Sumario: | A characteristic of the ideology of mestizaje is to deny racism. Racial inequality and privilege are blurred through a constant effort to validate and reclaim the hegemonic discourse which, under mestizaje, states that racial conflict has been resolved. Here I present three strategies that attest to how mestiza society responds at times when racial conflict –anti-indigenous racism in this case- becomes visible. I explore how they translate into mechanisms to achieve the “moral regulation” of social relations (Corrigan, & Sayer, 1985). The first mechanism I define as “mestizo innocence,” the second is a response from the perspective of “mestizo fragility” and I identify the third as neo-populist mestizaje, an updated version of the mestizo project of the twentieth century.
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