Inequality by skin color: theoretical-methodological references in sociological study

Abstract

Introduction: The Eurocentric model and the slave trade through the diaspora constituted, in essence, the main resources used in the ideological establishment of inequalities in the colonized regions. Understanding inequality based on skin color is an urgent need to reverse asymmetries in different social orders. The research aims to identify some theoretical-methodological references necessary to take into account in the sociological study of inequality by skin color, starting from international references to particularizing the Cuban experience, essential in the appropriation of this knowledge. Materials and methods: Qualitative documentary methodology was used through document analysis and bibliographic review of substantial sources of information. Results: In the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the first studies on inequalities based on skin color crystallized in the United States. Due to Afro-American influence, the first studies in Latin America were located in Brazil in the 70s and 80s of the last century. In Cuba, the main theoretical-methodological references on inequality crystallized starting in the 90s with the Fall of the Socialist Camp, although previous inherent contributions cannot be denied. Branches of sociological knowledge, as well as important theoretical methodological references in studies by skin color, continue to be covered up by elites of scientific knowledge that respond to hegemonic models of cultural colonization. Discussion: The Afro-Ladino American paradigm constitutes a necessary practice of theoretical, methodological, epistemological, social and political renewal tempered in the face of the cover-ups of the racialized social being, mainly women, dismissed by gender, skin color or sexual orientation. Conclusions: New socioeconomic conditions affect a widening of inequality gaps, where only treatment in all instances of the Cuban social fabric will contribute to mitigating its effects.