru, we seea clear continuation of racialized thinking; thinking and speaking in terms of‘race' is still the norm. In Jamaica we find a process of inversion: the concept ofrace is maintained as a frame of societal analysis, but blackness is revalidatedand has become a prerequisite for national and cultural belonging. In Indonesiaracialized categorizations have disappeared almost completely as ‘race' hasbecome subjected to the development rhetoric, which just allows limited spacefor ethnic manifestations. However, discrimination on other rhetorical basis,such as non-citizenship, remains