Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity 9780813541327

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Negras in Brazil

Negras in Brazil Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity

K I A L I L LY C A L D W E L L

RUTGER S UNI V ER SIT Y PR ESS NE W BRUNSW ICK, NE W JER SE Y, A ND LONDON

LIBR A RY OF CONGR ESS C ATA LOGING-IN-PUBLIC AT ION DATA

Caldwell, Kia Lilly, – Negras in Brazil : re-envisioning black women, citizenship, and the politics of identity / Kia Lilly Caldwell. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-: ---- (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-: ---- (pbk. : alk. paper) . Women, Black—Brazil—Political activity. conditions.

. Feminism—Brazil.

. Brazil—Race relations. HQ..BC

. Women, Black—Brazil—Social

. Blacks—Race identity—Brazil.

I. Title.



.'—dc

 CIP

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright ©  by Kia Lilly Caldwell All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press,  Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ -. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Manufactured in the United States of America

To Isaiah and Maya, for all your future dreams

CONTENTS

Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Prologue

xiii

Introduction

1

PART ONE

Re-envisioning the Brazilian Nation 1 2

“A Foot in the Kitchen”: Brazilian Discourses on Race, Hybridity, and National Identity

27

Women in and out of Place: Engendering Brazil’s Racial Democracy

50

PART TWO

The Body and Subjectivity 3

“Look at Her Hair”: The Body Politics of Black Womanhood

4

Becoming a Mulher Negra

81 107

PART THREE

Activism and Resistance 5 6

“What Citizenship Is This?”: Narratives of Marginality and Struggle

133

The Black Women’s Movement: Politicizing and Reconstructing Collective Identities

150

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viii

CONT ENTS

Epilogue: Re-envisioning Racial Essentialism and Identity Politics Notes

183

References

197

Index

219

177

ILLUSTRATIONS

3.1. Cover of the September  edition of Raça Brasil

94

3.2. Advertisement for Essenza Hair products

96

3.3. Isabel Fillardis in an advertisement for AmericanHair products

98

5.1. The streets of Alto Vera Cruz

142

5.2. Valdete da Silva Cordeiro

143

5.3. Grupo da terceira idade during an exercise class

146

6.1. Audience at the  National Meeting of Black Women

164

6.2. Delegate speaking during the  National Meeting of Black Women

166

6.3. Invited speakers at the  National Meeting of Black Women

ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study would not have been possible without the assistance and support

of numerous Brazilian colleagues and friends. I would like to express special thanks to Antonio Carlos Arruda, Elisabete Aparecido Pinto, Sueli Carneiro, and Edna Roland for helping me to establish connections with organizations in São Paulo during the early stages of my research. Juliana Cardoso, Malco Braga Camargos, Sandra Azerêdo, Valdete da Silva Cordeiro, Fátima Oliveira, and members of the Forum of Black Women were all instrumental in my later field research in Belo Horizonte. I am also deeply grateful for the friendships that I developed with Ana Maria Silva, Raquel de Souza, Maria Stela Anunciação da Silva, Gina Hunter de Bessa, and Lisa Kerber during my time in Brazil. Last, but not least, I wish to express heartfelt appreciation to all of the women who participated in this research project. As a project which began as a doctoral dissertation, this study has benefited greatly from the advice and guidance of several faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin. The members of my dissertation committee, Charles Hale, Pauline Turner Strong, Kamala Visweswaran, and Gigi Durham, all provided helpful feedback on this project in its earliest stages. I am especially grateful to my dissertation advisor, Edmund T. Gordon, for believing in this project when it was just a dream and for tirelessly supporting my endeavors. A number of colleagues and friends have shared helpful comments and insights which have helped me to sharpen my analysis of race, gender, and citizenship in Brazil. My participation in the Gender and Cultural Citizenship Working Group has been a fruitful and transformative collaboration. I have learned a great deal from my interaction with Kathleen Coll, Tracy Fisher, Lok Siu, and Renya Ramirez over the past few years. Thank you all for helping me to finish this book. Rina Benmayor also deserves special mention for her pioneering work on gender and cultural citizenship and for providing helpful feedback on portions of this manuscript. I am also grateful to Sonia xi

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AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

Alvarez for providing support and feedback on my work and for serving as a mentor to me. I would like to express my deep appreciation to friends and colleagues whose paths I have crossed from graduate school to the present. Members of the Austin School of African Diaspora Anthropology have been instrumental in my intellectual and political formation. I thank you for your commitment to the intellectual and academic project of diaspora studies. Special thanks are due to Gina Sánchez Gibau for being a wonderful friend and for always providing insightful and constructive feedback on my work. I also want to thank Kirby Moss, Robert Adams, Margaret Hunter, and Karla Slocum for providing comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. My former colleagues at California State University–Monterey Bay continue to hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for your genuine collegiality and deep commitment to social justice. Several people have played a crucial role in transforming this project into a book. My editor at Rutgers University Press, Adi Hovav, was wonderfully supportive and helpful throughout the publication process. I am also grateful to Kathy Chetkovich for superb editorial feedback on portions of this manuscript. Special thanks to Chandra Mohanty for assistance in navigating the world of publishing. Research for this project was funded by a number of institutions. A Ford Foundation Grant for Research on Brazilian Public Policy, administered by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT-Austin, enabled me to conduct shortterm research in Brazil during . The UT-Austin International Education Fee Scholarship, Institute of Latin American Studies Faculty-Sponsored Dissertation Research Grant, and the Center for African and African American Studies provided funding for my dissertation field research in Brazil during . The Herring Memorial Fellowship, administered by the Institute of Latin American Studies at UT-Austin, also helped to defray a major portion of my research costs, and I continue to be grateful to the Herring family for their generous support. I revised and wrote major portions of this manuscript as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of California–Santa Cruz during  and . A grant from the University Research Council at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill provided financial assistance during the final stages of manuscript preparation. I wish to thank my family, by birth and by marriage, for their unending love and support. I am particularly grateful to my grandmother Doris for being a mainstay in my life. To my son and daughter, Isaiah and Maya, thank you for allowing me to finish this project and for providing so much joy in the process. To my husband, Dervinn, thank you for your loving support and for sharing this journey with me. A shorter and markedly different version of chapter  appears in Transforming Anthropology  (): –.

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Learning Diaspora As the daughter of a bilingual elementary school teacher, I was long intrigued by the Spanish language and Latin American cultures during my childhood. Growing up in Philadelphia during the s allowed me to come into contact with members of the Puerto Rican community who had migrated to the city. Many of my mother’s students and fellow teachers were from the island, and I crossed the paths of Puerto Rican students during my daily travels to and from junior high school. During my first visit to the island as a high school senior in , I came into contact with Puerto Ricans of visible African ancestry for the first time. Seeing women who resembled members of my family and who used similar forms of bodily adornment, such as headscarves, sparked a nascent interest in the African diaspora—though I did not realize this at the time. My first introduction to racial and gender politics in Brazil occurred during my sophomore year in college, when I attended an on-campus presentation by Afro-Brazilian activist Joselina da Silva. During her presentation, da Silva described her participation in consciousness-raising groups for Afro-Brazilian women in Rio de Janeiro. I was intrigued by her description of the challenges women of African descent faced in terms of identity and self-esteem. Her presentation planted the seeds of my interest in questions of race and gender in Brazil and prompted me to enroll in a Portuguese-language class during the following academic year. Although I later pursued an undergraduate major in Latin American literature, there was little emphasis on the experiences of Afro-Latin populations in my courses. Instead, many of my courses emphasized Latin American discourses on mestizaje (racial intermixture) and rarely discussed the presence or contributions of African-descended populations in the region.

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As a graduate student, a fortuitous combination of circumstances allowed me the possibility of pursuing in-depth research on Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences and activism. When I entered the master’s program in Latin American studies at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of , the first cohort of graduate students was entering the Anthropology Department’s African Diaspora Program. My contact with students and faculty in the program and subsequent acceptance into the program allowed me to deepen my interest in the African diaspora and provided a means of exploring issues of race and gender in Brazil. My graduate training in African diaspora studies was a pivotal period in my intellectual and political development. While my undergraduate training in Latin American studies paid little, if any, attention to issues of race and the experiences of Afro-Latin communities, my exposure to African diaspora studies at the graduate level centered on the experiences of African-descended communities in the Americas and Europe. My intellectual engagement with the concept of the African diaspora allowed me to better comprehend the experiences of African-descended communities in diverse national contexts. The burgeoning development of African diaspora studies, and diaspora studies more generally, during the s also provided access to an increasing amount of scholarly work exploring issues of race, culture, and politics in diaspora communities.1 My engagement with African diaspora studies provided a bridge to my previous training in Latin American studies and offered a useful lens for exploring the experiences of AfroLatin communities. Since my initial introduction to African diaspora studies, the African diaspora has become a fundamental way of conceptualizing the experiences of African-descendant communities, as well as a significant form of academic and political praxis, for me. In the remainder of this prologue and in subsequent chapters of this book, I discuss the benefits of and challenges to developing intellectual and political analyses which focus on the African diaspora. My analysis is offered in hopes of deepening scholarly understandings of the similarities and differences among African diaspora communities, particularly as they relate to the issue of gender and the experiences of African-descendant women.

Insider and Outsider: Positionality and the Research Encounter In recent years, scholars in the social sciences have paid increasing attention to how gender, race, class, and national origin position researchers and shape the research encounter.2 These developments have largely come in response to the increasing number of women and people of color working in fields such as anthropology.3 Research by anthropologists of increasingly

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diverse backgrounds has raised new and different existential and epistemological questions about the fieldwork encounter, particularly in terms of how the self/other dynamic shapes the research process. I include discussion of my positionality and politics here in order to locate myself in relation to the subject(s) of my research.4 During the process of fieldwork and the subsequent analysis of my research data, my positionality as a member of the African diaspora and a woman of African descent provided me with a useful angle of vision from which to view the experiences and struggles of Afro-Brazilian women (Collins ; Harding ). Moreover, in contrast to recent critiques of research conducted by U.S.-based black researchers (Bourdieu and Wacquant ), I found that my positionality with respect to race and gender was crucial to understanding Brazilian racial and gender dynamics.5 As a black woman, a U.S. citizen, and an anthropologist, my field experiences in Brazil illuminated the complexities of negotiating insider and outsider status. While the various aspects of my identity existed simultaneously, certain aspects became more or less salient in different contexts and situations. The dynamics of fieldwork also tended to produce situations where my positionality was somewhat ambiguous. As a researcher who was positioned by a myriad of factors, including my gender, age, national origin, and race, multiple levels of identification caused me to be an insider, or outsider, and to occupy liminal positions, at different points and, at times, simultaneously. My positioning within a web of interlocking social categories also offered a unique perspective from which to view and analyze Brazilian racial, gender, and class dynamics as well as the Afro-Brazilian community’s position vis-à-vis other African diaspora communities.6 One of my most eye-opening field experiences occurred during a visit to Salvador, Bahia, in December . As a world-renowned center of AfroBrazilian religion and culture, Salvador holds a special place in terms of diasporic identity politics. During my visit, I intended to meet with scholars and activists and explore the possibility of conducting long-term fieldwork there in the future. While I was walking in Pelourinho,7 a gentrified colonial neighborhood and popular tourist destination, with a male African American acquaintance, an Afro-Brazilian boy who worked in one of the gift shops shouted, “American capitalists!” at us in English and loudly laughed. My friend and I were both shocked and amused by the boy’s outburst, and we wondered what it was about our appearance that made the boy realize that we were African American, rather than Afro-Brazilian. My experience in Pelourinho was one of the first moments of recognition of my “otherness” within a diasporic setting. The young boy’s comments made me aware of my identification with the United States despite my longstanding dis-identification with the country’s politics of domestic and global

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oppression. I was both surprised and offended that the boy would assume that my values were “capitalist” simply because I was from the United States. My experience in Pelourinho also underscored my dual status in Brazil as both an insider and outsider. In part, I was surprised by the boy’s comments because I thought that the large percentage of brown and black people in Brazil allowed me to blend in, at least on a phenotypical basis. Ultimately, however, instead of blending in or having my personal disavowal of U.S. economic and social policies recognized, my identity was reduced to an association with Americanness and capitalism. While my field research was designed to investigate the construction of racial and gender identities in Brazil, once in the field I realized that my own positionality as a U.S.-born black woman was deeply implicated in the research process and in many of my daily encounters. Although my identity as a black woman provided access to many of my research participants and allowed me to participate as an “insider” at political meetings sponsored by black activists, my status as a U.S. citizen often created and reinforced a sense of distance between myself and the Afro-Brazilians with whom I interacted. During my field research, I found that feelings of alienation, rather than fraternity and solidarity, often result from the lack of connections between African diaspora communities and the ways in which shared racial identification is often subsumed by hegemonic forms of nationalism derived from particular nation-states. In addition, power differentials between the United States and other nations often render transnational diasporic identification vulnerable to larger forces associated with imperialism and global capitalism. Consequently, while a shared sense of blackness may function as a source of racial solidarity for members of the African diaspora, other forms of identification, particularly national origin, often become primary. Acknowledging each diasporic population’s positionality within global flows of capital and culture thus becomes essential to understanding how notions of race and blackness travel within and between African diaspora communities.8 My interaction with black women activists in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, during my fieldwork in  further underscored the complexities of insider and outsider status as a researcher who was multiply positioned by my race, gender, and national origin. During a weekly meeting of the Forum das Mulheres Negras (Forum of Black Women) in Belo Horizonte, an election was held to choose local delegates for the  Reunião Nacional das Mulheres Negras (National Meeting of Black Women), and my name was put forward. While I had been invited to serve on the organizing committee for the national meeting, my status as a potential delegate was somewhat more complicated since I was from the United States. An intense discussion ensued about my participation as a delegate given the fact that I was not

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Brazilian. During the discussion, I stated that I did not want to attend the national meeting as a delegate and expressed my belief that the space should be given to a Brazilian-born woman from Belo Horizonte. Since the National Meeting of Black Women was designed to only have delegates, I could not attend the meeting as an observer. As a result, I was told that I would have to go as a delegate or I would not be able to attend. While I had qualms about being chosen as a delegate, I also realized that my attendance at the meeting was crucial for my research. During the meeting at which delegates were chosen, the leader of the Forum of Black Women made an eloquent and impassioned plea for my selection as a delegate at the National Meeting. She argued that I was an ally in international antiracist and feminist struggles and that I had made theoretical and practical contributions to the local black women’s group. Issues of insiderness and outsiderness were brought into sharp relief as I observed and participated in this meeting. Prior to the meeting, I had discussed my research with Afro-Brazilian women, including several members of the forum, on an individual basis. However, this meeting was the first and only time that I was able to hear a group of women discuss their views of my presence in their community. While I did not expect to, and in many ways did not want to, be elected as a delegate for the national meeting, this experience caused me to critically reflect on my project. I realized that my personal desire to forge ties with other women in the African diaspora was somewhat futile if the desire was not mutual. I also began to question the power relations inherent in my status as a foreign researcher, particularly since I was from the United States. While my attendance at the meeting was crucial for my research, I was concerned by the moral and ethical implications of my selection as a delegate (see Patai ). Ultimately, members of the Forum of Black Women decided to make me a nonvoting delegate for the National Meeting of Black Women. As a nonvoting delegate, I would be able to attend the national meeting, but I would not be able to vote on any decisions that were made during the meeting. I felt that this was a more than generous and reasonable decision, and I understood the position of members of the forum who did not want me to be a delegate. While this experience was one of the most emotionally vexing moments of my field research, it was also one of the most revealing, politically, ethnographically, and theoretically. In retrospect, I realize that my selection as a delegate was largely influenced by my positionality with regard to race, gender, and national origin. Prior to being chosen as a delegate, I had worked with the local Forum of Black Women for several months. I had also established a strong friendship with the leader of the forum, whom I had met in São Paulo in . However, I am almost certain that my selection and acceptance as a delegate was largely influenced by the fact that I was a black

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woman from the United States. If I had not been a black woman, regardless of the merits of my research or my antiracist and feminist principles, I probably would not have been invited to be on the organizing committee for the national meeting, and I almost certainly would not have been chosen as a delegate. In this case, my positioning as an African American woman who supported the goals of the black women’s movement in Brazil apparently allowed me to meet some, although not all, of the criteria for selection as a delegate and to merit consideration as an honorary “insider.” While my status as a U.S. citizen was perhaps most salient as a dividing line in the two experiences described above, my identity as a black woman was pivotal during an incident in Rio de Janeiro. Although I had prepared mentally and intellectually to assume the role of anthropologist in a foreign setting prior to leaving the United States, I was not prepared for the ways that I would be affected personally by my research. As a black woman, I soon became aware of the impact of local and global racial practices when further compounded by racialized constructions of gender (Gilliam ; Gilliam and Gilliam ; Hanchard ; Twine ). The sexual objectification of black women, in many ways regardless of our class status or national origin, was poignantly illustrated when I visited an upscale hotel in Copacabana in September . As my friend Elena, an Afro-Brazilian nursing professor and doctoral student, and I entered the hotel, a white man outside of the hotel exclaimed, “Mariposas!” Elena heard the comment and later inquired about the meaning of the term mariposa. A waiter at the hotel told us that a mariposa is an insect that gets into lighting fixtures. Unsatisfied with this response, Elena asked her husband about the meaning of mariposa when we returned to their apartment later that evening. After being told that mariposa is a vernacular Brazilian term for prostitute, Elena was outraged and expressed a strong desire to confront the man who had made the comment. In many ways, this experience encapsulated the dynamic interplay between race and gender in Brazil. Despite having different national origins and above-average educational backgrounds, Elena and I were interpellated as prostitutes by Brazilian constructions of race, gender, and class.9 The fact that two researchers with graduate-level education were entering a hotel held little weight; we were both black women and thus viewed as participants in the sex trade. In many ways, this incident highlights the ways in which status, privilege, and social capital are closely tied to gender and race as forms of embodiment and social identity. As a black woman, nothing about my physical appearance indicated that I was from the United States or that I was an anthropologist, particularly given the ways in which dominant images of Americans and foreign researchers privilege whiteness and masculinity (Warren ). Instead, my identity was reduced to two salient physical and

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social markers, my race and gender. Such a highly racialized and sexualized reading of my identity was far different from the position of privilege typically accorded to foreign researchers in Brazil. During the course of fieldwork, I came to realize that the assumed benefits and privileges accorded to foreign researchers are often tempered by global constructions of race and gender. Although the privileged status of foreign researchers certainly needs to be more fully explored, it is also crucial to acknowledge how researchers’ multiple positionalities, particularly with regard to race and gender, and varying levels of domination and subordination influence the research encounter and researchers’ experiences while in the field.10 While my status as a U.S. citizen and anthropologist placed me in a position of privilege relative to most of my research participants during fieldwork, my identity as a black woman also made me vulnerable to personal experiences of gendered racism while in the field. My personal experiences of being mistaken for a domestic servant or being directed toward the service elevator provided me with firsthand knowledge of the social indignities experienced by many Afro-Brazilian women on a daily basis. In many ways, my subjective experiences as a black woman provided existential insights into the ways in which Brazilian processes of race, gender, and class formation constitute the social identities of Afro-Brazilian women. This “situated” ethnographic knowledge reflected my positioning in the subjective and intersubjective spaces where racial, gender, and national discourses met, overlapped, and collided (Haraway ).

Scholarship as Politics In a recent critique of U.S. cultural and academic imperialism, Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant () allege that Americans and Latin Americans trained in the United States inappropriately utilize U.S.-based notions of race and racism in their investigations of Brazilian racial dynamics. According to Bourdieu and Wacquant, such “ethnocentric intrusions” cause scholars to “superimpose on an infinitely more complex social reality a rigid dichotomy between whites and blacks” (, ). They further assert that the misapplication of U.S.-based understandings of race in the Brazilian context is a manifestation of the “ ‘globalization’ of American problems,” a process which they see as one aspect of the larger project of Americanizing the Western world (, ). In their polemical discussion of research on race in Brazil, Bourdieu and Wacquant single out the work of Michael Hanchard as being an especially egregious expression of U.S. cultural imperialism in race relations research. Bourdieu and Wacquant accuse Hanchard of using the U.S. civil rights movement as the universal standard of struggle against color/race and caste

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oppression. They further argue that Hanchard uses the concept of racism as a “mere instrument of accusation,” rather than seeking to understand the Brazilian “ethnoracial order according to its own logic” (Bourdieu and Wacquant , ). Perhaps the most troubling aspect of their critique lies in the fact that they find it necessary to underscore Hanchard’s racial identity in their description of him as an “Afro-American political scientist” (, ). As John French () has noted, similar descriptions of the racial backgrounds of other scholars are notably absent from the article. By singling out the work of Michael Hanchard, Bourdieu and Wacquant’s critique calls into question the objectivity of African American scholars who conduct research on race outside of the United States. Moreover, by explicitly marking Hanchard’s identity as an “Afro-American political scientist,” Bourdieu and Wacquant implicitly point to the unmarked nature of most white scholars’ identities and positionalities.11 While scholars such as Hanchard have been critiqued for an alleged lack of neutrality and objectivity in their research, similar critiques have rarely, if ever, been made of white scholars. A number of Brazilian and Brazilianist scholars have already responded to Bourdieu and Wacquant’s assertions about research on race in Brazil (French ; Hanchard ; Pinho and Figueiredo ; Sansone ; J. Santos ; Telles ); however, I would like to call attention to the implications of their polemic for the project of African diaspora studies in particular. By alleging that black scholars from the United States lack sufficient objectivity in their research on race in Brazil, Bourdieu and Wacquant’s polemic implicitly calls into question the project of African diaspora studies. Moreover, while Bourdieu and Wacquant do not directly address African diaspora studies in their article, their assertions suggest that any research on race conducted by U.S. black scholars outside of their home country is inherently problematic. Although the ideal of complete objectivity on the part of researchers has largely been debunked in the social sciences, Bourdieu and Wacquant’s assertions rest on the presumption that neutral and objective research is an achievable goal. However, as recent critiques of anthropology have noted, academic research, and ethnographic practice in particular, has never been a politically neutral undertaking (E. Gordon ; Harrison ). Instead, ethnography has been and continues to be shaped by the identities and politics of individual researchers, current debates within the field of anthropology, and broader social, political, and economic concerns. Until recently, however, the role of anthropologists’ positionalities and politics in shaping their research agendas, findings, and analysis has gone largely undiscussed. Faye Harrison’s () discussion of ethnography and politics calls attention to the fact that the apparently neutral political stance assumed by many

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anthropologists actually serves to perpetuate colonialist understandings of the world. Given the close relationship between colonialism and the field of anthropology during the discipline’s formative stages, Harrison argues that anthropologists must work to develop forms of academic praxis which foster liberation. She further notes that anthropologists with “multiple consciousness and vision” have a strategic role to play in decolonizing the discipline (Harrison , ). As she observes, “This form of critical consciousness emerges from the tension between, on one hand, membership in a Western society, a Western-dominated profession, or a relatively privileged class or social category, and on the other hand, belonging to or having an organic relationship with an oppressed social category or people. . . . [T]he conjuncture of multiple subaltern statuses and bases of Otherness, combined with the apparent irreconcilability between them and the ideals and normative expectations of the ‘free world’ . . . may heighten and intensify counterhegemonic sensibilities, vision, and understanding” (Harrison , ). In contrast to Bourdieu and Wacquant’s view that the work of U.S.-based black scholars reflects cultural imperialism, Harrison notes that anthropologists with multiple consciousness are positioned in ways that may allow them to have alternate readings of social realities. She does not argue for an automatic relationship between such positioning and the development of counterhegemonic understandings, however. Harrison’s formulation of ethnography as a form of politics challenges the notion that ethnography has been or, indeed, ever can be a politically neutral undertaking. By highlighting the role that a researcher’s positionality and consciousness plays in shaping academic practice, Harrison points to the fact that the development of new forms of knowledge is not solely, or even primarily, the result of objective scientific inquiry. Instead, scholarly production is inseparable from researchers’ personal identities, interests, and politics.

