The yearlong Sawyer Seminar seeks to understand contemporary contestation over citizenship and belonging by Afrodescendants in Latin America, situating these struggles within long-term, historical patterns of nation building, racial stratification, and political mobilization. It will explore the struggles and experiences of citizenship of this vastly heterogeneous group, which have been starkly uneven across time and across (and within) countries. The Seminar will also ask what these differences can teach us, including how these Afro-Latin American perspectives can help inform our understanding of race and racism. To do so, the proposed seminar will examine four interrelated questions that will guide our comparative analysis of what we believe are three pathways to Afrodescendant citizenship that have guided, and continue to guide, experiences in Latin America.