Debates about Class and Race: Tracing Chilean-Peruvian Conversations about the “Indigenous Worker” through International Conferences and Magazines, 1900–50

This paper highlights the importance of transnational intellectual networks in the circulation of ideas about race and class in Latin America. It maps out some of the key debates taking place - via two crucial sites of encounter, congresses and revistas - about the figure of the "indigenous worker" in the early to mid twentieth century. It focuses on Chilean-Peruvian conversations about this issue, in the context of the growth of the labour movement in both countries, and the increasing number of Peruvians going into exile in Chile, especially Aprista activists during the late 1930s and early 1940s. In drawing out the connections and collaborations between Chileans and Peruvians, it challenges dominant narratives that emphasise, almost exclusively, a history of antagonism and hostility.