Toward an Ethnography of Diasporic Encounters The field experiences of anthropologists of African descent who conduct research in African diaspora communities highlight the challenges and possibilities of moving from the symbolic ideal of diaspora to the concrete realities of diaspora. While the symbolic ideal of diaspora involves the imaginative task of envisioning a transnational community of belonging, the concrete realities of diaspora point to the difficult work of making the “imagined” real, in political and existential terms. In many ways, anthropologists of African descent enact our beliefs in the imagined community of the African diaspora through our scholarly endeavors. Field research takes this act of faith one step further by inserting us into the communities which are

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considered to be part of the African diaspora. By embracing transnational notions of diasporic belonging, anthropologists of African descent often display a common identification with the populations that we study. However, this common identification may be, and indeed often is, fraught with difficulty (see Campt ). Methodologically, engagement in ethnographic research can also yield unique theoretical and epistemological insights when undertaken by diasporic anthropologists. Since field research involves extensive social and cultural immersion, ethnographic research is not just textual; it is primarily contextual. Due to our insertion in the societies that we study during fieldwork, diasporic anthropologists are often subjected to many of the same racialized and gendered discourses and practices that we set out to examine in our research. The process of objectification is often inverted for diasporic anthropologists as personal encounters with racism move us from theoretical understandings of race and gender in the African diaspora to existential and experiential ones. I would urge diasporic anthropologists to take advantage of the situated ethnographic knowledge afforded by our positioning as scholars of African descent. Moments of insiderness and outsiderness provide rich insights into the cultural, social, and political dimensions of African diaspora communities. Moreover, in our attempts to develop socially and politically engaging academic projects, it is crucial that diasporic anthropologists recognize how the specificities of our personal identities position us vis-à-vis our research populations and in the societies that we study. Reflexive examination of our multiple identities and positionalities is essential to developing theory and practice that is informed by and relevant to the realities of African diaspora communities.

Negras in Brazil

Introduction We have a lot of mulheres negras (black women) of valor (value) that still have not been descoberta (discovered).1 They are in anonimato (anonymity). No one does anything. . . . [A] very large percentage is strewn about because we are still desvalorizada (devalued). We are discriminated against in everything. In all segments of the society, the domestic, the poor woman, the black woman, she is discriminated against, yes. It does not make a difference to say that they put a black woman there on the television, to do a soap opera, but what type of role does she play there? . . . [E]ither the thief, or the domestic, or the employer’s lover. —Maria Ilma Ricardo, personal interview

These comments by Maria Ilma Ricardo,

2

a fifty-four-year-old Afro-Brazilian

domestic worker and antiracist and feminist activist in Belo Horizonte, provide valuable insights into the socially devalued status of Afro-Brazilian women. By noting that black women possess an intrinsic valor, or value, as human beings, Maria Ilma’s statements challenge the ways in which Brazilian practices of racial, gender, and class domination sanction and perpetuate their social and political invisibility.3 Her use of the terms descoberta

(discovered), anonimato (anonymity), and desvalorizada (devalued) underscores the cultural dimensions of citizenship in Brazil and points to the lack of recognition, respect, and value accorded to Afro-Brazilian women. The order in which she uses these terms also suggests a chain of relationships that connect black women’s social invisibility to their struggles for full citizenship. Maria Ilma’s reflections on the anonymity and invisibility of black Brazilian women provide a fitting introduction to many of the central concerns of this book. Her use of the term anonimato suggests that black women are nameless and, as such, lack an identity. Her comments also highlight the ways in which processes of self-discovery and social recognition are linked to the formation of active social and political subjectivities. 1

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In seeking to understand how social, political, and cultural processes have shaped the invisibility and anonymity of Afro-Brazilian women, this book explores the relationship between the cultural and political dimensions of citizenship in Brazil. My analysis is also centrally concerned with investigating how Afro-Brazilian women seek to transform their status within Brazilian society. My analytical approach is informed by recent conceptualizations of cultural citizenship, new citizenship, and active citizenship that explore how members of marginalized groups claim rights, space, and a sense of belonging within the dominant society (Dagnino ; Flores and Benmayor ; Turner ). Moreover, in contrast to scholarship that focuses on the formal aspects of political citizenship in Brazil, this book examines how the informal and everyday aspects of Brazilian citizenship serve to disenfranchise and marginalize Afro-Brazilian women. I pay particular attention to the ways in which the Brazilian ideology of “racial democracy” has influenced the social construction of black women’s identities and has been used to create differential citizenship categories based on prevailing gender and racial hierarchies. Through an ethnographic analysis of AfroBrazilian women’s life stories and practices of social activism, this study examines how Afro-Brazilian women come to terms with race, gender, and class domination and develop active and resistant subjectivities, thereby expanding the boundaries of citizenship and national belonging in contemporary Brazil. The issue of citizenship (cidadania) has become extremely important in Brazilian society during recent decades. The reestablishment of democracy in Brazil, following military rule from  to , has made citizenship rights a key topic of discussion among activists, political leaders, scholars, and average citizens. Opposition to the military regime grew in the mid s; by the end of that decade, the country had begun a process of political liberalization (abertura) that enabled larger numbers of Brazilians to challenge social, political, and economic injustices through social-movement participation. In fact, as some scholars have argued, it was the repressive political conditions and economic crisis created by the military regime that had the unintended consequence of mobilizing women, workers, and other sectors of the population (Alvarez ; A. Stepan ). The emergence of the women’s movement and black movement during the final years of the dictatorship played a key role in contesting gender and racial oppression. By , when extended field research for this book was conducted, Brazil had become a formal democracy, and the women’s movement, black movement, and black women’s movement had become well-established political actors. While much of my analysis focuses on the process of democratization that followed Brazil’s most recent period of authoritarian rule, it is important to

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note that Brazilian politics were decidedly antidemocratic for most of the twentieth century. Black women’s political activism provides a key site for examining how Brazilian political ideologies and practices have developed and changed since the country’s most recent transition to democracy began. The development of the black women’s movement since the early s highlights Afro-Brazilian women’s collective attempts to redefine the political dimensions of citizenship by influencing state policies and the definition of rights in the legal-juridical sphere. Black women’s gender- and race-based claims to new citizenship rights have been grounded in the specificities of their life experiences and social identities, and their collective organizing has played a fundamental role in challenging racism and sexism as well as in reconceptualizing the significance of democracy and citizenship in Brazil. While this book explores how Afro-Brazilian women’s participation in antiracist and feminist activism has sought to redefine formal citizenship rights, it also examines how the citizenship experiences of activist and non-activist Afro-Brazilian women are revealed in everyday social relations. Although black women are legal citizens of the Brazilian nation, practices of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement have rendered many of them de facto non-citizens. Such practices of disenfranchisement predate Brazil’s most recent history of authoritarian rule and are closely tied to longstanding practices of racial, gender, and class domination. This study conceptualizes Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation and engagement in activism as cultural citizenship struggles. The concept of cultural citizenship, as elaborated in recent work on U.S. Latino communities, is particularly useful in examining how subordinated groups struggle for inclusion and full citizenship (Flores and Benmayor ). Blanca Silvestrini has defined cultural citizenship as “the ways people organize their values, their beliefs about their rights, and their practices based on their sense of cultural belonging rather than on their formal status as citizens of a nation” (, ). Moreover, as Renato Rosaldo has noted: “Cultural citizenship operates in an uneven field of structural inequalities where the dominant claims of universal citizenship assume a propertied white male subject and usually blind themselves to their exclusions and marginalizations of people who differ in gender, race, sexuality, and age. Cultural citizenship attends not only to dominant exclusions and marginalizations, but also to subordinate aspirations for and definitions of enfranchisement” (, ). Methodologically, the concept of cultural citizenship privileges the voices and experiences of marginalized communities by examining their vernacular definitions of citizenship and belonging. Scholarly observers of Latino cultural citizenship struggles in the U.S. context have argued for the importance of recognizing the agency of marginalized communities and

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the ways in which marginalized subjects affirm “their own cultural codes of rights and entitlement” (Benmayor, Torruellas, and Juarbe , ). In doing so, conceptualizations of cultural citizenship point us toward domains that are not typically included in more traditional definitions of citizenship which tend to focus on formal rights as defined in the legal-juridical sphere. Recent work on gender and cultural citizenship also calls attention to the ways in which women’s experiences as citizens are played out in the private sphere as well as in tribal, national, and transnational contexts (Coll ; Ramirez ; Siu a, b). By attending to the everyday and cultural aspects of citizenship in Brazil, this study explores the ways in which black women’s citizenship experiences are shaped in domains such as the nation, popular culture, and the workplace, as well as in corporeal and intra-psychic arenas as they are expressed in relation to the body, self-esteem, and self-image. In my view, all of these domains constitute sites of citizenship formation by serving as key social and cultural contexts in which racialized and gendered practices of inclusion/exclusion and belonging/unbelonging are enacted. Moreover, while not traditionally considered within the purview of citizenship studies, these domains are important contexts in which Afro-Brazilian women struggle for equality, inclusion, and full personhood.

The Contemporary Status of Afro-Brazilian Women Any attempt to understand the contemporary status of Afro-Brazilian women will largely be shaped by the paucity of statistical information and scholarly analysis regarding the intersection of race, gender, and class in Brazil. AfroBrazilian women have been marginalized in most research on race as well as in most research on women and gender in Brazil. Despite a marked increase in studies of race and racism in Brazil from the s onward and the development of women’s studies in the country’s universities during the s, research on the life experiences and socioeconomic status of Afro-Brazilian women has been extremely scarce.4 In addition, most studies on the contemporary status of Afro-Brazilian women and the intersection of race, gender, and class in Brazil have been conducted since the early s and have focused on the latter decades of the twentieth century.5 While limited, the increased scholarly attention given to the experiences of Afro-Brazilian women in recent decades has largely been due to the more open political climate that accompanied Brazil’s transition to democracy during the s as well as to increased social activism by black Brazilian women. In recent decades, black feminist activists and scholars in Brazil have led the way in conducting qualitative and quantitative research on the status of Afro-Brazilian women. Through their efforts to elucidate the

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dynamics of race, gender, and class in Brazil, black feminists have worked to break the pact of silence that has long obscured the discrimination and oppression suffered by Afro-Brazilian women. By analyzing how issues, such as poverty, AIDS, and female sterilization, disproportionately affect AfroBrazilian women, a growing number of black feminist activists and scholars have begun to amass the data necessary to focus public attention on socioeconomic inequalities and propose more equitable public policies.6 The incomplete and somewhat confusing nature of government data on race in Brazil has posed a serious challenge to activists’ and scholars’ efforts to analyze the socioeconomic status of Afro-Brazilian women. In their attempts to provide a quantitative profile of black women’s occupational and educational status, researchers have often faced the inadequacies and inconsistencies of statistical information on race in Brazil and the lack of data focusing on both race and gender. Moreover, even when racial data has been included in government-sponsored studies, particularly the national census, it has not been fully tabulated or widely distributed (Nobles ). Specifically, data on race was inconsistently collected in the  and  national censuses; such data was not collected at all in the  Brazilian census, at the height of the military dictatorship.7 Despite demands by black activists and researchers to restore the color question in the  census and to publish and distribute that data, only a limited amount of information on race was collected and tabulated for this census.8 In addition, the data that was collected was based on self-identification according to one of four color categories: branco (white), preto (black), pardo (mixed) and amarelo (yellow). As chapter  will show, Brazilian methods of color classification have been criticized by antiracist activists and scholars for significantly underestimating the number of people of African descent in the country. The Brazilian government’s tendency to collect data based on color categories has led to black women’s invisibility in official statistics. Official government data, including that found in the national census and in the National Household Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostragem de Domicílios, or PNAD), has traditionally utilized the color categories preta and parda, rather than the more explicitly racial category negra. The use of color categories has thus divided the statistical profile of the Afro-Brazilian population and given an incomplete picture of the status of Afro-Brazilian women. The use of color categories in the collection of official statistics also serves to obscure similarities in the status of pretos/pretas and pardos/ pardas, thus denying the possibility that a white/nonwhite color line exists in Brazil.9 In addition to the aforementioned issues, it should also be noted that the Brazilian government has traditionally collected and tabulated data on the basis of either color or gender, but not both, with the result that

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black women have typically fallen through the cracks of official statistical documentation methods.10 Black women’s invisibility in official government statistics serves to obscure the impact of racial, gender, and class subordination on them. As Rebecca Reichmann has argued, “The difficulty of access to statistics that document racial differences, particularly the situation of black girls and women, has contributed to the generalized impression that racism—as well as the specific forms of subordinating black women—is not a problem in Brazil” (, ).

The Race Question in Brazil Scholarly Views of “Racial Democracy” In tracing the genealogy of scholarship on race in Brazil, it is important to note the central role that academic researchers have played in shaping both scholarly and popular views of the country’s racial dynamics, both in Brazil and abroad. Until the s, most scholars of race in Brazil were concerned with exploring Brazil’s distinctiveness in terms of race relations and uncovering the country’s secret to racial harmony (Pierson ; Tannenbaum ; Freyre ). Much of this research was based on explicit, and at times implicit, comparisons with U.S. racial categories and practices, particularly the “one drop rule” and de jure segregation. During the s, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sponsored a number of studies by anthropologists and sociologists on Brazilian racial dynamics. While these studies were originally conducted in an effort to better understand how Brazil had successful avoided the type of racial hostility and genocide that existed in other countries, particularly the United States and Nazi Germany, most of the research debunked the country’s image as a racial paradise (Azevedo ; Bastide and Fernandes ; Fernandes ; Harris ; Wagley ). However, despite the critical perspective found in much of this work, one of the major limitations of the revisionist scholarship on race in Brazil was the tendency to reduce race to class. As Howard Winant has noted, the economic reductionism found in this work “resulted in an inability to see race as a theoretically flexible, as opposed to an a priori, category. In writing about racial dynamics, the revisionists tended to ignore the changing sociohistorical meaning of race in Brazil” (, ). Beginning in the late s, a more structuralist approach to research on Brazilian racial dynamics began to emerge. The development of structuralist perspectives took place during the initial phases of Brazil’s transition to democracy, following a fifteen-year hiatus in race relations research due to repression by the military regime (Telles ). Research conducted during this time by scholars such as Carlos Hasenbalg and Nelson do Valle Silva

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emphasized the existence of racial discrimination and inequality in the country (Hasenbalg ; Silva ; Silva and Hasenbalg ). Sociological studies by Hasenbalg and Silva made extensive use of government statistical data; however, since much of their work was not available in English, earlier perspectives on race, particularly Carl Degler’s () notion of the “mulatto escape hatch,”11 continued to be “the standard reference in the United States for nonspecialists in their understanding of race in Brazil” (Telles , ). Most recent scholarship has been highly critical of the Brazilian notion of racial democracy and has been instrumental in analyzing and critiquing racist discourses and practices in the country.12 Given the ethnographic nature of this study, it is useful to highlight some of the major contributions of recent ethnographic research to current understandings of Brazilian racial dynamics. In recent years, research undertaken by anthropologists has focused on the discursive dimensions of race and racism in Brazil and has explored how Brazilians of African descent view, negotiate, and resist racist discourses and practices (Burdick a; Goldstein ; Sheriff ; Twine ; Vargas ). Recent literature has also shed new light on the social construction of whiteness and racial identity politics in indigenous communities (Sheriff ; Warren ). Work by Sheriff () and Vargas () provides important insights into Brazilian racial discourses by focusing on favela (shantytown) communities in Rio de Janeiro. Sheriff’s study documents her informant’s beliefs in bipolar notions of race which conceptualize the white race and black race as “oppositional and mutually exclusive categories” (, ). Importantly, Sheriff’s work also challenges previous anthropological research on race in Brazil by highlighting the racial significance of Brazilian color categories. Vargas’s () work examines the racialized criminalization of Afro-Brazilians, particularly favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. Vargas conceptualizes white supremacy in Brazil as a dialectic characterized by both a hyperconsciousness and negation of race. His analysis is essential to understanding many of the apparent contradictions of race in Brazil that have long puzzled researchers.13 Both of these studies underscore the importance of focusing on the racial implications of color categories and exploring the cultural and political significance of silences regarding race and racism in the country. Recent work by Burdick (a) and Goldstein () has made an important contribution to scholarship on Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences. While Burdick’s book foregrounds the experiences of Afro-Brazilian women in Rio de Janeiro by focusing on popular Christianity, Goldstein’s study examines the experiences of poor shantytown dwellers in Rio, many of whom are Afro-Brazilian. Both studies highlight the material and discursive dimensions of Brazilian constructions of race and gender. Burdick’s study sheds light on the internal struggles that many Afro-Brazilian women

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experience in the realms of beauty and self-identity, while Goldstein’s study offers a rich ethnographic analysis of the ways in which interlocking systems of race, gender, and class domination impact favela residents.

Studying Race in a “Racial Democracy” Prior to conducting extended field research in Belo Horizonte in , I visited Brazil for two short research trips in December  and November and December . During these initial visits, my interaction with members of the black movement and black women’s movement increasingly convinced me of the importance of exploring how processes of racialization operate on the individual level.14 While in many ways my research approach and emphasis on women who self-identify as mulheres negras (black women) may be seen as a way of focusing on persons who are the exception, rather than the rule, in terms of racial self-identification, I believe they offer crucial insights into both micro- and macro-level constructions and reconstructions of race in contemporary Brazil. Increasing public contestation over racial categories and the significance of blackness in cultural and political arenas in recent decades further underscore the importance of investigating and giving voice to the experiences of individuals who identify as negro/negra (black) in the country.15 The research approach used in this study was developed to provide an alternative to scholarship that focuses on color, rather than race, and privileges the existence of multiple color categories in Brazil (Harris ; Pierson ; Twine ). This approach resonates with recent anthropological and sociological research that complicates traditional scholarly understandings of color and race in Brazil (Sheriff ; Telles ; Warren ). By emphasizing the role of blackness in Brazilian constructions of color, race, and national identity, this study is in close dialogue with scholarship that problematizes long-standing beliefs that Brazil is a country where race and racism are not salient social issues and problems.16 Through examination of official and popular discourses on color and race, my analysis highlights both the possibilities and limits of contemporary racial formation processes in Brazil. In addition, by focusing on the role of gender in processes of racialization, I seek to elucidate how Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences are shaped by practices of gendered racism and racialized sexism. Without question, Brazilian racial dynamics and the seeming fluidity of Brazilian color classifications played a central role in shaping my field research. When asked about my project while in the field, I often responded by saying that I was studying “a mulher negra” (the black woman) or “a questão racial” (the racial question). By stating that I was doing research on black women, I automatically positioned myself as someone who believed in the existence of black women as a definitive social category, rather than in the

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multiple color categories used in Brazilian popular and official discourses. Upon making such statements, I was often reprovingly told that “the racial question” was different in Brazil and the United States.17 The frequency of such comments, by both black and white Brazilians, underscored popular beliefs that racial interaction is less conflictual and more amicable in Brazil than in the United States.18 These comments also communicated the belief, at least implicitly, that my positionality as a black woman from the United States would “color” my judgment of Brazil and cause me to overlook the unique realities of race in a “racial democracy.” In many ways, the responses to my research also revealed a misleading and race-evasive comparison between Brazil and the United States, one that denied the existence of multiple culturally and historically specific racisms. My field experiences in Brazil caused me to rethink traditional notions of racism that posit a static and monolithic ideology or practice of domination. My encounters with everyday racism in Brazil, indirectly through my informants’ experiences and directly through my own experiences, increasingly convinced me of the existence of multiple racisms. The concept of multiple racisms calls attention to the heterogeneous forms and guises in which racist discourses and practices appear, within and across diverse spatial and historical contexts.19 It also provides a much needed alternative to Brazilian discourses of racial exceptionalism that appeal to the belief that racism cannot exist in a racially hybrid society that has never practiced legal segregation or apartheid-like racial discrimination (see Hanchard b; Twine ). Adopting a view of race and racism that sees them as culturally and historically specific phenomena is essential for understanding how they are constructed and lived in diverse national contexts. As Stuart Hall has noted, exploring the cultural and historical specificity of race and racism benefits from “the assumption of difference, of specificity rather than of unitary, transhistorical or universal ‘structure.’ . . . It is only as the different racisms are historically specified—in their difference—that they can be properly understood as ‘a product of historical relations and possess . . . validity only for and within those relations’ ” (, , ). In addition, while recognizing the existence of multiple racisms, this study seeks to place the cultural and historical particularities of Brazilian racism in dialogue with global practices of racial domination. In doing so, my analysis seeks to map both the local and global dimensions of racism by attending to questions of cultural specificity, while at the same time recognizing racial discourses and practices that affect populations of African descent to be transnational phenomena that supersede national boundaries. Conceptualizing race and racism as both culturally specific and global in scope is essential to understanding and uncovering their dynamics in Brazil’s purported racial democracy.

