Racialisation of Latin American and African Actors in Madrid’s Cultural Industry and the Illusory Whitening of Spanishness

Abstract

This article relates to doctoral research undertaken with Latin American and African theatre organisations in Madrid. Findings highlight two fundamental questions: 1) subjects who are differentiated under postcoloniality are predominantly represented in mass media, films and TV series in racialised and sexualised ways; 2) the subjects in question continually respond to these dominant representations, looking for alternative spaces in which to express their creative abilities that go beyond such racialised and inferiorised prototypes. Rising to the challenge, actors from Latin American backgrounds have created alliances with African actors in the theatre company Entrecalles, where they generate resistance. Their union seeks to articulate a cultural and political identity under nomenclatures that are susceptible to change and re-articulation and under contingent signs like Latin American and immigrant. I argue that the racialisation of these people and their media representation also responds to a deep-rooted illusory whitening on which the nation of Spain has been built.