Beyond the Decade for People of African Descent

In memory of the Afro-descendant women leaders murdered during the Afro Decade

Within the framework of the need to rethink the challenges of research, teaching, and political action, from critical, Afro-feminist, decolonial, and comparative perspectives, and in memory of the Afro-descendant leaders murdered during the International Decade for People of African Descent, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Center for Psychological and Sociological Research (CIPS) of Cuba, the Nelson Mandela Chair of Afro-descendant Studies, and the CLACSO Working Groups on Afro-descendants and Counter-hegemonic Proposals and Epistemologies of the South, are organizing the Third International Postgraduate School “Beyond the International Decade for People of African Descent” in Havana, Cuba, from October 21 to 25, as part of CLACSO's tribute to the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

In this context, faced with the recognition of a historical situation of epistemological, colonial, ethnocentric, imperialist, and racist domination, and the urgency of recognizing the epistemological and political value of the counter-hegemonic practices and knowledge embodied by Black feminisms, Afro-Latin American and Caribbean movements, communities, and peoples, we, the teachers and students (academics, activists, and public policy makers), declare:

• From the perspective of Black and Afro-Latinx, Caribbean feminisms, we position ourselves as the most powerful Afro-epistemic and counter-hegemonic horizon, building a decolonial, anti-racist, emancipatory and political action theory, redefining Afro-descendants, Black feminisms and intersectionality, as tools that strengthen our identities and struggles.
• We are committed to breaking down racism, machismo, sexism, and homolesbotransphobia within all the social movements in which we are involved.
• We denounce academic racism against Afro-diasporic intellectuals in Latin America and the Caribbean, which affects teachers, researchers, students, and authors, as well as institutions and the full range of expressions of our ancestral and contemporary knowledge, both collective and individual, oral and written. We therefore demand effective public policies in this context.
• We denounce and emphasize our concern about the eco-ethnocide of Afro-Latin American and Caribbean peoples and territories, as well as all forms of subordination to the worldviews of our communities.
• Patriarchal racism, which is currently expressed in the high rates of femicide throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, must be the main focus of attention for our States.
• In every country, without exception, there is an outstanding agenda in relation to the Durban Plan of Action and the International Decade for People of African Descent. In this context, we demand reparations through effective public policies that guarantee intercultural peace and human dignity in all our communities and territories.
• We demand the immediate recognition of the invisible and violated Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti within the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and the Garifuna people in all Central American countries.
• We denounce the neoliberal advance present in Latin America and the Caribbean, the intensification of violence, the violation of the human rights of Afro and indigenous peoples, communities and movements, and in particular of young people, leaders and female leaders, who are subject to persecution, imprisonment, disappearance and murder.
• We express our complete rejection of the militarization of our communities and territories, which results in an escalation of racial, police and state violence, as has been happening historically in Colombia and Brazil and is being contested today in Uruguay as a School; we adhere to “No to the Reform”.
• Within the framework of the objectives of the International Decade for People of African Descent, the III School supports the creation of the UN Permanent Forum for People of African Descent under the structure of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) so that the development perspective for our people of African descent can be strengthened from there.
• We are committed to promoting and developing strategies for reflection and work in support of Afro-descendant, social, academic and public policy organizations with the central objective of generating better actions that allow us to modify the conditions caused by structural and institutional racism in each of our States

October 21-25, Havana, Cuba, 2019