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The Reality of Race In this study, race is conceptualized as both a social construction and a social reality. Viewing race as both constructed and real allows for the possibility of exploring how racialized discourses and practices have shaped commonsense understandings of race, while at the same time acknowledging the social, political, and economic implications of such understandings. While the scholarly trend toward viewing race as a social construction has played a key role in dismantling earlier views of race that regarded it as a scientifically valid phenomenon, constructivist views of race have often foreclosed discussion of how racialized social structures continue to oppress and marginalize members of subordinated racial groups. One of the central premises guiding my analysis is the notion that while it may be useful to view race as a social construction, race should not be dismissed as a social fiction. This approach resonates with the view that “race, like gender, is ‘real’ in the sense that it has real, though changing, effects in the world and [a] real, tangible, and complex impact on individuals’ sense of self, experiences, and life chances” (Frankenburg , ). Moreover, in an attempt to understand how race is lived and negotiated as a key aspect of social identity, I examine the ways in which Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences are “forged in life worlds in part constituted by self-understandings that are in large measure ‘racial,’ no matter how ‘scientifically’ inadequate” (Outlaw , ). In recent years, a growing number of scholars have begun to critique constructivist views of racial identity as well as other forms of identity, and to propose alternative conceptualizations that recognize the continued importance of both identity and identity politics (Alcoff ; Alcoff et al. ; S. Mohanty , ; Moya and Hames-García ; Stephen ). Satya Mohanty’s () work has been foundational to recent attempts to reinvigorate discussion of identity, particularly amongst literary theorists and cultural studies scholars. Mohanty’s conceptualization of a realist theory of identity underscores the need to view identities as both “real” and constructed. His work argues for the epistemic and political significance of identities, noting: “Whether we inherit an identity—masculinity, being black—or we actively choose one on the basis of our political predilections— radical lesbianism, black nationalism, socialism—our identities are ways of making sense of our experiences. Identities are theoretical constructions that enable us to read the world in specific ways. It is in this sense that they are valuable, and their epistemic status should be taken very seriously” (S. Mohanty , –). Employing a realist theory of identity allows for the possibility of exploring the ways in which black Brazilian women engage with, transform, and

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deploy identity categories, without automatically dismissing appeals to identity as essentialist. While the trend toward social constructivism has provided crucial insights into the impact of social and cultural processes on commonsense understandings of race, recent scholarship has often failed to discuss the salience of race in people’s everyday lives, worldviews, consciousness, and politics. In addition, the tendency to view race as a social construction has often elided discussion of how it functions as a meaningful aspect of personal experience. By exploring the reality of race in Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences, my analysis seeks to challenge the notion that racialized practices of domination will cease to exist and exert social influence simply because scholars recognize that race is socially constructed. While this study explores how social discourses, particularly the ideology of racial democracy, have shaped dominant understandings of race in Brazil, it also examines how such discourses interact with material conditions in the reproduction of racialized social structures. This conceptualization of the relationship between structure and discourse resonates with the view that concepts such as gender, race, and class are “essentially metaphors for institutionalized social relationships that combine processes of exploitation and domination, on the one hand, with processes of subjection and representation, that is, with struggles over meaning and identity, on the other” (Winant , ).

Everyday Racism The concept of everyday racism is central to my analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s personal narratives. Defined as “the integration of racism into everyday situations through practices (cognitive and behavioral) that activate underlying power relations,” the concept of everyday racism is particularly relevant to the investigation of Brazilian racial practices (Essed , ). As a society that has long denied the existence of racism, Brazil often poses a challenge to the use of research methods that seek to document and analyze explicit racist attitudes and behaviors. Widespread denial of the existence of racism in Brazil often makes the task of classifying, categorizing, and describing racial discrimination an arduous one. As an increasing number of researchers have noted, the “subtle” and “cordial” guises in which Brazilian racism commonly appears often make it difficult for average Brazilian citizens and scholars to recognize racism (Hanchard b; Sheriff ; Turra and Venturi ; Twine ; Warren ). By employing the concept of everyday racism, this study seeks to document both overt and subtle forms of racial discrimination and provide insight into attitudes and behaviors that often escape detection as being

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racial in nature. Moreover, my analysis of Brazilian racism is informed by Philomena Essed’s view of racial discrimination as “all acts—verbal, nonverbal, and paraverbal—with intended or unintended negative consequences for racially or ethnically dominated groups” (, ). Drawing from this conceptualization of everyday racism, this study also seeks to validate AfroBrazilian women’s experiences as meaningful sources of data for the investigation of racial discourses and racist practices. While my research methodology included participant-observation in local communities and in activist contexts, my collection and analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s narratives was essential to more fully understanding their personal experiences of racialization and racial discrimination. My approach to the use of Afro-Brazilian women’s narratives as personal accounts of racism resonates with Essed’s observation: “Racism is a social problem and therefore such accounts represent social experiences. . . . Only by taking subjective experiences of racism seriously can we study how Black women in their daily lives strategically use beliefs, opinions, acquired knowledge about racism, and other heuristics of interpretation to account for their experiences. . . . It is important and inevitable that we rely on subjective reality constructions because the complexity, depth, and multitude of experience cannot be observed by, for example, a participant investigator” (, , , emphasis added).

Affirmative Action and Official Recognition of Racism Recent political developments in Brazil, particularly in the area of public policy, offer valuable insights into the possibilities for and limits of antiracist activism in the country. The development of affirmative action policies in recent years has been unprecedented and often controversial in the country. When I conducted the major portion of field research for this book in , black activists were beginning to seriously discuss affirmative action as a public policy issue during public meetings, roundtables, and conferences.20 At that time, however, I witnessed considerable resistance to the development of such policies, even by established scholars of race in Brazil. Critics of affirmative action policies commonly argued that such policies would be difficult to implement, given the lack of clear-cut racial distinctions in Brazil.21 I also heard proposals for the establishment of policies, particularly with respect to university admissions, that would focus on class, rather than racial disadvantage. A shift in policy development regarding affirmative action in Brazil began to occur before the Third World Conference against Racism, which was held in Durban, South Africa, in . In preparation for the conference, black activists from Brazil began “an intense process of international articulation and building of partnerships with other organizations

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in Latin America, North America, and the Caribbean” (Martins, Medeiros, and Nascimento , ).22 During this period, members of the black movement also began to place pressure on the Brazilian government and diplomatic agents to implement compensatory policies for the country’s African-descendant population. As a result of the black movement’s successful articulation with transnational antiracist networks before the conference, as well as the Cardoso administration’s admission of the existence of racism in Brazil in a  report to the Committee for the Elimination of Racism (CERD), several affirmative action and anti-discrimination programs were instituted at the federal, state, and local levels beginning in late  (Telles ). New affirmative action policies were developed by the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Relations, and the Federal Supreme Court (Htun ; Martins, Medeiros, and Nascimento ; Telles ). In most cases, these policies focused on the establishment of quotas for the black population in employment and admissions. President Cardoso signed Presidential Decree No. ., which instituted a national affirmative action program in the federal public administration on  May , the th anniversary of Brazilian abolition. Unlike most of the other programs at the federal level, this program did not set any quotas or goals. While the program has been critiqued as a merely rhetorical gesture (Martins, Medeiros, and Nascimento ), it can also be seen as a significant shift away from the Brazilian state’s historical denial of the existence of racism in the country. Moreover, although scholars may disagree on the effectiveness of affirmative action programs, the development of government-sponsored affirmative action initiatives nevertheless indicates that black activists have made substantial inroads in challenging the social pact of silence about race and racism in the country.23

Setting and Method The Research Setting This book draws from short- and long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil during , , , and . During my initial research periods in  and , I carried out formal and informal interviews with activists in the black movement and black women’s movement and attended political events sponsored by both movements in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. I conducted long-term field research during  in the city of Belo Horizonte. As the capital of the state of Minas Gerais and a major urban center, Belo Horizonte offered a wealth of opportunities to investigate questions of race and gender. During the colonial period, thousands of enslaved Africans were imported to work in the diamond and gold mines found throughout Minas

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Gerais, and by the late nineteenth century it was the largest slaveholding state in Brazil.24 Although Minas Gerais has one of the largest populations of African descent in Brazil, minimal research has been done on contemporary racial dynamics in the state. Instead, most race-related scholarship has focused either on contemporary Afro-Brazilian cultural practices or the social and economic dimensions of slavery. Because most research on AfroBrazilians and questions of race has been conducted in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Salvador da Bahia, I intentionally chose to conduct my field research in Belo Horizonte in order to broaden the geographical range of existing research on race in Brazil.25 The city of Belo Horizonte was founded in  and celebrated its centennial anniversary as the “Capital do Século” (Capital of the Century) during . The city’s founding, nine years after the abolition of Brazilian slavery in  and eight years after the establishment of the Brazilian republic in , occurred during a time of tremendous political, social, and economic transformation. Although Belo Horizonte has largely been overlooked in most scholarship on race in Brazil, my field research offered a number of opportunities to examine efforts to address racial inequalities in the city. In December , the mayor of Belo Horizonte, Célio Castro, proposed the creation of a Secretaria para Assuntos da Communidade Negra (Secretariat for Black Community Affairs). Conducting field research during  allowed me to observe how different sectors of both the black and white populations were responding to the proposed creation of the secretariat.26 I also observed and participated in planning meetings for the National Meeting of Black Women that was organized by the Forum das Mulheres Negras and held in Belo Horizonte during September . As a research site where questions of race and gender have rarely been investigated, Belo Horizonte clearly offers an important perspective on gender and racial dynamics in Brazil. Further, while much of the analysis in this book is drawn from the experiences of black women who live in that city, it also speaks to the experiences and struggles of black women in other regions of Brazil.

Collecting the Narratives of Mulheres Negras Methodologically, this study uses ethnography and life histories to investigate how black women’s social identities are constructed and negotiated in Brazil.27 This research approach emerged from my desire to bridge recent theoretical work on race and gender with an ethnographic analysis of subjectivity. By giving central regard to questions of experience and subjectivity, my analysis seeks to understand how gender and race are lived, not just how they are constructed by dominant social discourses and practices. While my analysis explores how dominant social discourses have shaped the research participants’ social identities, I also examine how my interviewees’

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responded to such discourses. The following questions are central to the analysis found in subsequent chapters: What factors have led to the development of a critical consciousness with regard to race and gender by Afro-Brazilian women? How do Afro-Brazilian women negotiate and contest dominant discourses on race and gender on the subjective level? How do Afro-Brazilian women view and relate to feminism and antiracism, as both ideologies and forms of political practice? The research methodology used in this study is informed by scholarship that explores the relationship between women’s social identities and life histories (Etter-Lewis and Foster ; Gluck and Patai ; Patai ). Recent work by a number of feminist scholars has also examined how questions of racialized subjectivity and subject formation are revealed in women’s narratives and autobiographies (Ahmed ; Essed ; Frankenberg ; Ifekwunigwe ; Mama ). Like much of this scholarship, my analysis is concerned with understanding how Afro-Brazilian women negotiate and resist racist discourses on the subjective level and how, in turn, these processes influence practices of subject formation. The personal narratives presented in this book were collected from women who self-identify as mulheres negras. However, the tendency to identify as morena (brown), mulata (mixed-race) or one of a myriad of other Brazilian color categories often made my objective of locating self-identified mulheres negras more complicated than it would be in a society such as the United States, where the rule of hypo-descent, or the “one-drop rule,” has traditionally ascribed a black identity to individuals with any trace of African ancestry (J. Davis ; Harris ; Smedley ). In addition, as a North American researcher, I had to constantly translate between U.S. and Brazilian understandings of race, racism, and racial identity, as well as between academic and everyday discourses on race. Finding appropriate language with which to discuss issues of race and racial identity demanded great flexibility on my part, since individual women often had slightly different approaches to and understandings of race, racism, and their respective relationships to each. My collection and analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s personal narratives explore how women conceptualize their life experiences and racial and gender identities. Thirty-five interviews were conducted with women from two groups: the first group of sixteen was composed of Afro-Brazilian women who were self-defined activists in the black movement, women’s movement, and/or black women’s movement; the second group was composed of nineteen self-defined non-activists who were not involved with any of the previously mentioned social movements during my field research. I met many of the research participants at political and cultural events sponsored by black movement organizations in Belo Horizonte. I also gained access to several

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research participants through references from their friends and relatives who were familiar with my study. The women I interviewed ranged in age from twenty to eighty and came from a variety of social classes and educational backgrounds. The interview questions focused on their views of race and gender, personal experiences of discrimination, and perceptions of the black movement and women’s movement in Brazil. In semi-structured interviews, the research participants were also encouraged to share personal experiences and observations that might not have been covered by the structured questionnaire. By comparing personal narratives from activists and non-activists, I was able to explore how Afro-Brazilian women of different political orientations and with varying degrees of social and political activism view and, in some cases, seek to transform their status within their immediate communities and within Brazilian society more generally.28 This research methodology developed from my growing awareness of the importance of combining analysis of explicit forms of political activism with analysis of more internal and subjective practices of identity formation. Moreover, given the fact that feminist and antiracist activists form only a small fraction of the total black female population in Brazil, my research benefited from examining the life experiences and political perspectives of non-activists as well.29

Conceptualizing Resistant Subjectivities While much of the scholarly literature on subjectivity has focused on the ways in which discourse both creates subjects and, in so doing, oppresses them, the approach to subjectivity used in this study explores possibilities for resistance from subaltern subject positions. Feminist psychoanalytic and post-structuralist theory have played a central role in reconceptualizing resistance and agency on the subjective level. By reformulating Cartesian notions of the subject as self-constituting, feminist scholarship has posited a subject that “is capable of resistance and political action” and argued that “subjects who are subjected to multiple discursive influences create modes of resistance to those discourses out of the elements of the very discourses that shape them” (Hekman , ). A growing number of feminist scholars have also argued that dominant discourses carry the seeds of their own deconstruction, and possibly even destruction (Hekman ; Mama ; Weedon ). Agency has increasingly come to be seen as a product of discursive forces, and individual subjects are believed to “resist, mutate, and revise these discourses from within them” (Hekman , ). Feminist scholarship also suggests that agency and resistance become possible as individuals assume subject positions within dominant discourses. As a result, dominant discourses have been conceptualized as both forms of subjection and producers of resistance and alternative subject positions (Mama

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; Weedon ). In sum, it can be argued that individuals are both “the site and subjects of the discursive struggle for their identity. Yet the interpellation of individuals as subjects within particular discourses is never final. It is always open to challenge” (Weedon , , original emphasis). While recognizing the often constraining influence of dominant racial discourses, such as the Brazilian variants of racial democracy and mestiço essentialism,30 my analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation also explores possibilities for developing and employing resistant practices of racial identification.31 This conceptualization of resistance is in line with social theory that explores strategies for contesting hegemonic racial discourses (E. Gordon ; Hall ; Hanchard b; Winant ).32 Much of this literature suggests that counterhegemony becomes possible as dominant racial meanings lose their commonsense value and new racial significations emerge. As Stuart Hall has argued, “The racist interpellations can become themselves the sites and stakes in the ideological struggle, occupied and redefined to become the elementary forms of an oppositional formation. . . . The ideologies of racism remain contradictory structures that can function both as the vehicles for the imposition of dominant ideologies and as the elementary forms of the cultures of resistance” (, ). Focusing attention on counterhegemony and resistance is crucial to considering prospects for resignifying the meaning of race and blackness in Brazil. My informants’ experiences suggest that developing resistant forms of racial consciousness involves the recognition of how race and racism operate and the development of strategies to resist their influence. Michael Hanchard’s (b) conceptualization of racial hegemony in Brazil provides useful insights into the cultural and ideological dimensions of race and racism in the country. As Hanchard notes, Brazilian racial hegemony operates “through processes of socialization that promote racial discrimination while simultaneously denying its existence” (b, ). He further notes that these socialization processes contribute to the perpetuation of racism by reproducing social inequalities among racial groups while promoting a discourse of racial equality. Hanchard’s view of racial hegemony includes a proposal for ways to challenge racialized forms of domination. As he argues, counterhegemony becomes possible “through the subversion of political, cultural, and economic instruments of dominance that structure and inform common sense” (b, , original emphasis). This view of racial common sense highlights the ways in which practices of racial exclusion and discrimination become normalized as part of a larger system of racial domination. For Hanchard, counterhegemony constitutes “the process by which dominant meanings become undermined to the extent that they lose their commonsense value, and new meanings (in this case interpretations of Brazilian race relations) emerge with new values of their own” (b, ).

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Examining Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences and processes of subject formation provides crucial insights into the ways in which individual women challenge racial common sense and resignify dominant discourses on race. By exploring women’s individual processes of subject formation, my analysis seeks to go beyond collectivist approaches to racial subjectivity. During the course of my field research, my interaction with non-activists suggested that a number of Afro-Brazilian women have constructed resistant black subjectivities apart from social movement involvement. While recognizing the importance of collective forms of struggle, my analysis of black women’s individual processes of subject formation highlights the ways in which embracing or taking on (assumir se) an identity as a mulher negra can and often does take place apart from activism.33

Intersectionality and Afro-Brazilian Women While the racial dimensions of the Brazilian social order have been investigated in a good deal of recent scholarship, the gendered implications of Brazilian racial practices have received minimal attention.34 As a result, most analyses of race in Brazil have failed to recognize the differential impact of racism on the lives of Afro-Brazilian men and women. Scholarly inattention to the intersection of race and gender has also resulted in a lack of discussion about how differences among Brazilian women are constituted in and through processes of racialization. By viewing race and gender in isolation, most research has overlooked the degree to which they function as mutually constituted and mutually constituting categories of experience, identity, and inclusion/exclusion (Caldwell ). My analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences, processes of subject formation, and activism seeks to redress this oversight by treating race and gender as intersecting categories of identity and social experience. Rather than viewing race and gender as separate and separable social phenomena, my analysis seeks to understand how they work together to maintain discriminatory and exclusionary social practices in contemporary Brazil.35 Viewing race and gender as intersectional and co-constructed aspects of social identity and social experience opens up the possibility of seeing the ways in which Afro-Brazilian women experience racial and gender discrimination simultaneously. Since Brazilian discourses on race and nation, particularly racial democracy and the emphasis on miscegenation, are highly gendered, it is crucial to focus on both race and gender. Developing a gendered perspective on issues of race and racism also makes aspects of Brazilian racial dynamics visible that would remain hidden if gender were not taken into account. While this study adopts an intersectional approach that recognizes the inseparability of race, gender, and class in processes of social stratification,

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my analysis foregrounds the relationship between race and gender as mutually constituting forms of social identity and social experience. My decision to adopt this analytical approach was largely informed by the lack of research on both race and gender in Brazil, as well as the existing tendency to focus on class, rather than race, in Brazilian social discourse, politics, and scholarship. In this study, particularly in chapter , I use the concept of social location to describe black women’s positioning within the Brazilian socioeconomic structure. My conceptualization of social location incorporates discussion of class dynamics while attempting to provide an alternative to race-evasive views of class in Brazil.36 My examination of race and gender in Brazil is informed by political and scholarly work produced by U.S. women of color, black women in Britain, and other third world feminists. The contributions of third world women in diverse national contexts have been crucial to re-envisioning the relationship among race, gender, class, and sexuality in recent decades. In England, the political and theoretical contributions of women of Caribbean, African, and South Asian descent have led to reconceptualizations of womanhood that underscore the impact of historical and cultural factors on the constitution of women’s identities and social experiences (Bryan, Dadzie, and Scafe ; Carby ; Mama ; Parmar ). U.S. feminists of color have also challenged unitary models of gender and called for views of womanhood that take race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality into account (Anzaldúa ; hooks ; Hull, Scott, and Smith ; Moraga and Anzaldúa ; Sandoval ; Wallace ).37 U.S. feminists of color have long argued that feminism’s exclusive focus on gender as the source of women’s oppression fails to establish connections between sexism and other forms of domination (Alarcón ; Lorde ; Sandoval ). They have also noted that a primary focus on gender erases other aspects of women’s identities and experiences, including race, sexuality, and class. Feminists of color have further argued that mainstream feminism has inadequately addressed differences within the category “woman” and the ways in which womanhood is constituted in relation to women of other races, ethnicities, classes, and cultures, and not just in relation to men. By proposing alternative views of gender grounded in the experiences of non-white women, U.S. feminists of color have highlighted the importance of locating gender analysis within local contexts and in ways that account for the social, cultural, and historical specificity of women’s experiences and identities. Along similar lines, black feminists in Brazil have also focused attention on how gender, race, and class shape Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences and identities in recent decades. Early critiques of the Brazilian feminist movement by black feminists such as Lélia Gonzalez, Sueli Carneiro, and

