Abstract

This work explores decolonizing a multifaceted construction of sexuality, by uncovering colonial Latin American constructions of race and gender, in dialogue with how religion has been a force of this construction. In a process of building a critique to theologies that identified with power structures, Liberation Theologies argued that “the poor” become a category of subjects. Yet, without the multilayered ways in which such a broad category was constructed in the context of Latin America, I contend that decolonization projects can dismiss how systems of power in Latin America were constructed on the backs of black and brown people, their labor and exploitation through a violent sexual history. This history continues to figure in their critique of power structures.