STATEMENT AND ACTIONS REGARDING ANTI-BLACK RACISM AND ANDEAN STUDIES
The Institute of Andean Studies supports racial equality and all those fighting racial violence, harassment, and discrimination. Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism have been part of the history of all of the Americas for centuries. As scholars of the past and participants in the present, we at the Institute of Andean Studies acknowledge and must address this horrific historical legacy.
This year, the Institute of Andean Studies has begun a series of initiatives to begin to challenge this history of exclusion. We will call for papers for a special session at our next annual meeting that will focus on Afro-Andean topics. We are assembling a Blue Ribbon Commission, "Engaging Africans and their Descendants in Andean Studies", which will advise us on how we can make the Institute of Andean Studies a more inclusive environment, including but not limited to what topics and fields we regularly cover in our annual meetings and our journal, and how we reach out to African and African descendant communities in the US and in the Andes. With the Commission's advice, we expect to announce more initiatives and changes in the future.