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Thereza Santos have been crucial to the development of theoretical and political conceptualizations that highlight the inseparability of race and gender in the country.38 Much like women of color and third world feminists in other national contexts, black Brazilian feminists have struggled to define and bring visibility to their political interests in relation to both the women’s movement and the black movement. Moreover, since scholarly perspectives on the intersection of gender, race, and class in Brazil are less well developed than in other national contexts, the political and scholarly work of black Brazilian women serves as an invaluable source for more fully understanding the intersectional nature of racial and gender oppression in the country.39

Placing Race and Gender in a Diasporic Frame In an effort to more fully understand the global dimensions of anti-black racism, this study seeks to place Brazilian racial dynamics in dialogue with racial dynamics in other societies where African diaspora communities reside, particularly those in the Caribbean and Latin America. While there is a long tradition of comparative scholarship on race and racism in the United States and Brazil, work focusing on race and racism within a diasporic framework is a more recent development and remains scarce.40 Edmund Gordon and Mark Anderson’s () work offers a provocative discussion of the merits of focusing on processes of racialization in African diaspora communities. Gordon and Anderson advocate for “a shift in focus that concentrates not so much on essential features common to various peoples of African descent as on the various processes through which communities and individuals identify with one another, highlighting the central importance of race—racial constructions, racial oppressions, racial identifications—and culture in the making and remaking of diaspora” (, ). Gordon and Anderson outline an approach to studying the African diaspora that gives centrality to race and highlights the transnational significance of black identities in diaspora communities. The increasing prominence of blackness on a global scale during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century has provided scholars with a unique opportunity to examine the significance of black identities for “New World” diaspora communities. Focusing on cultural and political developments in Africandescended communities residing in the Americas, particularly former Spanish and Portuguese colonies, highlights the circulation of discourses on blackness in the region and how members of Afro-Latin communities engage in diasporic forms of racial consciousness.41 In recent decades, African-descended communities throughout Central and South America have been actively involved in the appropriation and articulation of black identities for both cultural and political ends.42 In

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many cases, the assertion of black identities in Afro–Latin American communities has been closely tied to the increasing transnational circulation of black cultural products and antiracist discourses.43 The emergence of new forms of identity politics in Afro–Latin American communities necessitates the development of scholarly analyses that recognize the nuanced ways in which members of Afro–Latin American communities appropriate and deploy notions of blackness.44 Placing race in a diasporic frame highlights similarities, as well as differences, in racialization processes in diverse national contexts. Examining race within a diasporic context allows scholars to go beyond comparative approaches to race and racism by focusing on the transnational circulation of racist discourses and practices. This approach is especially useful in understanding the ways in which hegemonic views of African-descended populations have been premised on anti-black discourses that privilege European identities, both culturally and racially. While recent scholarship has criticized the transnational circulation of blackness as a form of U.S.-led “black globalization” (Sansone ), scholars have largely overlooked the ways in which global flows of capital and culture have shaped anti-black discourses on race in diverse national contexts.45 Using a diasporic lens to explore Brazilian racial and gender dynamics also brings into focus the ways in which Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences are congruent with those of other women in the African diaspora. As subsequent chapters of this book will show, Afro-Brazilian women’s social identities and forms of activism share a number of similarities with those of African-descended women in the United States, England, and other areas where African diaspora populations reside. By placing Afro-Brazilian women’s lived experiences, processes of subject formation, and activism within a diasporic framework, this study seeks to contribute to the development of a gendered understanding of race and black women’s experiences in the African diaspora.46

A Note on Terminology The terms Afro-Brazilian and black are used interchangeably throughout this book to refer to persons of African descent in Brazil, many of whom may not self-identify as negro/negra or black. My use of these terms is consistent with discourses on race and racial identity that have been developed by black Brazilian activists in organizations such as the Frente Negra Brasileira (Black Brazilian Front) and the Teatro Experimental Negro (Black Experimental Theater) since the early decades of the twentieth century (K. Butler ; Fernandes a; Hanchard b; Nascimento and Nascimento ). While the term Afro-Brazilian is most often employed in Brazilian Portuguese

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in reference to cultural practices, I employ it in this study to refer to both people and culture. Like other terms, such as African American, that are used in other areas of the African diaspora, the term Afro-Brazilian underscores the relationship between ancestral connections to Africa and the status of diaspora communities in modern nation-states. It should be noted that my use of the terms Afro-Brazilian and black stands in sharp contrast to Brazilian discourses on color and official state practices of color identification. As I mentioned earlier, the Brazilian government has historically utilized data collection methods that divide people of African descent into a number of different color categories, in the process reinforcing Brazil’s image as a “racial democracy” and rendering persons of African descent statistically invisible (Nobles ; Telles ). This book combines official and popular color categories, including preto (black), pardo (mixed-race/brown), mulato (mixed-race), and moreno (brown), under the larger rubrics of Afro-Brazilian and black. While, as a researcher, I have opted to use the terms Afro-Brazilian and black to refer to people of African descent, such usage is also tempered by recognition that self-identification as negro/negra is highly contested in Brazil.

Outline of the Study Chapter  examines the discursive dimensions of race and racism in Brazil by focusing on the central role accorded to racial hybridity in Brazilian nationalist discourse. Through an analysis of elite and popular discourses on Brazilian national identity, I discuss how dominant notions of Brazilianness have shaped contemporary understandings of race and have been used to thwart progressive antiracist mobilization. This chapter provides a basis for understanding issues that are developed in more detail in later chapters, including color and race in Brazil, the role of gender in nationalist discourse, processes of racial identity formation, and antiracist activism. In chapter , I provide a gendered reading of Brazilian nationalist discourse and examine how the ideology of racial democracy has influenced the social construction of Afro-Brazilian women’s social identities and social location. The analysis places commonsense notions of gender, race, and skin color in dialogue with my informants’ experiences, particularly with respect to employment. I argue that interpretations of Brazilian history and national identity as a mestiço nation have played a central role in the social construction of race and gender and in the naturalization of black women’s social identities and social location as sexual objects and domestic servants. Chapter  explores Brazilian ideals of beauty and examines their impact on Afro-Brazilian women. My discussion focuses on hair as a key site for investigating how Afro-Brazilian women’s identities are circumscribed by

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dominant discourses on race and gender. I also examine the pervasiveness of anti-black aesthetic standards in Brazilian popular culture and, through analysis of women’s personal narratives, explore black women’s attempts to reinvest their bodies with positive significance. Chapter  examines Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of racial and gender subject formation. Through analysis of personal narratives, I explore how several women have come to terms with their race, gender, and class identities as well as with culturally informed notions of sexuality and femininity. By exploring the subjective dimensions of race and gender, this analysis provides a basis for understanding how Afro-Brazilian women translate their life experiences into sustaining and affirming personal identities. Chapter  explores how two Afro-Brazilian women have attempted to claim full citizenship from marginal subject positions. Their life experiences and social activism provide instructive examples of strategies by which poor, black women seek empowerment in work and family relationships as well as within the larger society. As women who have been marginalized on the basis of their gender, race, and class identities, Maria Ilma’s and Valdete’s life experiences provide insight into everyday practices and strategies for claiming full citizenship from marginal subject positions. In chapter , I examine the development of the black women’s movement in Brazil from the late s to the late s. My analysis highlights black women’s efforts to use collective forms of struggle as a means of transforming existing social and political arrangements. I argue that, by calling attention to the intersection of race and gender, activists in the black women’s movement have challenged the boundaries of citizenship and belonging in Brazil. Finally, the epilogue reflects on the theoretical and methodological implications of conducting ethnographic research on Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation and practices of social activism. I posit the importance of using ethnography as the basis for theoretical reflection and theory building. I also argue for the need to develop new approaches to examining racial essentialism and identity politics. This discussion offers an ethnographically informed response to critiques of race and identity politics made in recent scholarship.

1 “A Foot in the Kitchen” Brazilian Discourses on Race, Hybridity, and National Identity Every Brazilian, even the light-skinned fair-haired one, carries about with him on his soul, when not on soul and body alike . . . the shadow, or at least the birthmark, of the aborigine or the Negro. . . . The influence of the African, either direct or vague and remote. —Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves

The sexual license that always characterized colonial Brazil, observed and deplored in all the accounts that have come down to us, whether written by officials, missionaries, and chroniclers or simply made by occasional local observers and foreign travelers that visited her, at least made one positive contribution to the formation of the Brazilian nation: it was thanks to this loose living that it proved possible to fuse races so profoundly different, both in their ethnic characteristics and in the relative positions they occupied in the social organization of the colony. —Caio Prado Jr., The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil

The nation-state was never simply a political entity. It was always also a symbolic formation—a “system of representation”—which produced an “idea” of the nation as an “imagined community,” with whose meanings we could identify and which through this imaginary identification, constituted its citizens as “subjects” (in both of Foucault’s sense [sic] of “subjection”—subject of and subjected to the nation). —Stuart Hall, “Culture, Community, Nation”

The preceding quotes highlight two important features of Brazilian con-

structions of national identity: a concern with the African and Afro-Brazilian 27

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presence in the country and an emphasis on the role of interracial sexual relations and racial intermixture in the formation of the Brazilian population. Unlike countries, such as the United States, that have historically discouraged racial intermixture, both in the private sphere of intimate relationships and in the public sphere of nationalist discourse, Brazil has long been acclaimed as a society where the races freely mingle. This chapter examines the centrality of racial hybridity in Brazilian nationalist discourse. The analysis seeks to deconstruct dominant representations of Brazil as a racially hybrid society and examine the political and psycho-subjective implications of these representations. By examining elite and popular discourses on Brazilian national identity, I discuss how dominant notions of Brazilianness have shaped contemporary understandings of race and have been used to thwart progressive antiracist mobilization. My analysis departs from recent discussions of racial essentialism (cf. Appiah ; Gilroy a, ) by developing a critique of hybrid or mestiço (mixed-race) essentialism.1 I propose a conceptualization of mestiço essentialism that centers on the salience of race and racial hybridity in Brazilian nationalist discourse. Conceptualizing Brazilian discourses on miscegenation and racial hybridity as forms of mestiço essentialism highlights the ways in which such discourses function as forms of racialism that privilege a hybrid racial essence and, by so doing, both obscure racism and foreclose discussions of racial difference. Through an analysis of elite discourses on the Brazilian nation, I examine how a focus on racial intermixture and the notion of racial democracy has been used as the basis for developing official forms of antiracism in Brazil. The final sections of this chapter explore how the official antiracist discourses that have been developed by Brazilian elites and the Brazilian state have been used to undermine the success of progressive antiracist efforts, particularly those undertaken by black activists.2

The Place of Race in the Brazilian Nation A preoccupation with race, blackness, and African ancestry has characterized Brazilian social thought since at least the end of the nineteenth century. Following the abolition of slavery in  and the establishment of the Brazilian republic in , Brazilian intellectual and political elites showed increasing interest in shaping the nation’s future, both ideologically and racially. The abolition of Brazilian slavery in  was the final step in a gradual campaign to end the slave system. While the first national law in  liberated children born of slave mothers, a second law in  emancipated slaves who were sixty years of age and older. Unconditional and uncompensated abolition took place in  after a considerable decrease in the slave

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population, largely due to manumissions by slaveholders and self-purchases of freedom by enslaved people of African descent. With the advent of emancipation in , Afro-Brazilians entered a rapidly changing social and economic order. However, they were largely excluded from the free labor economy that followed abolition by both formal and informal mechanisms. They also faced a hostile social environment that was increasingly shaped by elite concerns about the nation’s racial composition. Prior to abolition, rather than training blacks and preparing them to enter the free labor economy, widespread European immigration was encouraged (Andrews ). After , state funds were used to pay for the passage of immigrants from Europe. A large percentage of the European immigrants settled in the industrial center of the Southeast around São Paulo. While no legal restrictions were placed on black laborers in the post-abolition period, state-subsidized immigration amounted to a de facto preference for white labor (Marx ; Skidmore ). Following abolition, the presence of Afro-Brazilians was viewed as being the primary impediment to the advancement of Brazilian society. The census of  listed only  percent of the population as white;  percent was listed as black, and the remainder of the population was classified as pardo (mixed race). By the end of the nineteenth century, the large percentage of people of African and mixed-race ancestry and the relatively small number of whites had become central concerns for Brazilian intellectual and political elites. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pseudoscientific notions of the degeneracy of mixed-blood populations caused a great deal of panic amongst Brazilian elites. European scientists generally stereotyped Latin American countries as new nations whose identities lacked a stable and coherent racial form (Borges ; N. Stepan ). Brazil’s tropical climate was seen as an added factor responsible for the deterioration and degeneracy of its mixed-race population. Since evolutionary models of social development posited that racial intermixture led to the deterioration of both individuals and collectivities, elite concerns about the degeneracy of mixed-race populations linked the biological ancestry of individuals to the fate of the Brazilian nation. Given the racial composition of Brazil, elites wondered if the nation would be able to attain higher levels of civilization and progress. In , one year after the abolition of slavery, Brazilian literary critic José Veríssimo offered a decidedly racialized vision of the country’s future. Expressing his views of Brazil’s racial situation, Veríssimo noted: “I am convinced . . . that western civilization can only be the work of the white race, and that no great civilization can be built with mixed peoples. As ethnographers assure us . . . race mixture is facilitating the prevalence of the superior element. Sooner or later it will perforce eliminate the black race.

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And immigration . . . will, through the inevitable mixtures, accelerate the selection process” (qtd. in Skidmore , ). Veríssimo’s statements highlight three salient features of elite social thought and policy formulation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: first, the notion that racial intermixture would preclude the development of a true civilization in Brazil; second, evolutionary views of the dominance of whiteness in processes of race mixing; and third, emphasis on the importance of European immigration as a means of whitening the population. Like Veríssimo, a number of Brazilian elites believed that a combination of European immigration, miscegenation, and low birth rates among Afro-Brazilians would eventually ensure the civilization and progress of the Brazilian nation. During the s and s, the ideology of whitening (embranquecimento) gained greater acceptance as the solution to Brazil’s racial dilemma. Whitening represented a middle ground between European theories of racial determinism and Brazilian social realities. As a compromise solution, whitening discarded two principal assumptions of European racial theory: that racial differences are innate and that mixed blood populations are inherently degenerate (Skidmore ). By rejecting the existence of two exclusive racial categories, Brazilian formulations of whitening proposed movement from blackness toward the twin ideals of whiteness and “civilization.” Furthermore, whitening offered Brazilian elites a rationale for what they believed was already happening: the gradual disappearance of black and indigenous populations. The Brazilian ideology of whitening was developed in response to the popularity of eugenics and evolutionary social thought in Europe. Proponents of whitening believed that the “lower” races (i.e., Africans and native peoples) would be absorbed by and into the “higher” race (i.e., Portuguese/ European) through the process of racial intermixture. Official census figures were often cited as proof that the racial composition of the Brazilian population was gradually whitening. The Brazilian lawyer and historian F. J. Oliveira Vianna became one of the most vocal spokesmen for the whitening thesis. Oliveira Vianna wrote an introductory chapter for the  Brazilian census, where he offered pseudo-empirical proof of the country’s alleged “ascent toward whiteness” (Skidmore ). Describing the process of whitening as “Aryanization,” Oliveira Vianna compared the racial proportions of the population in the  and  censuses. Noting a relative increase in the white population and a relative decrease in the Negro and mestiço segments of the population, Oliveira Vianna argued that the Brazilian nation was whitening over time.3 While Oliveira Vianna’s views of race were influenced by European theories of scientific racism, his formulation of whitening suggested that Brazil was “achieving ethnic purity by miscegenation” (Skidmore , ).

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Moreover, Oliveira Vianna believed that increased European immigration in the decades following slavery would result in a whiter population. As he observed, “This admirable flow of immigration not only helps to raise quickly the coefficient of the pure Aryan group in our country but also by mixing and re-mixing with the mixed-blood (mestiço) population it helps, with equal speed, to raise the Aryan content of our blood” (qtd. in Skidmore , , ). As a theoretician of whitening, Oliveira Vianna argued that African and indigenous populations were capable of attaining the heights of “civilization” only through racial intermixture with white, Aryan populations. In Oliveira Vianna’s view, the process of racial mixing allowed the two “primitive races” (i.e., Africans and native peoples) to lose their purity and contribute eugenically to the formation of a superior racial type. In his written work, Oliveira Vianna argued that the European men who laid the Brazilian nation’s foundations, and their descendants, were eugenically selected and tested generation after generation to appear in the nation’s elite. He further argued that a large infusion of European blood might favor the assimilation of European traits by the racially mixed and prevent their reversion to an “inferior” racial type. While the whitening ideology accepted intermediate racial types such as mulattos and mestiços, it rejected “pure” blacks. It is also worth noting that acceptance of the mixed-race segment of the population was conditional. Brazilians of mixed racial descent did not hold any intrinsic value for proponents of whitening. Instead, they were defined as an intermediate step in the national process of whitening and were seen in functional terms as “an element of synthesis, coordination, [and] direction” (Needell a, ). Moreover, the whitening ideology did not fundamentally change negative views that mulattos were lazy, dishonest, sly, and lacking in reliability and loyalty (Russell-Wood ). However, it can be argued that, when forced to choose between “pure” blacks and hybrid racial types, Brazilian elites tended to regard persons of mixed racial ancestry as the lesser of two evils.4

Brazil as a Luso-tropical Racial Democracy Elite concern about Brazil’s racial future continued into the early decades of the twentieth century. While Oliveira Vianna’s work during the s bridged the gap between the scientific racist views that prevailed before , new approaches to race began to emerge after . In subsequent decades, environmentalist social philosophy, particularly Boasian views of culture, began to displace scientific racism and eugenics. Gilberto Freyre’s emergence as a social theorist took place within this context of transition and change. Largely influenced by his studies in the United States under Franz Boas at

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Columbia University, from  to , Freyre’s work was characterized by an “antiracist” and culturalist orientation that offered a positive reinterpretation of Brazil’s racial makeup.5 Unlike most of his contemporaries, Freyre rejected the belief that racial intermixture would impede national development. Instead, he cited the cultural, scientific, and political achievements of Brazilians and argued that Brazil was no less civilized than predominantly white nations in Europe and Latin America. Given Freyre’s importance as the primary architect of the Brazilian version of racial democracy, detailed analysis of his writings is essential for understanding the ideological premises of racism, official antiracism, and progressive antiracism in Brazil. Until his death in , Freyre remained a prominent spokesman for issues of race and national identity in Brazil.6 For over five decades, his books and newspaper articles provided positive interpretations of Brazil’s colonial past and offered a positive analysis of the nation’s contemporary racial composition. As the dominant interpretation of Brazilian history, Freyre’s work played a central role in the symbolic constitution of Brazilian national identity. His romanticized depictions of the colonial era have allowed Brazilians to take pride in their national past and to valorize the country’s history of racial and cultural amalgamation. By providing a highly gendered and racialized reading of the colonial slave era, Freyre’s work posited that Brazil’s national past of ostensibly “harmonious racial patriarchy” (Needell b) resulted in contemporary conditions of racial democracy.7 Freyre’s early work challenged the view that individuals of mixed racial ancestry were inferior and eugenically unfit. Prior to Freyre, most Brazilian intellectuals had regarded mulattos as “heterogeneous, unstable elements that disturbed the national order” (N. Stepan , ). However, in Freyre’s work, the “problem” of racial miscegenation became the key to Brazil’s future. Rather than focusing on the importance of racial purity, Freyre offered a positive reinterpretation of racial intermixture as a means of achieving a homogenous racial and national type. Nonetheless, it is important to note that eugenic beliefs about racial fitness were preserved in Freyre’s formulation of Brazilian racial hybridity. While he opposed the belief that mixed-race individuals were degenerate, Freyre did not completely dismantle beliefs in eugenic soundness. Instead, he argued that, through miscegenation with African and indigenous women, the plastic-minded Portuguese had “propagated a vigorous and ductile mestizo population that was still more adaptable than himself to the tropical climate” (Freyre , ).8 Freyre’s psycho-cultural analysis of colonialism and slavery formed the basis for his conceptualizations of Luso-tropicalism and Brazilian racial democracy. Freyre developed the concept of Luso-tropicalism to describe the system of cultural values that enabled the Portuguese to overcome racial

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and ethnic divisions and construct racially harmonious societies in tropical climates. In texts such as The Masters and the Slaves (originally published as Casa Grande e Senzala in ) and New World in the Tropics, he argued that Portuguese colonists were cordial and open in their relations with other racial and ethnic groups. Citing the high incidence of miscegenation as proof that the Portuguese held egalitarian racial attitudes during the colonial period, Freyre suggested that a primordial equality between the races enabled members of indigenous, African, and Portuguese populations to fuse under socially democratic conditions, in the past as well as the present. Pointing to the absence of segregation and overt racial hostility as proof of racial democracy in Brazil, Freyre argued that a “general spirit of human brotherhood is much stronger than race, color, class, or religious prejudice” (, ). Freyre’s conceptualizations of racial democracy and Luso-tropicalism played a central role in shaping both official and popular views of race, nation, and colonial history in Brazil during most of the twentieth century. Following the  publication of Freyre’s Casa Grande e Senzala, the racial norm in Brazil was increasingly defined by the discourse of racial democracy and premised on the progressive whitening of the population through racial intermixture. By the late s, the notion that racial and cultural fusion was the solution to Brazil’s racial “problem” had become the dominant ideology of the Brazilian state. Moreover, unlike the United States, where the ideal of racial integration has rarely been associated with racial intermixture in the biological sense, in Brazil interracial sexual contact has been envisioned as a means of progressively whitening and thus assimilating the black population.9 Several decades after the publication of The Masters and the Slaves, Freyre argued that Brazilians were one of the most “ethnically and aesthetically diversified populations in the world” (, ). Extolling Brazil’s status as a multiracial nation, Freyre further argued that the country’s history had allowed for the development of “a Luso-tropical norm, a reality which, both ethnically and culturally, tends to become more and more extra-European though in no sense anti-European” (, ). This statement suggests that Freyre did not use the concept of Luso-tropicalism exclusively to describe the colonial period. In his later writings, the concept of Luso-tropicalism was also used to describe Brazil’s contemporary ethnic and racial composition. However, Freyre clearly placed Europe, and hence whiteness, at the center of this Luso-tropical ethnic and cultural type. As Antonio Guimarães has noted, the “discursive slippage between Europeanness, Brazilianness, and mestiçagem [miscegenation] clearly reveals the ‘European’ character of this imagined nationhood, operating through the Creolization of Europeanness by the whitening of mestiçagem” (b, ).

