Pain into Purpose
Mobilizing Emotions in Argentina's Black Resistance Movement

Examines how Argentina's Black resistance movement has mobilized followers and challenged racism, while fostering activism and solidarity.

Prisca Gayles (Author)

9781009569743, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 December 2025

234 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.386 kg

'This beautifully written book provides us with much needed information on the Black experience in Argentina. Based on meticulously conducted research, Gayles visibilizes the struggles of a people whom for years have been rendered invisible. Indeed, as Gayles observes, 'Argentina is Black, too!' ('¡Argentina también es afro!'). Pain into Purpose not only allows us to hear the voices of Black Argentines, but also reveals the genealogies and contemporary realities of Black Argentinian struggle in ways that negate the myth of a mono-racially white Argentina.' Christen Smith, author of Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil

Pain into Purpose is a groundbreaking exploration of Argentina's Movimiento Negro (Black resistance movement). Employing a multi-year ethnography of Black political organizing, Prisca Gayles delves deep into the challenges activists face in confronting the erasure and denial of Argentina's Black past and present. She examines how collective emotions operate at both societal and interpersonal levels in social movements, arguing that activists strategically leverage societal and racialized emotions to garner support. Paying particular attention to the women activists who play a crucial role in leading and sustaining Argentina's Black organizations, the book showcases the ways Black women exercise transnational Black feminist politics to transform pain into purpose.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Argentina también es afro
1. '¿De dónde sos?': Mechanisms of Racialization in a 'Raceless' but White Nation
2. Poner el Cuerpo: The Emergence of the Movimiento Negro, 1983–2013
3. 'Somos los primeros desaparecidos.': Mobilizing the Emotional and Discursive Opportunities of the Human Rights Movement
4. '¡Qué su voz se escuche!': A Black Feminist Toolkit and the Everyday Successes of Race-based Social Movements
5. 'Ahora más que nunca.': The Saliency of Black Activism during a Pandemic
Conclusion
Appendix A. Methodological Appendix
Appendix B. List of Organizations and Collectives
Appendix C. Demographic Information of Interviewees
Works Cited
Index.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]