Recent approaches to the study of inequalities such as racial studies and intersectionality studies have added new categories to the traditionally class-focused scholarship. In these, race, ethnicity, and gender are treated as historically persistent axes which, in conjunction with class, structure access to goods and power resources. However, these new studies rarely take into account the transnational and global construction of ascriptions related to race, gender and ethnicity.

Insofar Cluster A has two aims: First, on a theoretical base it aims at integrating the network's emphasis on contemporary and historical transnational and intersectional inequalities with longstanding intellectual approaches in Latin America to racial and ethnic components of social inequality in order to establish a comprehensive multidimensional theoretical framework for the study of social inequalities.

Second, it systematizes research results on the various effects of transnationally or internationally created ascriptions on social inequalities in Latin America. In particular, we study the impact of global and national factors for (re)shaping social categorizations on which structures of inequalities in Latin America are based.

Within this cluster, two focal studies are carried out that contribute further empirical evidence on topics that have not yet been explored: the influence of international legal frameworks on local social inequalities and the relationship between social inequalities and citizenship.

Coordination: Sérgio Costa