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In his later work, the concepts of morenidade (brownness) and alem-raça (beyond race or metarace) became central to Freyre’s views of contemporary Brazilian identity. In a  lecture in Lisbon, Portugal, Freyre argued that the large number of Brazilians who identified as moreno attested to the “increasing indifference” toward racial distinctions in Brazil (, ). He boldly declared that morenidade was “definitely on the upswing” (, ) and suggested that the affirmation of morenidade was a rejection of both race and racial animosity: “As a metaracial human type, the Brazilian is a living retort to any exclusivist mystique of racial purity such as the Aryan ideal, or Negritude. . . . [T]he human type in Brazil, whose background is essentially Portuguese, is, when viewed both anthropologically and sociologically, one of the most important witnesses to interracialism in the modern world; and his metaracial character is one of the most vigorous elements working for peace among men in an age rent by racial hatred” (, , ). Freyre described the Brazilian human type (much like his description of the Luso-tropical norm in Brazil) as simultaneously being metaracial and having an essentially Portuguese background.10 Characterizing Brazilians as a “metaracial human type” allowed Freyre to argue that the country had gone alem-raça, or beyond race, both biologically and socially. The notion that Brazilians preferred to identify as moreno, despite variations in phenotype and other physical characteristics,11 further strengthened his argument that morenidade was more important that “purely racial characterization” (Freyre , ). Noting that the term moreno had a “sociologically supple and biologically elastic use,” Freyre argued that the term’s increasing popularity was a significant “sociological-semantic” development (, ). In his view, the emergence of the term moreno as a salient form of self-identification and its frequent use by Brazilians in reference to others provided convincing evidence of Brazil’s success as a metaracial nation.12 Freyre’s discussion of morenidade suggests that he viewed brownness as being preferable to purist forms of racial classification, such as black and white, or the Aryan ideal and Negritude. It is also important to note that Freyre placed Negritude and Aryanism on an equal par. This suggests that he saw both as examples of racial absolutism that were more dangerous than the version of Lusotropical hybrid essentialism that he advocated. Finally, by lauding the metaracial character of Brazilians, Freyre suggested that mestiço essentialism offered hope for the end of racial conflict, both in Brazil and globally.

Viewing Brazilian Color Categories through the Lens of Race Freyre’s conceptualizations of morenidade and alem-raça provide significant insights into the discursive construction of Brazil as a mestiço or moreno nation. As his later work notes, multiple color categories have often been

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more popular than the bipolar racial categories of black (negro/negra) and white (branco/branca) in contemporary Brazil. The existence of multiple color categories in Brazil has been most evident in official statistics that permit self-classification. The  PNAD (Pesquisa Nacional Amostra de Domicilios, or the National Household Survey), that listed  different color categories, is perhaps the best example of Brazil’s ostensible color continuum. Moreover, as a singer in the group Os Morenos (the brown ones) noted in a  survey of Brazilian views of color and race, “Brown is the color of Brazil. No one likes to be called neguinho (little black one) or branquinho (little white one)” (qtd. in Turra and Venturi , ). While scholars have long recognized the sociocultural specificity of Brazilian color categories, the racial significance of Brazilian color categories has largely been overlooked. In many ways, this oversight has been due to descriptions of racial categories in the United States as being bipolar, while those in Brazil have been described as being more fluid. Moreover, scholars have typically characterized the United States’ racial system as being based on racial ancestry or genotype, while Brazil’s racial system has typically been characterized as being based on appearance or phenotype (Nogueira ). A long tradition of comparing racial dynamics in Brazil and the United States has led some prominent Brazilianist scholars to argue that color is more important that race in Brazil (Degler ; Harris ). In many ways, the seeming fluidity of Brazilian color categories presupposes the existence of a fluid, nonrigid social order. The apparently fluid nature of Brazilian racial and color identities also fosters the belief that Brazil is a “color blind” society that grants equal rights and opportunities to all of its citizens. As a result, proponents of miscegenation and racial democracy have tended to conflate biological mixture between racial groups with social integration. This conflation has been premised on the belief that interracial sexual interaction and miscegenation are proof of egalitarian racial attitudes.13 Official and popular beliefs in the Brazilian color continuum subvert attempts to focus on racial differences by appealing to the hegemonic notion that race and racism are inconsequential in a mixed-race or brown nation. According to this logic, looking for evidence of racism in a nation that consists of color groups, not races, makes little sense. Moreover, due to their centrality in dominant discourses on race and national identity, Brazilian color categories fall within the realm of common sense, and thus they are rarely questioned. However, recent research suggests the need to view Brazilian color categories as social constructions in much the same way that race has been subjected to constructivist scrutiny in recent years.14 Problematizing naturalized notions of color in Brazil allows for the possibility of seeing the racial implications of multiple color categories. Furthermore,

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deconstructing dominant color classifications highlights the fact that the color continua found in many Latin American societies are as ideologically overdetermined as bipolar racial categories are in other national contexts (i.e., the United States). Despite appeals to the nonracial nature of Brazilian color categories, Brazilian understandings of color have been inextricably linked to the social, economic, and cultural legacies of Portuguese colonization and the enslavement of African populations. As in most former plantation societies in the Americas, the Brazilian system of color classification has been closely tied to racial practices developed during the colonial slave era and within the post-abolition social order.15 As a consequence, Brazilian color categories are inseparable from commonsense views that blackness and African ancestry signify difference and inferiority. The seemingly endless number of color categories in Brazil has resulted in complicated and largely subjective forms of color identification.16 However, while the existence of multiple options for self-identification has long been cited as proof of nonracist attitudes, an increasing number of Brazilian scholars have developed strong critiques of the country’s color continuum. Brazilian sociologist Clovis Moura has argued that the wide range of skin tones found in Brazil has resulted in a classificatory scale that ranks individuals and groups based on their proximity to the ethnic ideal of whiteness. Moura’s () work highlights the coexistence of an ostensibly fluid and nonpolar color continuum and discriminatory social practices. Instead of depicting Brazilian practices of color identification as proof of racial tolerance, Moura links the existence of multiple color categories to practices of racial domination. He notes, “This ambiguous and symbolic Brazilian ethnic identity demonstrates, in practice, the inexistence of a racial democracy. Without a classificatory system that discriminates against each citizen on the basis of color, in a socially dynamic and non-institutionalized manner, there would not be the neurotic need for the Brazilian to flee from himself, from his real color that is ethnically and racially stigmatized” (Moura , ). Moura’s analysis offers an important and rare corrective to Freyrian and neo-Freyrian views that Brazilian color categories are metaracial and thus function as nonracialized and nonracist forms of identification and affiliation. Moura’s psychologically informed critique suggests that Brazilian color categories deny the existence of racial differences while simultaneously enacting and perpetuating practices of racial domination. Research by Brazilian sociologist Antonio Sérgio Guimarães offers insights into the relationship between color and race, complementing Moura’s analysis. Both authors suggest that diffuse and ambiguous color categories are an integral part of the construction of race and racialized notions of difference in

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Brazil. Guimarães has argued that color classification is largely insignificant without being placed in a larger context that defines the meaning of color in racial terms. As he observes, “The conception of color as natural phenomenon rests on the pretense that physical appearance and phenotypical traits are neutral, objective, biological facts. But that is just the way in which, in Brazil, color is a figure for race” (b, ).17 Guimarães’s work challenges the view that color is more socially salient than race in Brazil. Unlike analyses that have traditionally pointed to the ostensible fluidity of Brazilian color categories as proof of racial tolerance, Guimarães advocates viewing Brazilian practices of color classification in racial terms. Guimarães (a) argues that color became the coded name for race in Brazil and describes the Brazilian version of “pigmentocracy” as a hierarchical system that implicitly links color to race. He further contends that Brazilian understandings of race revolve around the same dichotomy of whiteness/blackness found in Anglo-Saxon countries.18 While it is crucial to acknowledge similarities in the importance of whiteness and blackness in Brazil and Anglo-Saxon societies, such as the United States, it is equally important to acknowledge the particularities of whiteness in the Brazilian context. Unlike whiteness in the United States, Brazilian constructions of whiteness have not been formed through the “ethnic melting” of European people. Instead, in Brazil, whiteness has been founded on the absorption and incorporation of mixed-race individuals and light-skinned mulattos (Guimarães a). The emphasis on “whitening” found in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazilian social thought is key to understanding how whiteness has been conceptualized in contemporary Brazil. Brazilian notions of whitening have largely been premised on the gradual disappearance of black and mixed-race populations through the process of racial intermixture. The belief that a “white” nation could eventually be achieved through miscegenation has been central to Brazilian views of whiteness as a category that incorporates and subsumes blackness. Brazilian notions that whiteness can be composed of nonwhite elements have had a marked impact on the construction of white identities on the subjective level. Brazilian anthropologist Rita Segato has provocatively argued that whiteness is “impregnated with blackness” in Brazil (, ). As she notes, “while the Anglo-Saxon white is distinctly white in racial and genealogical terms and racial mixture will inescapably signify exclusion from that category, the Brazilian white is ‘polluted’ and insecure as a bearer of such status. For a variety of reasons involving either biological or cultural ‘contamination,’ no Brazilian white is ever fully, undoubtedly white” (, ). In many ways, Segato’s observations resonate with the epigraphs found at the beginning of this chapter. Like Brazilian intellectuals of earlier eras,

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Segato analyzes the central roles accorded to racial intermixture in Brazilian racial discourse. By using terms such as pollution and contamination, she conveys a sense of the cultural and racial impurity that characterizes whiteness in Brazil. Segato’s view of whiteness as impure is also linked to her assertion that racial hatred in Brazil is the outcome of an “I/thou” relationship between blacks and whites that lurks “in the background of ‘white’ self-formation” (, ). In her view, repulsion of the black “other” found within most Brazilian whites has been central to the constitution of Brazilian racism. As she observes, “Racist hatred is the outcome of the horror caused by this very private secret carried by families; the twilight memory of the black great-grandmother, the violently repressed oedipal love for the black wet-nurse. Racism in Brazil is a purge that starts from the inside of the white being, a fear (and a certainty) of being contaminated somewhere. It has to do with relatedness, not with ethnic distance and fear of aliens” (, , my emphasis). Segato’s analysis offers useful insights into the construction of whiteness in Brazil. Similar to Freyre, Segato notes the inseparability of race and psychology, given the country’s history of miscegenation. Noting the omnipresence of blackness in the racial genealogies of most white Brazilians, she argues that racism is largely experienced by whites in intimate and internal terms. However, her view that racism is primarily based on rejection of the black other found within most whites is insufficient. Recent work suggests that Brazilian racism has also been influenced by notions of racial alterity, notions that position blacks as the others of whites in ways that reinforce externality and separation (Sheriff ). Consequently, Brazilian discourses and practices of racial alterity seem to display both a “distance and fear of aliens” and an internalized concern with racial “intimacy and relatedness.” The internal and external dynamics of racial interaction in Brazil are grounded in the colonial encounter and continue to shape practices of racial identification and racial subjectivity for both blacks and whites.

“A Foot in the Kitchen”: Performing Racial Hybridity During his  presidential campaign,19 Fernando Henrique Cardoso made a statement that highlighted the inseparability of blackness, whiteness, and racial hybridity in Brazil. While visiting the northeast region of the country, Cardoso stated that his family had “a pé na cozinha” (a foot in the kitchen). This popular Brazilian phrase is used to convey the idea that an individual’s genealogy is linked to the “kitchen” by means of slavery and/or domestic service. Cardoso’s use of this phrase underscored the link between racial intermixture and Brazilian national identity. Cardoso attempted to authenticate himself by appealing to dominant notions that “true” Brazilians have

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at least some African ancestry, and hence ties to slavery, in their family tree. Although Cardoso is considered to be white by Brazilian standards, valorizing his purportedly mixed racial ancestry allowed him to frame himself as not completely white, but a little black, and thus more Brazilian. Moreover, in his quest for political power, Cardoso used a reference to black “contamination” in his family’s genealogy as a means of connecting to potential voters of African descent. While, more than likely, Cardoso made this remark in hopes of building a bridge to Afro-Brazilian voters, it revealed an implicit understanding that most residents of the northeast also have their feet “in the kitchen” via their ancestral ties to slavery and contemporary conditions of racial subordination.20 Cardoso’s actions highlight the ways in which Brazilian notions of mestiço essentialism selectively and strategically valorize blackness. While, on one hand, having one’s “foot in the kitchen” is seen as an ancestral mark of authentic Brazilianness, it is also viewed as a marker of African ancestry and thus of racial difference. Furthermore, the influence of African and AfroBrazilian ancestry is largely seen as something that is a valuable part of the past rather than something that holds great value for the future, either individually or collectively. In geo-temporal terms, the value of African ancestry is inversely proportional to its relationship to the present; while past ties to African and Afro-Brazilian ancestry are valorized within nationalist discourse, present-day markers of blackness, particularly phenotypical markers, are largely denigrated. Within this context, we can better understand how President Cardoso’s claim to have his “foot in the kitchen” also allowed him to lay claim to Brazilianness, via African ancestry, while simultaneously evading self-identification as Afro-Brazilian or black. Finally, by stating that he had his “foot in the kitchen,” Cardoso performed a hybrid white identity that had been legitimated in official nationalist discourses.21 Vernacular notions of having a “foot in the kitchen” and having a “black great-grandmother” highlight the gendered aspects of racial intermixture and national formation in Brazil.22 While implicitly recalling social norms that sanctioned the sexual exploitation of enslaved women, these popular notions idealize Brazil’s history of racial and gender domination. Dominant discourses on mestiço essentialism and racial democracy have typically suggested that racial intermixture took placed under “socially democratic” conditions (Freyre ), rather than in a context of brutal sexual and psychological violence. The ostensible valorization of Afro-Brazilian women’s roles in the process of national formation, via miscegenation, obscures the ways in which gender and racial asymmetries have traditionally positioned them as social, racial, and sexual subordinates. The absence of Afro-Brazilian men in official and popular imaginings of the nation also underscores how racial patriarchy has traditionally operated in favor of white men and white

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racial privilege. While the bodies of Afro-Brazilian women have long been available to white men, interracial sex between Afro-Brazilian men and white women has traditionally been regarded with disdain. In much the same way that Afro-Brazilian cultural practices, such as samba and carnival, have been appropriated into the repertoire of Brazilian national culture, the symbolic and actual appropriation of Afro-Brazilian women’s bodies has been central to the nationalist project of miscegenation. These processes of incorporation and appropriation, or cannibalism, have been vital to the construction of Brazil’s identity as a mestiço nation. Representations of Afro-Brazilian women as “mothers of the nation” have played a key role in conceptualizing Brazil as both a racially hybrid society and a metaracial society.23 My designation of Afro-Brazilian women as “mothers of the nation” seeks to highlight the racialized and gendered implications of Brazilian nationalism.24 It also seeks to underscore the central role accorded to Afro-Brazilian women in nationalist discourse. While not explicitly defined as mothers of the nation by Freyre, Afro-Brazilian women are central to his conceptualizations of Brazilian colonial history and contemporary racial democracy. Freyre’s highly gendered and sexualized reading of colonial society focused on the sexual inclinations of Portuguese men and the sexual availability of native, and later African, women. This view of national formation placed primacy on the Portuguese male colonists as the “fathers of the nation” and the initiators of national development.25 Freyre argued that a predisposition for cross-cultural interaction allowed the male colonists to overcome inhospitable environmental conditions through their ostensibly consensual sexual relations with African and indigenous women. In this master narrative of Brazilian history, indigenous and African women are portrayed as silent/silenced incubators of miscegenation. Rather than being self-defined or autonomous, their identities and bodies were used to serve the desires and interests of male colonists. Moreover, the Portuguese male colonists are credited with laying the nation’s foundations, both physically and sexually. This view of Brazilian colonial history reflects the ways in which crosscutting axes of race, gender, class, and sexuality positioned white men and nonwhite women during both the colonial and postcolonial eras. As mothers of the nation, Afro-Brazilian women occupy a curious position in the contemporary national imaginary. While their biological reproduction of black offspring has traditionally been maligned for blackening the Brazilian population, their role in the reproduction of mestiço or mulatto offspring has been hailed as a credit to individual families, as well as to the nation. Contemporary notions of “cleansing the womb” and “improving the race” through marriage and sexual relations with white or lighter-skinned partners bear witness to the continued salience of the whitening ideology in

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Brazil. Robin Sheriff has noted, “Just as those who are darker may cherish the notion of lightening the family through succeeding generations, so whites and lighter-skinned people of color hope to maintain their ‘white blood’ or continue the lightening process” (, ). As a number of scholars have argued, dominant discourses on national identity have commonly promoted or discouraged reproduction by women from specific racial, ethnic, and class groups based on their status within the nation and the perceived desirability of their offspring as future citizens (Collins ; Grewal and Kaplan ; N. Stepan ; Stolcke ; Stoler ; Yuval-Davis and Anthias ). In the Brazilian case, because emphasis has been placed on the progressive whitening of the population through racial intermixture, Afro-Brazilian women have been offered the opportunity to participate in and serve the nation’s interests through procreation. However, the stark contrast between acceptable and unacceptable reproductive practices underscores the ways in which these practices have been defined in relation to Brazil’s identity as a mestiço nation.

Conceptualizing Mestiço Essentialism While the Brazilian version of racial democracy purports inclusiveness and racial harmony, in many ways it serves to erase racial difference and replace it with homogenizing notions of collective identity. However, it is important to note that the process by which ideals of national homogeneity have been constructed in Brazil differs in marked ways from processes in other nationstates, particularly those where notions of collective national identity have been premised on exclusion. Unlike in countries such as England, where notions of collective identity have been constructed in explicit opposition to groups that are considered to be racial, cultural, and national outsiders, particularly immigrants and former colonial subjects (Gilroy ), Brazilian discourses on racial democracy have been founded on the putative incorporation of diverse racial and ethnic populations. Furthermore, notions of Portuguese miscibility and Luso-tropicalism have supported the belief that Brazil has solved the problem of racism through racial intermixture and biological integration (Freyre ).26 Despite official claims of inclusiveness and integration, Brazilian precepts of national belonging have largely been founded on the suppression of racial and ethnic differences. Since the early twentieth century, Brazilian national identity has been premised on the existence of an ostensibly nonracialized collective identity that encompasses and supersedes all other racial and ethnic affiliations.27 As one white Brazilian woman once told me, race is not an issue in Brazil because all Brazilians are part of the “Brazilian race.” Moreover, popular phrases such as “we are all mixed” and “everyone

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has a black great-grandmother” appeal to the logic of racial democracy by glossing over racial differences. Brazilian constructions of mestiço essentialism share a number of similarities with discourses on national identity in several South American and Caribbean nations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, political and intellectual elites in Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia developed nationalist discourses premised on notions of biological and cultural mixture (mestiçagem/mestizaje);28 these discourses sought to absorb and integrate diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural groups. However, as a number of scholars have noted, Latin American notions of mestizaje can prove problematic when they result in the creation of dominant discourses that privilege mestizo/mestiço identities and censure discussion of racial, cultural, or ethnic difference (Gomes ; Jackson ; Martínez-Echazábal ; Moura ). Lourdes Martínez-Echazábal’s () work offers a useful theoretical and conceptual framework for analyzing mestiço essentialism in the Latin American context. Her work also represents a departure from conceptualizations of racial essentialism that are solely based on notions of racial purity (see Gilroy ). Martínez-Echazábal notes that an “essentialist glorification of mulatoness” has formed the conceptual basis “for the cultural, political, and aesthetic paradigms that have fashioned (Afro-) Latin America’s nationalcultural identity from the turn of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century” (, ). Martínez-Echazábal also notes that Latin American mestizaje discourses have a “pendulum effect” that allows racialized discourse to “oscillate from cultural absolutism to cultural relativism, from the means to a homogenous and naturalized national cultural identity to the site of a heterogeneous postcolonial one” (, ). Her analysis of Latin American notions of mestizaje further suggests that constructions of national identity in the region are largely a “Eurocentric glorification of cultural sameness” (, ). The tensions and paradoxes that characterize Latin American constructions of mestiço essentialism are inextricably tied to racialized notions of difference and inequality. In a number of Latin American countries, including Brazil, the construction of “putative homogeneity” (Williams ) has been premised on the suppression of ethnic and racial heterogeneity. Moreover, in becoming “a trope for the nation” (Martínez-Echazábal ), mestizaje ideologies have largely served to deny ethnic and racial divisions and differences. Mestizaje ideologies have also been central to the cultural logic of racism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite claims of racial harmony, Latin American mestizaje ideologies subject indigenous and Africandescended populations to racialized forms of social discrimination and political disempowerment. A variety of discursive, economic, and political

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mechanisms of racial exclusion and inequality have been clearly identified in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil (Hanchard b, ; Solaún and Kronos ; Stutzman ; Wade ). In Brazil, views of miscegenation as “the sign under which the Brazilian nation was born” (Prado ) have largely foreclosed discussion of racial difference.29 Moreover, the ideal of racial homogeneity that characterizes Brazilian constructions of mestiço national identity has resulted in a hegemonic reading of the nation’s composition in nonracial terms. Antonio Guimarães (b) has argued that emphasis on national identity in Brazil is closely tied to nationalist heterophobia that views racial differences in a negative light and denies their existence. The impact of nationalist heterophobia is particularly acute for Brazilians of indigenous and African ancestry. For both communities, present-day valorization of indigenous and African racial identities is largely seen as a rejection of Brazilianness.30 This is especially true since the construction of Brazilian national identity has been based on the “fable of three races” (fabula das tres raças), which posits the development of the Brazilian nation from constituent African, indigenous, and European elements (da Matta ). However, the process of forming a national amalgam from these three founding races has required a willingness by people of color to repudiate their African and indigenous ancestry in the process of becoming national subjects. While Latin American mestizaje ideologies have largely served to suppress and discursively erase ethnic and racial differences, they have also been complicit with the development and reproduction of new forms of racialism. Moreover, although most formulations of mestizaje have rejected bipolar constructions of race, racialist notions have been central to conceptualizations of whitening in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. As Martínez-Echazábal notes, “the racial and cultural paradigms elaborating on the ideologeme of mestizaje have replaced racial binarism with a third entity resulting from the racial transmutation (read synthesis) of the binarism. The result . . . is a new form of racialized discourse, of racialism, that culturalizes mulatez while continuing to glorify it in essentialized terms” (, ). Viewing the nation as a discursive project opens up the possibility of seeing the processes by which “ ‘imagined communities’ are given essentialist identities,” whether homogenous or hybrid (Bhabha ). In the case of Brazil, essentialist constructions of mestiço national identity have limited the possibility of valorizing and articulating non-mestiço forms of racial identity and subjectivity. As the next section suggests, the discursive construction of the Brazilian nation as a racial democracy has also had profound implications for the development of counter-discourses on race and progressive antiracism.

