Negotiating race and place in the garifuna diaspora: Identity formation and transnational grassroots politics in New York City and Honduras

This paper is an exploration of the relations between the politics of ident ity and the socio-economic and political processes of the current era of gl obalization. Using ethnographic material from the transnational grassroots organizations of the Garinagu-an Afro-Indigenous population living in trans national communities between Central America and the US-I show the multiple ways that they articulate their identity between and among the tropes of " autocthony," "blackness," "Hispanic," "diaspora," and "nation." This constr uction and negotiation of identity is intimately connected to the negotiati on of rights vis-a-vis nation-states and international political bodies, wh ere ideologies of race, ethnicity, nation, and citizenship carry with them different implications for rights and belonging. I argue that the complexit ies of this case point to the uneven processes of globalization, within whi ch the power to define the ideological terrain of economic and political st ruggles is still profoundly unequal.