History and racialization of gender in Uruguay post-abolition: the activism of Iris Cabral and Maruja Pereyra as part of the repertoire of struggles for citizenship (Montevideo, 1930-1950)

Abstract

This article analyzes the activism of Iris Cabral and Maruja Pereyra in the city of Montevideo (UY) considering the Americas post-abolition as a historical problem. It uses as sources texts written by both women published in the black periodical Nuestra Raza (which circulated in 1917 in the city of San Carlos; and between 1933 and 1948 in the city of Montevideo), as well as about them and the activities they developed in the same periodical and in the Órgano del Partido Autóctono Negro (which circulated in 1937 and was the mouthpiece of the racially biased political party of the same name). The analysis of the sources, managed through the tool of intersectionality, and in critical dialogue with contemporary historiographical production allows us to affirm that the activists were black women, domestic workers, collaborators of the referenced organizations and active in the suffragist movement in that country whose actions were intertwined with the struggles for citizenship. The results elucidate aspects of the struggle of black women, based on the political contours established by them, which contributes to a writing of the history of the Americas that destabilizes notions of equality and to the historicization of how the racialization of gender and the genderification of race were present and marked social relations in Uruguay, intertwining economy and politics.