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Prospects for (Re)Constructing Progressive Antiracism The concept of mestiço essentialism provides a useful lens for examining the ways in which black activists have struggled to make room for open discussion of race and racism in the Brazilian context. Examining how Brazilian constructions of national identity have facilitated the erasure of racial difference is key to understanding the development of progressive antiracism in Brazil. In many ways, Brazilian discourses on racial democracy and racial hybridity have posed a serious challenge to the development of a strong antiracist movement and black identity politics. The difficulties inherent in progressive antiracist mobilization in Brazil highlight the political implications of developing resistance to racism in national environments that emphasize racial harmony and valorize racial hybridity within official discourses. As the Brazilian case suggests, politicizing race can be extremely difficult when antiracism is central to state ideology and in a context where nonbinary forms of racialism operate.31 Since Brazilian nationalist discourse focuses on color and valorizes racial intermixture, the country is popularly believed to be outside of the domain of racist attitudes and practices. In many ways, the dominant view in Brazil is what Brazilian sociologist Florestan Fernandes has termed “a prejudice against having prejudice” (a). Furthermore, in contrast to the types of open discussions of race that occurred in Brazil during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in recent decades the theme of race has been dealt with in a more hidden and “almost shameful way” (Schwarcz ). During most of the twentieth century, autonomous black organizations either faced white indifference or were condemned as threats to social harmony and national unity.32 The Brazilian system of race relations has traditionally maintained white privilege by effectively subverting attempts at racially based political action. Throughout the twentieth century, the Brazilian state consistently used the issue of national unity as a way of depoliticizing race and racial contestation. The Frente Negra Brasileira (FNB or Black Brazilian Front) was the most significant Afro-Brazilian organization of the s and s. However, the Black Brazilian Front was repressed by the corporatist dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in , when all popular organizations were banned by the federal government. Despite repression of the Black Brazilian Front and other popular organizations, notions of racial democracy flourished under the Vargas dictatorship (–). The Vargas dictatorship involved a nearly complete convergence of the nation and the state, “with the state organizing popular organization and reinforcing nationalist loyalty through corporatist institutional design” (Marx , ). The corporatist philosophy of the Vargas regime was also amenable to a view of the nation as a racial democracy that included and incorporated

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everyone. In this regard, the state was seen as the provider “for all, of any color, according to corporatist categories that did not include race” (Marx , ). Ultimately, however, this version of populist cultural nationalism foregrounded cultural unity based on racial democracy and silenced dissident voices for the good of the nation.33 Antiracist mobilization was curtailed in Brazil from the demise of the Black Brazilian Front in the late s until the late s. During the period of military dictatorship, between  and , open discussion of race was severely censured and denounced as politically subversive. The Brazilian military’s silencing of racial discourse has been described as “antiracist racism” (Winant ) since attempts to mobilize around racial issues were considered to be evidence that Afro-Brazilians held racist attitudes and were attempting to practice racismo à avessas (reverse racism). Leading military figures also accused the Brazilian left of colluding with the press and foreign entities to create dissatisfaction with the regime by encouraging discussion of racism (Azevedo ). Moreover, given the absence of political democracy during this period, the military dictatorship was heavily invested in promoting the notion that Brazil was a democracy racially, if not in other ways. While limited, the success of antiracist mobilization since the mid s contrasts sharply with the relative absence of mobilization during the military dictatorship. The process of political liberalization that began in  generated increased space for the establishment of oppositional social movements, including a new generation of black organizations. The founding of the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU or United Black Movement) in  was central to the politicization of race and racial consciousness that occurred during the democratic opening (Fontaine , a; Winant ). Although race continued to be a highly contested issue during the s and s, the reemergence of civil society during the s facilitated debate over the meaning of race by providing a social climate that was more amenable to the articulation of oppositional racial discourses. Black activists have been leading opponents of Brazil’s fluid system of racial classification. Activists in the black movement have argued that the high regard given to miscegenation in Brazilian discourses on race, culture, and politics has undermined the valorization of distinctive and resistant black identities. Since the s, black activists have challenged the ideology of racial democracy by underscoring long-standing patterns of racially based discrimination and stratification. Due to local, regional, and national efforts by black movement organizations, commonsense understandings of race have increasingly been contested and problematized (Hanchard b; Nobles ). Large-scale public efforts by black activists during the late s and s include opposition to the official commemorations of the centennial

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anniversary of abolition in , a campaign for racial self-identification in the  census, and the  commemorations of the death of Zumbi, the leader of Palmares.34 In all three cases, members of the black movement attempted to develop and implement antiracist discourses and practices that challenged the ideological hegemony of racial democracy. These initiatives highlight the formation of counter-discourses that call for public acknowledgement of racism and the valorization of blackness, in contrast to official discourses and practices that uphold the whitening ideal by promoting mestiço essentialism. A campaign, “Não deixe sua cor passar em branco, respona com bom c/senso” (Don’t let your color pass into white, respond with good census/sense), was organized by black activists and several leading nongovernmental organizations before and during the  census. The campaign was designed to encourage Brazilians of African ancestry to identify with darker color categories on the census. The  census offered branco (white), pardo (mixed/ brown), preto (black), indio (indigenous), and amarelo (yellow) as possible categories of identification. However, with the exception of indio, all of the census categories referenced color, rather than race. The title of the campaign had a double meaning: it used the popular phrase “passar em branco” (pass into white), which means to let something go unnoticed or unaccounted for; it also described a critical view of the process of “passing into white” that had allegedly been taking place in the collection of official statistics. Activists in the black movement had long argued that social pressure to whiten caused Brazilians to self-identify with lighter color categories when responding to census questions. Organizers of the  census campaign encouraged Brazilians to reverse the whitening trend by darkening their color. The campaign urged Brazilians of mixed racial descent to identify as pardo, rather than as branco, and encouraged darker-skinned individuals to identify as preto instead of pardo.35 The campaign organizers had two main objectives: to raise racial consciousness by encouraging identification with blackness and to obtain more accurate statistics about the racial composition of the Brazilian population. While the  campaign targeted Afro-Brazilians on the micro-level by encouraging critical reflection about issues of racial identity, it also sought to raise discussion about race within Brazilian society at large. By prompting public debate about race and racial identity, the campaign organizers challenged the hegemony of both popular and official discourses that place emphasis on color and valorize whitened forms of self-identification. The campaign also challenged Brazil’s image as a mestiço nation that has whitened over time and called for official recognition of the number of AfroBrazilians in the country.36

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The Brazilian census has played a central role in shaping official and popular views of race in the country. As mentioned earlier, nineteenthcentury views of the Brazilian race problem were largely influenced by the large percentage of black and mixed-race individuals described by the census. During the twentieth century, elite views that the country was whitening were believed to be reflected in the ostensible growth of the branco and pardo categories, and the apparently declining numbers of “pure” blacks (pretos). This alleged process of whitening is open to debate, however. Both scholars and activists have noted the tendency for individuals to “whiten” their identities when responding to census questions (Nobles ; Wood ). While the most recent censuses have classified over  percent of the Brazilian population as branco,37 activists in the black movement commonly argue that this figure is inflated and contend that Brazil has the second largest population of African descent in the world, with the African nation of Nigeria having the largest. During the late s, antiracist activists attempted to challenge statistical erasure of the Afro-Brazilian population by calling for replacement of the two census categories used to classify people of African descent: pardo and preto. Activists proposed replacing the current color category preto with negro and including the subcategory afro-descendente (African descendent) under the category pardo. The call for substituting these terms has been defended on both ideological and practical grounds. Advocates of this terminological shift have argued that the terms pardo and preto are outdated since they are rarely used as forms of self-identification by Afro-Brazilians. Activists have also noted that the terms afro-descendente and negro reference race rather than color. While the term afro-descendente is not used by most Brazilians, it has been proposed by some antiracist activists because it reflects greater acknowledgement and valorization of African ancestry. Antiracist activists have also proposed the term negro as a suitable and necessary replacement for preto due to its increasing usage in both popular and political discourses, and because, while preto and negro both mean “black,” preto is typically used to describe things, rather than people. Concern with redefining these categories has been motivated by a belief that their redefinition will provide a more accurate measure of the size of the black population and provide a statistical rationale for the development of public policies and programs that address racial inequalities.38 Black activists’ efforts to intervene in official practices relating to racial classification and counting have brought questions of racial identity and racial self-identification to the fore of public discourse in Brazil. Initiatives by antiracist activists highlight the importance of challenging official practices of classifying race and quantifying racialized bodies. Activism focused

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on the Brazilian census has sought to create conditions for future social transformation by developing a means of assessing the true size of the black population. By challenging popular acceptance of whitening, antiracist activists have also created a space for the introduction of counter-discourses on race that valorize African ancestry and identification with blackness. These initiatives resonate with Howard Winant’s conceptualization of racial projects as simultaneously being “an explanation of racial dynamics and an effort to reorganize the social structure along particular racial lines” (, ). As Winant has noted, racial projects have discursive or cultural as well as political dimensions since they attempt to influence racial signification and identity formation and seek to change the organization and distribution of power, wealth, and resources. Antiracist activists have sought to reverse the dominant racial logic which foregrounds whitening and hybridity by showing how “black” Brazil is. Moreover, while the battle over Brazilian racial categories has largely been waged discursively, it has important implications in terms of material inequalities and the distribution of wealth, resources, and power. Since the Brazilian state has traditionally overseen when and how race has been included in national censuses, the move to redefine census categories in response to pressure from black activists during the s was unprecedented. By challenging official state practices of color identification and the erasure of blackness, antiracist activists contributed to the development of a significant counter-discourse on race and racial identity.

Conclusion Dominant notions of racial hybridity and racial democracy have constructed an image of Brazil as simultaneously and paradoxically being composed of color groups, rather than races, and being a predominantly white country. The pervasiveness of the whitening ideology in Brazilian constructions of mestiço national identity has meant that blackness and African ancestry are accepted on conditional terms and primarily as a means to achieve the goal of a whiter nation. Moreover, while conceptualizations of Brazil as a racial democracy recognize the contributions of Africans and Afro-Brazilians to the Brazilian nation, their presence and value is largely viewed in historical, rather than contemporary, terms. The symbolic confinement of Afro-Brazilians to the nation’s past is common in Freyrian and neo-Freyrian interpretations of colonial history that valorize the Afro-Brazilian contribution to national formation during the slave era. Vernacular discourses on Brazilian identity echo these beliefs, as evidenced in the “foot in the kitchen” statement made by President Cardoso in .

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Brazil also provides a complex and telling example of how Boasian notions of race and culture were adopted in the construction of an official nationalist discourse during the twentieth century. Freyre’s use of Boasian anthropology has had far-reaching implications for the process of Brazilian nation building, as well for the development of progressive antiracism. Boasian notions of race and culture are perhaps most evident in Freyre’s rejection of eugenic notions of racial purity and his attempts to undertake an environmental and cultural analysis of Brazilian history and social relations (Wagley ). While this approach allowed Freyre to critique the racism of many of his contemporaries, in later decades his interpretation of Brazilian identity became an official form of antiracism that was closely associated with authoritarian governments and attempts to silence discussion of race and racism. The reactionary nature of official antiracism in Brazil is illustrated by the fact that the Vargas regime (–) and the military dictatorship (–) both appropriated the ideology of racial democracy in an effort to promote national unity and contain progressive antiracism. Analyzing the relationship between race and national identity in Brazil underscores the importance of examining forms of racial essentialism that foreground hybridity, rather than purity. The conceptualization of mestiço essentialism proposed in this chapter suggests that impure or hybrid forms of racial essentialism can and, indeed, do exist. Along similar lines Peter Wade has noted that “it is vital to see that mixture does not undo racial essentialisms per se. Ideas of racial mixture cannot, in themselves, be set against racial absolutism, because they always recreate the images of racial origins which supply the basis for racist essentialisms” (, ).

2 Women in and out of Place Engendering Brazil’s Racial Democracy Branca para se casar

A white woman to marry

Mulata para fornicar

A mulata woman to fornicate

Preta para cozinhar

A black woman to cook

—Gilberto Freyre, Casa Grande & Senzala

This nineteenth-century Brazilian adage encapsulates dominant configura-

tions of race, color, gender, and sexuality.1 It also demonstrates the gendered

dimensions of a Brazilian pigmentocracy in which “social hierarchy is primarily based on skin color” (Jackson , ). In three short lines, this popular saying describes and ascribes the social identities of white, mulata, and black women. Each phrase maps out the coordinates of socially constructed norms of femininity and their relationships to color and race. Women of each color category are placed in social roles that cannot be altered, exchanged, or escaped. While white women are assigned to the realm of legitimate and honorable sexuality in their roles as wives and acceptable marriage partners, mulata women are associated with illegitimate and dishonorable sexual practices. No mention of the sexuality of black women is made, however. Instead, they are associated with domestic service and labor. While white men are not explicitly described in the preceding adage, their relationship to each category of women is implied. Since the social identities described are largely relational, white men fulfill roles as the husbands of white women, the lovers of mulata women, and the employers of black women. This suggests that Brazilian constructions of female gender identity are closely tied to women’s potential relationships to white men and racial patriarchy.2 The notion that only white women can be suitable marriage partners indicates the ways in which commonsense understandings of race and color have influenced dominant constructions of gender in Brazil. Largely due 50

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to their privileged relationship to patriarchy and racial hegemony, white women have become the reference point for idealized constructions of womanhood and female gender identity. The idealization of white women as the standard of femininity and female beauty is glaringly obvious in the Brazilian media, including films, television shows, and magazines.3 Moreover, the pervasiveness of Nordic images of blonde-haired women in the fashion and entertainment industry stands in sharp contrast to Brazil’s national selfimage as a mestiço racial democracy and underscores the gendered implications of Brazilian constructions of race and national identity. The connection between whiteness and womanhood also points to the existence of hierarchical constructions of female gender identity. While dominant configurations of femininity and womanhood are associated with whiteness, subaltern forms of femininity and womanhood are associated with an absence of whiteness. As a consequence, it can be argued that black women have to “whiten” in order to approximate dominant constructions of female gender identity (Corrêa ). Color- and race-based hierarchization within Brazilian constructions of female gender identity also centers on distinctions between Afro-Brazilian women of different colors. In many ways, color functions as the primary means of differentiating between Afro-Brazilian women and determining their place within Brazilian society today—much like the distinctions that were made between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned black women during the colonial era (Lauderdale Graham ). In contemporary Brazil phenotype is often used as the basis for occupational and other status-based distinctions (Castro ; Giacomini , ). Skin color serves as the primary determinant of whether Afro-Brazilian women’s social identities are classified in terms of sensuality or associated with physical labor. Since dominant constructions of female gender identity are closely tied to hegemonic views that blackness should be avoided and diluted, Afro-Brazilian women of mixed racial ancestry or with more European physical features are typically considered to be more attractive. In contrast, women of visible African ancestry are typically constructed as nonsexualized, and at times asexual, laborers. As Suely, a twenty-five-year-old college student, observed, “I think that there is not an image of the mulher negra . . . as a woman. You have the image; the negra is a domestic. . . . So, the negra with a standard of beauty similar to the white can be viewed in sexual terms. She might be a domestic, but she is a pretty domestic, gostosa (appealing) . . . with physical features similar to whites . . . a more narrow nose . . . always lighter. . . . This type of woman is viewed as a sexual object, but she enters the scene . . . the negra, of color . . . she does not even enter into the picture here, the sexual [picture].” Suely’s comments highlight the relationship between gender, skin color, and sexuality. She notes that

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Afro-Brazilian women with darker skin are associated with domestic labor, while Afro-Brazilian women who approximate a white standard of beauty are viewed in more sensual and sexual terms. This chapter uses the concept of social identities to examine how Afro-Brazilian women are interpellated by dominant discourses on race, gender, and sexuality and how these processes constitute their subjectivities externally (Althusser ). Social identities are conceptualized as being the “always already” constituted identities that are ascribed and imputed to Afro-Brazilian women by socially constructed understandings of gender, race, and sexuality. In addition to exploring how Afro-Brazilian women’s social identities are constructed and negotiated, this chapter also develops an analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s social location. While the concept of social location is related to social class, economic class, and status, it is not reducible to any of these categories. Instead, it is conceptualized as a culturally ascribed and sanctioned place within the social order. The concept of social location resonates with everyday notions of lugar (place) in Brazil. My informants’ experiences suggest that commonsense understandings of Afro-Brazilian women’s social location are used to place them regardless of their social class, economic class, or status. Several women described their personal experiences in terms of having or not having a “place” (lugar), “knowing your place” (observe qual que é o seu lugar), and “putting yourself in your place” (põe-se no seu lugar). Along similar lines, anthropologist Roberto da Matta has described the Brazilian system of social classification as one that has “um lugar para cada coisa, cada coisa em seu lugar” (a place for everything, everything in its place) (, ). This chapter explores how the relationship between structure and discourse shapes the social identities and social location, or place, of AfroBrazilian women. My analysis centers on examining the ways in which dominant discourses on gender, race, sexuality, and nation have shaped the Brazilian social structure and class relations. The following questions are central to this discussion: To what extent does Brazilian nationalist discourse resonate with the realities of Brazilian colonial history? What continuities exist between discriminatory social discourses and practices developed during the colonial slave era and those found in contemporary Brazil? To what extent does the ideology of racial democracy elucidate or obscure historical and contemporary processes of racial, gender, and class subordination?

The Place of Black Women in Colonial Brazil The class structure of colonial Brazil was premised on the conflation of race, color, and social status. During the early colonial period, the social status of enslaved Africans was inseparable from their legal and civil status

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as non-free persons. While the gradual growth of a free population of color complicated rigid status demarcations based on race, colonial society continued to be separated by civil (i.e., slave or free) and racial (i.e., white or black) divides. Moreover, during the colonial era, skin color was read as a “symbolic marker of social difference” that was “directly associated with the condition that separated freedom from slavery” (Lara , ). Colonial constructions of gender were closely tied to prevailing understandings of race, color, and social status. As was the case in many other New World plantation societies (see A. Davis ; Stolcke ; White ), dominant notions of femininity and womanhood in colonial Brazil were largely predicated on the subordination of enslaved African and Afro-Brazilian women. While white women, particularly of the upper social strata, were the legitimate wives of plantation owners and often served as the administrators of plantation households, enslaved African and Afro-Brazilian women were largely exempt from colonial norms of womanhood and femininity. Instead, these women were seen and treated primarily in terms of their potential contributions to plantation households and the colonial economy. Sandra Lauderdale Graham’s () study of slavery in nineteenthcentury Rio de Janeiro highlights the significance of gender, color, and civil status. Her analysis suggests that color and status were often “coincident” in colonial Brazil. Color terms such as preta, or black, were used to indicate slave status, and the phrase “senhora de cor” was used to distinguish a black or mulata woman as free. On the other hand, the term for white females implied that such women “had never been and could never have been a slave” (Lauderdale Graham , ). The semantic distinctions between colonial color terms underscore the ways in which the intersection between race and gender had different implications for the life experiences and social locations of white and nonwhite women during slavery. While slavery undoubtedly limited the agency and autonomy of African and Afro-Brazilian women, it also forced them to occupy roles that made them central figures within white households. As mucamas (domestic servants), mães pretas (black mothers or mammies), and amas de leite (wet nurses), African and Afro-Brazilian women carried out duties that ensured the survival and well-being of white families. African and Afro-Brazilian women commonly served as surrogate mothers by taking the place of white women who were either unwilling or unable to breast feed their own children. The importance of wet nurses in colonial Brazil is underscored by historical records, including numerous classified advertisements in nineteenth-century newspapers.4 The role of wet nurses in white households highlights how the bodies of African and Afro-Brazilian women were appropriated by colonial society. In many cases, wet nurses were forced to stop nursing their own infants in

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order to nurse those of their owners or employers (Giacomini ). As a consequence, the biological children of wet nurses were often displaced as their mothers provided sustenance for the children of their owners or employers. The frequency of this practice indicates the extent to which the productive capacities of African and Afro-Brazilian women took precedence over their own maternal responsibilities.5 The sexual exploitation of enslaved African and Afro-Brazilian women further underscores the gendered dimensions of Brazilian colonial history. As prostitutes, concubines, and mistresses, women of African descent fulfilled roles that were central to colonial economic and social relationships. The appropriation of enslaved women’s sexuality was also an integral part of racial and gender common sense during the colonial period. Just as enslaved women’s domestic roles within white households served to buttress ideals of white femininity and womanhood, enslaved women’s sexual service to white men provided the basis for maintaining the virtue of white women (Saffioti ). Since colonial constructions of gender, race, and class placed enslaved women outside of patriarchal definitions of chastity and female virtue, the sexual purity of middle- and upper-class white women was largely made possible by the sexual victimization of African and Afro-Brazilian women. While white senhoras were accorded the privileges and protection afforded by their relationships to white men and patriarchy, enslaved women were given neither privilege nor protection. Instead, they were at the mercy of colonial practices of racial and gender domination. Historical records suggest the extent to which chastity, honor, and virtue were reserved for white women in colonial Brazil. An article in the abolitionist journal O Americano (the American) published in  stated: “A female slave is obligated to cede to the libidinous desires of her master in order to not be exposed . . . to all types of torture. She is not able to guard the honor of her daughter, if she has one, nor her own against the attempts of her powerful master. A slave is not able to complain about the infidelity of his wife and retaliate against her seducer” (qtd. in Giacomini , ). This excerpt points to the limited amount of agency afforded enslaved women. The writer describes white men’s desires toward their female slaves as “libidinous” and suggests that attempts to resist such desires were met with severe forms of punishment. Generational patterns of sexual exploitation are also highlighted. The passage describes slave mothers’ inability to protect their daughters from the sexual violence that was often perpetrated by slave owners. Finally, by describing the constraints imposed upon enslaved men in their attempts to protect and defend the virtue of their wives and female companions, the author underscores the impact of sexual relationships between masters and slaves on the domestic life of enslaved men and women.6

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Controlling Images in Nationalist Discourse While the previous chapter explored the racial dimensions of Brazilian nationalist discourse, this chapter seeks to elucidate the gendered implications of racial democracy. Given Gilberto Freyre’s role as the primary architect of the ideology of racial democracy, my analysis explores how Freyre’s writings have forged links between gender, race, and nation in the Brazilian social imaginary. While, in many ways, Freyre’s analysis of Brazilian colonial history acknowledged the oppressive conditions that characterized slavery, it also granted African and Afro-Brazilian women the dubious distinction of being immortalized as domestic servants and sexual objects in nationalist discourse. Moreover, by naturalizing the association of Afro-Brazilian womanhood with manual labor and sexuality, much of Freyre’s work legitimized and sanctioned historical patterns of sexual exploitation and economic domination. In the Freyrian version of Brazilian colonial history, sexual interaction between European men and non-European women was cast as the basis of Brazilian sexual libertinism and racial democracy. This reading of Brazilian history depicted the sexual proclivities of European and Euro-Brazilian men as unproblematic and beneficial contributions to the construction of Brazilian society. Rather than being viewed as the by-product of asymmetrical gender and racial interaction, racial intermixture and sexual license have been regarded as natural and unavoidable aspects of the colonial encounter. As a result, the sexual objectification of African and Afro-Brazilian women has been naturalized and their subordination has been discursively erased. Much of Freyre’s work argued that the most positive values of African cultures were transmitted to the Portuguese colonists as a result of African women’s service in plantation households. Freyre’s description of colonial society also naturalized the laboring capacities of African and Afro-Brazilian women. In his discussion of amas de leite, Freyre cited a nineteenth-century medical manual that argued for the use of black women as wet nurses since they were purported to have a “power of breast nourishment that the same region generally refuses to white women” (, ). While noting that such beliefs were premised on the notion that African and Afro-Brazilian women were more suited to life in the tropics, Freyre stated that they held some degree of truth, for “when it comes to a wet-nurse there is none like a Negro woman” (, ). Along similar lines, Freyre lauded the sexual appeal of African and Afro-Brazilian women by stating, “In Brazil, cases are known where white men not only prefer Negro women but are incapable of enjoying themselves with any other” (, ). In many ways, Freyre’s reading of colonial history naturalized the sexual and economic exploitation of black women by suggesting that they were “superior” to white women, both physically and sexually.

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As I noted in the previous chapter’s discussion of mestiço essentialism, women of African descent have been assigned a paradoxical status as mothers of the nation in Brazilian nationalist discourse. Hegemonic readings of Brazilian colonial history also suggest that women of African descent have been essential to the nation’s formation because their labor has ensured the well-being and survival of the white population. The following excerpt from Freyre’s The Masters and the Slaves provides a poignant description of the centrality of African and Afro-Brazilian women in white households: “The female slave or ‘mammy’ who rocked us to sleep. Who suckled us. Who fed us, mashing our food with her own hands. The influence of the old woman who told us our first tales of the ghost or bicho (animal). Of the mulatto girl who relieved us of our first bicho de pé (a type of flea), of a pruriency that was so enjoyable. Who initiated us into love and, to the creaking of the canvas cot, gave us our first complete sensation of being a man” (Freyre , ). Freyre’s comments center on the physical and sexual needs of a collective male subject identified as “us.” This poignant description suggests that, although The Masters and the Slaves is ostensibly a historical text describing the formation of the Brazilian nation, it is essentially the social and cultural genealogy of elite white males.7 The conflation of the term “us” with elite white males in The Masters and the Slaves also raises important questions related to gender, race, and national identity in Brazil: First, if the quintessential subject of national belonging is a white male, how has Brazilian nationalist discourse influenced the construction of Afro-Brazilian women’s social identities? Second, to what extent are power, privilege, and citizenship constructed and lived in gendered and racialized ways in contemporary Brazil? Afro-Brazilian women’s status vis-à-vis Brazilian nationalist discourse and normative notions of citizenship is vividly illustrated in The Masters and the Slaves. The representation of colonial society found in this master narrative places Afro-Brazilian women into two categories: the domestic servant and the sensuous mulata. In both cases, Afro-Brazilian women are portrayed in service roles to whites. Furthermore, in the Freyrian view of colonial society, Afro-Brazilian women are described as playing a central role in the development of white males, from the time they were suckled until they were initiated into lovemaking and their “first complete sensation of being a man.” The positioning of Afro-Brazilian women within this narrative of Brazilian national identity suggests that, whether as domestic laborers or as sexual objects, they have been expected to serve the national interest by fulfilling the desires and needs of the white population, particularly white males. Representations of Afro-Brazilian women in nationalist discourse resonate with Patricia Hill Collins’s () view that controlling images of black

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womanhood form part of a generalized ideology of domination. According to Collins, “controlling images are designed to make racism, sexism, and poverty appear to be natural, normal and an inevitable part of everyday life” (, ). Since the early twentieth century, the Brazilian ideology of racial democracy has played a central role in shaping Brazilian discourses on race as well as official and popular discourses on gender. As both a gendered and racialized discourse on national identity and national belonging, racial democracy has also shaped commonsense understandings of Afro-Brazilian women’s proper social location. In their attempts to re-imagine Brazil as a mestiço nation, nationalist ideologues, such as Freyre, have interpreted Brazilian history in highly gendered terms. Representations of Afro-Brazilian women in Brazilian nationalist discourse have also played a central role in constructing the social identities of Afro-Brazilian women through the naturalization of colonial practices of racial and gender domination. As the Freyrian version of Brazilian history suggests, Afro-Brazilian women have been more closely associated with the slaves, and thus with the realm of service and subordination, than with the masters. A similar division between service/subordination and power/privilege has persisted in contemporary Brazil, both discursively and structurally. Brazilian nationalist discourse has been a central means of reproducing dominant social divisions such that they have become fundamental to gender and racial common sense. In contemporary Brazil, it is socially expected and accepted that Afro-Brazilian women will be servants, sexual objects, or social subordinates.8 These dominant social expectations regarding the proper place of Afro-Brazilian women are key to understanding how dominant discourses on gender, race, class, and nation have constructed their social identities.

Ambiguous Representations of Mulata Subjectivity While images of the mulata as the embodiment of Brazilian national identity crystallized during the early decades of the twentieth century, sensualized images of mulata women have been prominent themes in Brazilian literature, folklore, and popular music since the colonial era. Male writers and artists have described the ideal or typical mulata as a woman who is irresistibly attractive, musically talented, and extremely sensual. The seventeenthcentury writer Gregorio de Matos was the first to present images of mulata women in Brazilian literature. While he commended the culinary habits, beauty, and sensuality of mulata women, de Matos also denounced their presumed lack of morality and irresponsibility. Since the early twentieth century, the beauty and sensuality of mulata women have been common themes in carnival music. A  carnival song

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titled “Who Invented the Mulata?” expressed popular fascination with women of mixed racial ancestry. The lyrics stated: If there were not a mulata It would be necessary to invent one Whoever invented her well deserved A throne, a scepter, an altar (qtd. in Queiroz , )

While the lyrics to this song were probably written with playful intentions, they point to more serious issues regarding the social invention or construction of a mulata social identity in Brazil. The statement, “If there were not a mulata, it would be necessary to invent one,” raises provocative questions regarding the importance of the mulata in Brazil: What symbolic and structural roles does the mulata fulfill within Brazilian society? What do popular representations of the mulata reveal about dominant configurations of race and gender? Popular images of Brazil as a carnivalesque, tropical paradise have played a central role in contemporary constructions of mulata women’s social identities. Brazil’s international reputation as a racial democracy devoted to the pursuit of sensual pleasures is closely tied to the sexual objectification of women of mixed racial ancestry as the essence of Brazilianness. During the twentieth century, mulata women achieved a singular status in Brazil as the embodiment of national identity and racial democracy. As the product of Brazil’s infamous mestiçagem, the mulata is popularly regarded as visible proof that Brazil is a nonracist society. Largely due to their mixed racial ancestry and presumably inherent physical attractiveness and sensuality, mulata women are thought to represent what is most authentically Brazilian (Giacomini ). However, as recent scholarship suggests, dominant representations of mulata subjectivity highlight the contradictions of Brazilian racial discourses.9 As Mariza Corrêa () argues, the mulata occupies a fixed racial status, between the poles of whiteness and blackness, that subverts notions of a fluid color continuum in Brazil. Exploring differences in the cultural representations of white, black, and mulata women is essential to uncovering and demystifying the gendered implications of race and nation in Brazil. While both white and mulata women are idealized in Brazil, they are idealized in different ways and for different reasons. Moreover, idealizations of white women as the standard of female beauty and femininity stand in sharp contrast to idealizations of mulatas as sexually provocative and seductive. I would further argue that the ostensible veneration of mulatas incorporates negative views of African sensuality that have been central to Western constructions of self and “other.”

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The potency of cultural representations of mulata women is evident in the existence of the mulata as a professional category. While for many Brazilian and foreign men the mulata is regarded as an object to be possessed and obtained, the mulata is often viewed as a feminine ideal to which many Brazilian young women aspire. Young women often seek employment as professional mulatas because it provides an alternative to occupations with lower status and lower pay. Brown and black women between the ages of twenty and twenty-five are recruited to work as professional mulatas in nightclubs in Rio de Janeiro and for shows that travel abroad, such as Osvaldo Sargentelli’s world-famous “Ôba, Ôba” samba revue. In , an article in the Jornal do Brasil described the typical profile of a professional mulata in the following terms: “Flower of the Brazilian skin, they dance, sing, shake their hips—some showing bare breasts, others the behind. Earning , to , cruzados per show, they exhibit one of the most coveted products of the national PIB (Internal Brute Product),10 escaping marginalization. What did the future have in store for these young women? The house of the madam, the sinhá giving orders in the kitchen while she worked and the ioió would enter into her maid’s quarters to experience love for the first time. Dancing, they are free from all of this.”11 This excerpt highlights the limited social and economic opportunities available to black and mixed-race women in Brazil. Although this article was published during the centennial anniversary of Brazilian abolition, the continuation of colonial practices of economic exploitation can clearly be seen in the journalist’s commentary. By using the terms sinhá (young slave mistress) and ioió (young slave master), the article makes clear references to slavery. Both terms were developed during the slave era and used in reference to members of the slaveholding class. By employing these terms, the article underscores the ways in which practices of gender and racial domination established under slavery have persisted in contemporary practices of hiring domestic servants. In comparison to work in domestic service, the occupation of professional mulata provides young women with considerably higher compensation and a visible status as performers in the tourism and entertainment industries. However, as the newspaper article notes, women are often caught between these two worlds. Consequently, when work as a professional mulata is unavailable, young women are often forced to seek work as domestics. Mulata dance shows are one of few social spaces where black women and women of mixed racial ancestry are given preference over white women.12 Popular images of the sensuality of mulata women are translated into a highly profitable tourist attraction during these dance shows. As Sonia Giacomini has observed, “the professional mulata is distinguished from the mulata tout court principally by the ability—talent—to ‘show what it is to be

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a mulata,’ or in other words, knowing how to exercise a power of seduction over the public” (, ). Skin color, body shape, and the ability to samba are all part of the required “moral physiognomy” (Giacomini ) of a professional mulata. Popular views of the mulata regard brown and black skin as markers of inherent musicality and seductive power. The possession of Africanized physical features, particularly the size and shape of the hips and buttocks, is also central to the sexual appeal of mulata women. In many ways, images of mulata women in Brazilian social thought, literature, and popular culture reveal the ambivalence and complexity of Brazilian constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. Popular images of mulata women mask a complicated configuration of social oppression and sexual desire. Despite popular notions of mulata hypersexuality, an increasing number of activists and scholars have argued that such images have been used to legitimate white male attraction to and sexual exploitation of nonwhite women (Giacomini , ; Gilliam ; Goldstein , ; Gonzalez ). Since the colonial era, images of the hypersexuality and sensuality of African and Afro-Brazilian women have served a “justifying function” (Giacomini ) in Brazil. Just as notions of the hypersexuality of enslaved women legitimized their sexual exploitation during the colonial era, images of mulata sensuality have been used to justify contemporary practices of sexual objectification and cultural marketing. By portraying Afro-Brazilian women as seductresses and sexual aggressors, dominant configurations of race, gender, and sexuality suggest that white men have historically entered into interracial sexual relationships unwittingly and unwillingly. Representations of Afro-Brazilian women as sexual aggressors also imply that they have held whatever power and influence are necessary to sexually control and victimize white men, rather than the reverse being true. Dominant notions of the hypersexuality of mulata women also obscure the relationship between seduction and consumption in contemporary Brazil. Mulata dance shows largely center on the visual consumption of mulata bodies by foreign men. In recent decades, the mulata has gone from being a source of national pride to being both an export item and source of tourist revenue. The role of sensualized images of the mulata in the international sex trade is underscored by the fact that the term mulata has become synonymous with prostitute for many European men who travel to Brazil for the purpose of sexual tourism.13 The professional category of mulata epitomizes Brazil’s appeal as a racial-sexual paradise while obscuring the pervasiveness of transnational cultural and economic practices premised on sexual objectification and racialized exotification (S. Corrêa ; Dias Filho ; Gilliam ; Piscitelli ). By participating in transnational processes of consumption and exchange, contemporary practices of sexual tourism

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reproduce the notion of a “mulata woman to fornicate” in international arenas.14 Donna Goldstein’s rich and nuanced (, ) ethnographic work highlights the ways in which the image of the seductive mulata is utilized by domestic workers in the Felicidade Eterna shantytown of Rio de Janeiro. Goldstein explores the racial, class, and sexual politics shaping interaction between black domestics and their white male employers. As she notes, seducing a coroa (a wealthy, older white man) is used as a strategy for achieving temporary material gains or long-term mobility by poor women working as domestics. Her informants’ tales of seducing coroas highlight the limited economic opportunities available to poor black women in Rio, as well as the ways in which dominant notions of black women’s sexuality inform what Goldstein terms “survivalist sexual strategies” (, ). For women in the shantytown of Felidade Eterna, stories of seducing coroas encapsulate complex notions of gender, race, class, and sexual desirability. Goldstein’s reflections on her informants’ tales of seduction are worth quoting at length: “The coroa’s whiteness, wealth, and class can make him attractive in spite of his age, and the seductress’s darkness can make her attractive in spite of her race and poverty. Black female sexuality is valorized and considered erotic because it is suspended in a web of power relations that make it available in a particular way. Blackness becomes valuable only in specific situations where sexual commodification is the operational framework. Thus, the coroa story, in addition to reflecting an element of unequal gender exchange, also seems to reflect unequal racialized patterns of sexual exchange” (Goldstein , ). Goldstein’s analysis challenges Freyre’s depiction of Brazil as a “color blind erotic democracy” (Goldstein , ). She notes that physical characteristics associated with black bodies that are normally devalued and considered ugly “can in the context of commodified sexuality be eroticized and valorized” (, ). Goldstein further notes that the power inequalities shaping sexual commodification commonly go unrecognized, since the eroticization and valorization of black female sexuality are often seen as proof of liberal racial attitudes in Brazil. In contrast to popular views of interracial sex, Goldstein suggests that problematic racial attitudes are embedded in relationships between poor black women and wealthy white coroas. She notes, “The seduction of the coroa is clearly a gendered, racialized, and sexualized popular vision of social mobility, but it is also a story of mistresshood and potential abuse. . . . In Brazil, it is widely believed that miscegenation and racism are contradictory, yet it is precisely their superficially uncomplicated coexistence that is part of Brazil’s uniqueness” (, ).

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Mulata, Marrom Bombom, or Negra? Several of my informants described personal experiences of negotiating the social significance of being viewed as a mulata or some other highly sensualized version of Afro-Brazilian female identity. Nadia, a twenty-one-year-old college student, described her view of self-identifying as mulata in the following way: I did not like the term mulata because it is always associated with the carnivalesque . . . parties, a lot of decoration, that sort of negative thing, nakedness. . . . So, because of this, even though I had heard people call me [mulata], . . . they said that I had a mulata color, that I was mulata . . . but I did not particularly like this . . . to classify myself as mulata. I preferred to think that I was morena (brown). But not because of color, because I thought that the color was the same. The color mulata and morena were the same thing. But for me the mulata had a negative meaning that was tied to carnaval . . . sensuality. . . . So, for me, this was a very strong term. But it depends a lot . . . the term morena also depends on who is speaking. Whatever colocação (placement) that involves ethnicity,15 and that involves other things, depends a lot on who is speaking and the sense in which the person is speaking, the context in which the person is speaking. So, if a guy is messing with you in the street and says, “Ô mulata!” (Hey mulata!) it means that he is saying that you are gostosa.

Nadia’s narrative highlights her rejection of the term mulata. Instead of embracing dominant notions of mulata subjectivity, she preferred to self-identify and to be identified as morena. While noting that morena and mulata are basically synonymous in terms of color, Nadia resisted the sensual and “carnivalesque” connotations of being classified as mulata.16 Her comments indicate that she objected to the social expectations of sensual behavior that were associated with being a mulata. Nadia’s narrative also suggests that the terms morena and mulata are highly connotative on linguistic, semantic, and discursive levels. While she states that both terms are equivalent in terms of referencing color, she notes that the term morena is not as sexually loaded as mulata. Her analysis of the use of these terms also indicates that their significance is contextually dependent. How a woman is “placed” (colocada) by these terms is determined by who uses them, when, where, and how. Her example of being called a mulata by a man in the street highlights commonsense beliefs that mulata women are sexually attractive and desirable. As a result, Nadia suggests that the phrase “Ô mulata!” can be regarded as a vernacular expression meaning that a woman is “tasty” or sexually appealing.

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In the following passage, Mariza, a thirty-two-year-old activist in the women’s movement, black movement, and black women’s movement, describes processes of racial and gender identity formation in Brazil. She observes, “We live with a politics of whitening, principally here in Brazil. So, we are always moreninho [little brown one]. Mothers rub olive oil on our noses to make them less broad. And your mother always says, ‘You are not preto, you are moreninho.’ You never want to identify with the Negro, because the Negro is the one who is ugly, dirty, and the one who works as a domestic.” Mariza notes that Afro-Brazilian children are socialized to identify as moreninho, rather than as preto or negro. Her comments suggest that the positive significance of color terms such as moreninho is largely determined by dominant views of blackness. She notes that reluctance to identify with the negro is influenced by the fact that blackness is normatively associated with being unattractive, unclean, and socially subordinate. Describing her own process of identifying as afro-brasileira (AfroBrazilian) after previously identifying as marrom bombom (brown bonbon), Mariza notes: After a few years you begin to grow up and to stand out as a morena bonita (pretty brown woman), mulata gostosa (desirable mulata), and so forth. And this ends up perpetuating itself in the culture, especially in popular culture. . . . When I was twenty-five years old there was a song out that described morenas as “marrom bombom.” It was very successful. And you end up thinking that you are a marrom bombom. So, you think that you are not negra. . . . Marrom bombom is our color. It is the lightest chocolate. It is a chocolate that is mixed with milk. It ends up being that very pale color. This is what marrom bombom is. So, you begin to read, to research, to read political material, etc. And you begin to discover that you are not marrom bombom. You are afro-brasileira and morena or mulata in terms of color.

Mariza’s narrative makes a clear distinction between ancestry (afrobrasileira) and color or appearance (morena, mulata). Her comments also suggest that the desire to dis-identify as negra takes on sexualized dimensions as young girls enter adolescence. As she notes, identifying as a morena bonita or a mulata gostosa provides adolescent girls with a sexually desirable identity that is valorized by Brazilian discourses on gender and sexuality. The sensual and sexual implications of associating chocolate candy with brown-skinned women are also significant. While providing a seemingly positive and complimentary basis for identity, referring to women as chocolate bonbons illustrates culturally sanctioned practices of sexual objectification. Mariza’s comments suggest that marrom bombom offered an appealing form of identity to young women who fell within the “mixed”

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racial zone phenotypically. While these women may not have been able to identify as mulatas, the notion of marrom bombom provided an alternative way of being sexually desirable and sensual. The term marrom bombom also points to the existence of a hierarchy between women who are considered to be as “tasty” as bonbons and those who are not. Mariza’s narrative suggests that being viewed as a chocolate bonbon was infinitely more appealing that being identified as negra. Much like the term mulata gostosa, marrom bombom underscores the connection between food and sexuality in Brazil. The Portuguese term comer (to eat) is a vernacular expression used to refer to sexual intercourse. As one scholar has noted, “The imagery of food and eating becomes a way of speaking about erotic attraction and sexual satisfaction” (Parker , , ). Another informant commented on the implications of adopting marrom bombom as a personal identity, stating, “People begin to rationalize marrom bombom. They place themselves in terms of the bombom because it is gostosa . . . prazerosa (pleasurable). So, if you have a marrom bombom color you can be tied to—as far as being negro or mestiço or whatever—something that is good, something that is preferred.” Simone, a travel agent in her early thirties, described the complexities of negotiating sexualized images of Afro-Brazilian women, particularly those associated with mulata subjectivity, in the workplace. After being hired at what she described as a “Korean-owned” travel agency in São Paulo,17 Simone was constantly forced to deal with sexual advances from her supervisor. During our interview, she expressed her belief that her supervisor viewed her as a mulata and thus expected her to respond positively to his sexual advances. Over the course of several years, Simone continued to face stereotypical views of her as a mulata while attempting to prove her professional competence as a travel agent. Although she felt that her efforts to function as a professional were successful and that she was now “respected,” she expressed concern about how similar situations might affect other women. As she notes, “I was already twenty-eight years old, an adult woman. But a young girl, an adolescent who is looking for employment, who is placed in this situation, I don’t know how she would deal with it. And she might deal with it by thinking that it is part of the game of working life. . . . Because we as black women are still considered to be sexual objects.” During the interview, Simone’s friend Dulce mentioned that Simone’s resistance to her supervisor’s sexual advances caused him to change. After noting that she and her supervisor participated in a “guerra infernal” (infernal war) against one another, Simone observed, “Today this person is an ally. . . . He made a very interesting advance. Today he is an ally in terms of the questão racial (racial question), in the struggle against racism This took three years, but valeu (was worth it).” After hearing this statement, Dulce

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remarked that she was going take the same steps as Simone and carry out a “lavagem cerebral” (brainwashing) on individuals who held attitudes similar to those of Simone’s supervisor. Simone’s experience is noteworthy because it highlights her resistance to social identification as a mulata. Although her supervisor viewed her through the lens of mulata subjectivity, Simone did not self-identify in this way. Instead, she made a concerted effort to develop her professional expertise. Ultimately, however, her employment experience was profoundly shaped by hypersexualized representations of women who, like Simone, share the phenotypical characteristics associated with mulata subjectivity .

Structural and Discursive Dimensions of “Good Appearance” During my interview with Simone, I asked her if she thought her supervisor pursued her sexually because she had boa aparência (good appearance). Simone responded by saying that she did not qualify as having boa aparência, noting, “I am not within boa aparência. Boa aparência is being blonde, with light eyes.” Her description highlights an important contrast between mulata subjectivity and Brazilian notions of “good appearance.” While Simone was interpellated as a mulata by dominant discourses on race and gender, she did not qualify as having good appearance. As the discussion that follows suggests, the notion of good appearance is most closely associated with women who have European phenotypes. Commonsense understandings of good appearance merit critical analysis given their centrality in shaping Afro-Brazilian women’s occupational experiences. The notion of boa aparência has traditionally been used to exclude Afro-Brazilian women from certain types of work. Classified advertisements in Brazilian newspapers frequently list boa aparência as a job requirement. While such advertisements do not openly state that only white or lighterskinned women are qualified to hold these positions, the implicit message is that women without good or white appearance should not seek employment in certain professions. Popular understandings of what constitutes good appearance are closely correlated with European standards of feminine beauty and dominant constructions of female gender identity. Physical attributes such as hair texture and skin color are fundamental to the notion of good appearance. The racialization of dominant aesthetic standards is demonstrated by the fact that physical features associated with African ancestry are viewed as inferior, unattractive, and normatively “bad.” Mariza’s earlier comments regarding the negative image of blacks in Brazil (“You never want to identify with the black, because the black is the one who is ugly, dirty, and the one who works as a domestic.”) highlight the negative moral values associated with non-European phenotypes in

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Brazil. Research on the Brazilian job market confirms Mariza’s observations and suggests that the negative moral value associated with blackness has been used both to justify and perpetuate the economic subordination of Afro-Brazilians. Research on employment advertisements in Rio de Janeiro during the s and early s found that the term good appearance gradually replaced more overt references to white workers (Damasceno ). The notion of good appearance was also closely correlated with beliefs that European phenotypes reflected positively valued physical and moral qualities, such as cleanliness, respect, good health, good conduct, trustworthiness, and a calm, happy, and caring disposition. While these qualities were typically associated with lower-status occupations, advertisements for positions with greater status called for candidates who were active, intelligent, energetic, educated or well-bred, and ambitious. In addition, references were often made to qualities, such as fine appearance and being presentable, that “amplified the moral significance” of certain phenotypical markers (Damasceno , ). Damasceno’s () study also found that most job announcements that contained explicit information about racial appearance were for female occupations. Research on the job market in contemporary Brazil further substantiates the gendered implications of appearance requirements. Bairros () found that greater emphasis was placed on boa aparência as a job requirement in occupations where the female presence is higher, particularly in administration and commerce. Racially based appearance preferences have also been found for employment as salespersons, receptionists, and secretaries. Research by Bento () indicates that women of European and Asian ancestry have been represented in these fields at rates four to five times higher than those of Afro-Brazilian women. Research on boa aparência in the state of Bahia highlights the material consequences of Afro-Brazilian women’s conformity with or divergence from Brazilian aesthetic standards. One study found that commonsense notions of boa aparência often led Afro-Brazilian women to adopt mechanisms of self-exclusion in the job market (Figueiredo ). Eighty percent of the women interviewed alleged that they did not seek employment that required boa aparência. In many cases, this decision was due to personal experiences or those of acquaintances who were rejected for employment because the opening was filled by a woman with lighter skin and cabelo não crespo (non-kinky hair). As Angela Figueiredo has observed, “The problem of boa aparência is very complex . . . because to speak of this is to speak of taste, and taste is a cultural construction. In this society with a long past of black slavery, the slave, the ‘inferior,’ and the ‘Other’ are all recognized in terms of physical appearance” (, ).

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Edna, a thirty-five-year-old teacher, recalled a personal experience of job rejection when I interviewed her. After completing high school, Edna took a series of business courses and was recommended for a secretarial position at a construction firm. Prior to applying for the position, she was the top student in her class: EDNA:

I took the recommendation card, the letter of introduction, and

everything. I went and talked with the people and automatically the position no longer existed—because I was black and they required boa aparência. They did not say it that way. They said that I did not have experience. But there [at the school] we did practical work. K I A:

They said that you did not have experience?

EDNA:

Yes, that I did not have practical experience, only theoretical experi-

ence. And it took awhile, a week for them to give me an answer. I went; I did all of the tests; I passed all of the tests. But they said that they needed someone more experienced. And then that was when I knew. . . . So, I started to investigate. And I found out that the opening had been withdrawn. The opening that had been there had been withdrawn; it was not filled, but it had been withdrawn. So, this was the first clear case, very clear . . . of discrimination that I suffered. . . . I could not be a secretary. . . . Because of this experience, I realized that there is not a market. . . . K I A:

Do you think that the owners, the employers preferred a woman with boa aparência, in quotation marks, who was less qualified over a more qualified woman?

EDNA:

Without question. I cannot tell you that the person who took this

position was not qualified. I would never say this, because I do not know. But they did prefer a person with boa aparência, in quotation marks. I was rejected. K I A:

What does boa aparência mean?

EDNA:

Boa aparência in Brazil means a tall blonde with green eyes or an

exuberant morena with long hair and fine features. Principally for this type of position: secretary, receptionist. Because they always say that the secretary, the receptionist is the face of the business. And the business is not going to have a black face. It is not going to have a face that does not fit the pre-established standard of beauty. K I A:

So, did you find work as a secretary?

EDNA:

No, I did not find work as a secretary. And it was also because I did

not want to anymore. I did not think that I needed to experience this restriction again.

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As a dark-skinned Afro-Brazilian woman, Edna did not meet the criteria of boa aparência required for the position that she sought. Although she was well trained and highly skilled, her physical appearance disqualified her to assume the role of secretary and be “the face of the business.” Edna’s experience indicates how the Brazilian notion of boa aparência perpetuates gendered and racialized practices of socioeconomic exclusion. In her narrative Edna notes that the construction firm did not contact her immediately after her interview. She clearly expresses her belief that the firm said that she was inexperienced, delayed contact with her, and later withdrew the position because she did not meet the unstated criteria of boa aparência. Ultimately, Edna’s experience of job rejection revealed unspoken, commonsense understandings of her social location as a black woman. As she notes, “I realized that at that time I did not have that place. That place did not belong to me. The job market did not give me a place that I would say was mine by right, as a candidate, as a qualified person. I did not have that space.” Edna’s use of the term right suggests that she felt a sense of disenfranchisement for being denied access to a job for which she was qualified. By using the terms place and space, her comments also underscore the geography of racialized and gendered inequality in Brazil. More than just a job rejection, this experience symbolized her exclusion from a forbidden social space.18 Edna’s experience also exemplifies how Brazilian practices of employment discrimination lead to Afro-Brazilian women’s exclusion from the job market. In Edna’s case, a racially based employment selection process made her reluctant to pursue another position as a secretary. After this incident, instead of seeking work as a secretary, Edna worked in the informal economy for several years. Her description of boa aparência as a “restriction” suggests that Brazilian practices of employment discrimination exact a high psychological and economic toll from Afro-Brazilian women who attempt to move out of their assigned place in the job market. The Brazilian notion of boa aparência both reflects and reproduces dominant discourses on race and gender. As a racialized and gendered symbolic code, boa aparência imposes limits on the occupational and socioeconomic mobility of many Afro-Brazilian women. Commonsense understandings of boa aparência also underscore the ways in which dominant discourses on race and gender construct controlling images of Afro-Brazilian women as social subordinates. Afro-Brazilian women’s disproportionate representation in the service sector is a material consequence of racial and gender discourses that valorize non-African physical attributes. Ultimately, market preferences for boa aparência perpetuate race and gender-based occupational stratification by naturalizing

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representations of Afro-Brazilian women as being predisposed for lowpaying and low-status physical labor.

Knowing One’s Place The notion of being “out of place,” described in Edna’s narrative, reveals commonsense understandings of the expected social location of AfroBrazilian women. Personal experiences of racial and gender discrimination typically occur when women move out of place or attempt to cross boundaries that are used to define and demarcate racialized, gendered, and classspecific social spaces and hierarchies.19 Controlling images of Afro-Brazilian women as domestics, sexual objects, and social subordinates influence commonsense understandings of their proper place within Brazilian society. According to Regina, a thirty-nine-year-old tax inspector, “The society already thinks that our place is in the kitchen, in a house of prostitution, or at the most working in a luncheonette or bakery. So, this means that the society has this reading of our place.” My informants’ experiences illustrate how dominant discourses on race and gender perpetuate the social subordination of Afro-Brazilian women. I frequently spoke with women who had been mistaken for domestics, either on the street or when answering the door to their own homes. In such cases, dominant social expectations that black women work in domestic service were operative. In the following passage, Regina describes personal experiences of being misplaced as a domestic: “I have encountered women in the street who would say, ‘My daughter, how are you? . . . I am looking for a nice young lady like you to work in my house. Would you like to?’ . . . Because it’s like this, they assume that the negra has to work in someone’s house. Now, in my line of work it does not happen as much. But awhile ago it was direct like that. People came up to me and made these types of offers.” Regina’s statements convey her shock and dismay at being viewed as a domestic. Her comments indicate that her appearance as a black woman took precedence over the fact that she was a college graduate who held a professional job. Although she was capable of hiring a domestic herself and, indeed, did employ one, she was viewed as a potential domestic, rather than as a potential employer. Employing domestic servants, such as maids, cooks, and nannies, continues to be a common practice, particularly among middle-class Brazilians. While high rates of unemployment and low wages increase the economic feasibility of hiring domestic help, social and cultural beliefs that demean and devalue manual labor also encourage the employment of domestic workers by middle-class Brazilians. As George Reid Andrews () has argued, the close association between slavery and manual labor in Brazil has caused

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manual labor to be viewed as socially degrading and humiliating. Robin Sheriff’s () work also indicates that employment of domestic workers is regarded as a necessity as well as a badge of status by middle-class Brazilians. The widespread tendency to hire domestic labor also reinforces and reproduces colonial practices of racial and gender domination. Since most domestic workers are of African descent, while most of their employers are of European descent, the association between manual labor and slavery that characterized colonial Brazil has evolved into an association between blackness and manual labor since the formal abolition of slavery in . The previously mentioned phrase “a black woman to cook” illustrates the ways in which normative understandings of race, skin color, and gender position Afro-Brazilian women in the job market. Contemporary practices of gender, race, and class subordination are crystallized in the common practice of hiring Afro-Brazilian women to carry out domestic duties as empregadas domesticás (domestics) and faxineiras (cleaning persons) in middle-class homes.20 Much like the mães pretas and mucamas of earlier eras, many black women can be found working in the service sector, particularly in domestic service. National Household survey data collected for the  PNAD showed that . percent of preta women and . percent of parda women worked in domestic service. The socioeconomic status of most Afro-Brazilian women is inextricably tied to social ideologies that reinforce the belief that women of African ancestry are best suited for service professions. These pervasive cultural messages are communicated through the Brazilian media, particularly nighttime soap operas, and through socialization practices within Brazilian homes, schools, and communities and are manifested in racialized and gendered patterns of occupational segregation.

Making Black Women’s Economic Subordination Visible In recent decades, research conducted by black Brazilian feminist scholars and activists has provided important insights into the structural dimensions of black women’s subordinate status in Brazil.21 This work also offers a basis for understanding how structural conditions have resulted in qualitative differences in the life experiences of black and white women. By calling attention to the structural causes of differences between women of different racial backgrounds, much of this research underscores how power relations have shaped black women’s lives, social positions, and identities. Many of these studies also highlight the inseparability of race and gender in Brazilian social relations. While the high number of Afro-Brazilian women who work in domestic service has been normalized in contemporary Brazil, critical analysis of this phenomenon is essential to understanding the intersectional nature of

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Afro-Brazilian women’s social and economic oppression.22 The combined impact of a sexual and racial division of labor has positioned the vast majority of Afro-Brazilian women at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Research on the Brazilian job market has shown that Afro-Brazilian women enter the job market the earliest and remain the longest (Lima ). In addition, although black women often make the largest investment in education, they typically receive the least return and suffer the highest rates of unemployment (Bento ). It is also worth noting that the expansion of the Brazilian labor market in recent decades has not led to significant financial or occupational gains for most black women (Lima ). Research conducted by Sueli Carneiro and Thereza Santos in the s found that white women were the greatest beneficiaries of expanded occupational opportunities from the mid-s to the mid-s (Carneiro and Santos ). Along similar lines, Luiza Bairros’s () analysis of the workforce in the state of Bahia found that “sexism and racism act in a combined fashion to reinforce the subordination” of black women (, ). Between  and  transformations in production led to a marked increase in women’s labor force participation in the state. Women constituted . percent of the Bahian labor force in  and . percent in . However, Bairros notes that, while women’s labor force participation increased, most women were confined to “feminine” occupations. In addition, the demarcation of occupational spaces was also determined by racial criteria. As a result, in  “social activities constituted a privileged space for white women, who occupied .% of the positions, while service professions continued to be the most important area of absorption for black women (.%)” (Bairros , ). Bairros also found that black women, especially pretas, were more concentrated in household services. In , . percent of pretas (black women), . percent of pardas (mixed-race women), and . percent of brancas (white women) worked in household services. In contrast, white women dominated the area of personal services. Bairros attributes this difference to the influence of racial preferences in hiring decisions. She notes that two main factors have shaped the use of racial preferences. First, the tendency to hire white workers for occupations, such as cooks, waitresses, and bar and luncheonette staff, that require contact with a clientele of higher income. According to Bairros, “the preference for the black woman, when it occurs, is always tied to touristic exploitation that requires, in the case of restaurants that specialize in pratos típicos (authentic Bahian food), the figure of the waitress characterized as ‘baiana’ (stereotypical Bahian woman), the ‘mucama’ (nursemaid) of current times” (Bairros , ). Bairros argues that the second factor influencing hiring decisions is tied to social resistance to breaking the model that “associates the black in general,

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and the black woman in particular, with socially devalued occupations” (Bairros , ). Finally, she observes that discriminatory social attitudes influence the low incorporation of black women in technical-professional services and as assistants in economic activity. Research by Márcia Lima () examines the relationship between black women’s educational trajectories and socioeconomic status. Lima’s study challenges scholarship that posits a direct relationship between education, social ascension, and status attainment by highlighting the ways in which racial and gender discrimination shape the return on educational investment that black women receive. Using data from the  PNAD, Lima compared the occupational distribution of men and women from three different color groups, brancos/brancas, pretos/pretas, and pardos/pardas. Occupations were divided into four broad categories: high non-manual, low non-manual, manual, and rural. The data shows that black women fared better than black men in the low non-manual occupational sector. However, black women’s disadvantaged position was accentuated when their occupational status was compared to that of white women. Lima found that . percent of white women were found in the high non-manual sector. Only . percent of pretas and . percent of pardas were found in the same sector. In addition,  percent of the black women who worked in non-manual occupations were concentrated in the low non-manual sector. Lima’s analysis of black women’s presence in the manual sector revealed that . percent of pretas and . percent of pardas worked in domestic service. As she notes, “These figures demonstrate that blacks, besides having a greater presence in manual occupations, are concentrated, within this stratum, in a sector that is poorly compensated, and in the case of women, possibly at the margins of the regulated job market” (Lima , ). Drawing from  PNAD data for which she tabulated the distribution of workers with twelve or more years of schooling by gender and color, Lima found that black women were disadvantaged in the job market despite attaining the same educational level as black males, white males, or white females. Although they did not attain comparable status to white men, black men and white women were both represented in the high non-manual sector in greater numbers than black women. Lima argues, “Even with high levels of schooling, black women are not able to attain the levels of social mobility that are normally proportional to investment in education” (Lima , ). Recent research by U.S. sociologist Peggy Lovell also highlights black women’s disadvantaged status in the Brazilian labor market. Lovell’s () work compares levels of schooling, occupational distributions, and average monthly wages for black and white women living in urban areas during  and . Lovell found that, by ,  percent of white women and

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 percent of black women had completed eight or more years of schooling. She argues that, while both white and black women achieved absolute gains in educational achievement by , “the relative disparity between the two racial groups remained relatively unchanged” (, ). Comparing data on the occupational distribution of working women in  and , Lovell found that black women continued to be concentrated in domestic service in . Despite the fact that a greater number of women from both groups entered white-collar occupations during this time period,  percent of black women and a little more than  percent of white women worked in the better-paying white-collar occupations in . Lovell’s analysis demonstrates that the improved levels of educational and occupational distribution did little to change black women’s concentration in the “least-favorable regions, lowest educational categories, and lowest-paying occupations” (Lovell , ). Lovell also found that black women suffered from wage discrimination in the labor market. As a result of gender and racial inequalities in wage distribution, black women consistently earned less than black men and white women, in  as well as in . Lovell argues, “The results suggest that the structural transformations that took place between  and —which increased labor market opportunities for all women—appear to have done little to reduce racial differentiation among women. On the contrary, those Afro-Brazilian women who rose to the top of the occupational hierarchy experienced increased inequality” (, ).

The Contemporary Status of Mães Pretas The continuation of colonial social and economic relationships is perhaps most evident in Afro-Brazilian women’s contemporary role as the mãe prêta or mammy. While largely a cultural and ideological vestige from slavery, the figure of the mãe preta continues to persist in contemporary Brazil, both structurally and discursively.23 Colonialist representations of Afro-Brazilian women as amas de leite and mães preta are commonly cited as evidence of racial and cultural fusion in Brazil. Proponents of racial democracy have traditionally argued that intimacy between the races developed when white Brazilians, especially white men, were suckled at the breasts of their AfroBrazilian wet nurses. While such depictions of Afro-Brazilian women have been sedimented in nationalist writings, they are also prominent in popular discourses. In an interview during , the renowned Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara publicly articulated and reified dominant representations of Afro-Brazilian women as wet nurses. Camara stated his belief that there could be no racism in Brazil because “the entire country drank milk from the breasts of the black mammy (mãe preta)” (qtd. in Gilliam , ).

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An experience during my field research in  underscored the pervasiveness of the mãe preta/mãe negra image in Brazil. While shopping at an organic produce market in Belo Horizonte one afternoon, I was introduced to the market’s owner by my friend. Upon being told of my research, the owner stated her belief that the “questão da mulher negra” (question of the black woman) was an important one. She promptly introduced me to an older black woman near her, proudly stating, “This is my mãe negra. She raised me and her family works for us.” This incident was both curious and frustrating. While it is not possible for me to explain the motives behind the woman’s statement, her comments suggest that her primary, and possibly only, contact with black women was probably via her mãe negra or other similarly positioned black women. The market owner’s obvious pride in referring to her mãe negra also suggests that she viewed herself as being open-minded regarding racial issues. Her comments caused me to feel a sense of frustration because they indicated that she had failed to understand my research, since it was precisely these types of social relationships that I was seeking to analyze and critique. More importantly, the market owner’s comments revealed commonsense beliefs about the role of black women as mães negra in contemporary Brazil. The figure of the mãe negra encapsulates the simultaneous distance and intimacy of black Brazilian women vis-à-vis white Brazilians. Although the mãe negra serves a maternal role in white families, it is one that is racially marked. Racialized differences in female gender identity are used to distinguish the role of the mãe negra from the legitimate and racially unmarked mãe branca (white mother). While the term mãe branca is not used in Brazil, I employ it here as means of contrasting the naturalized roles of black and white women in white homes. Dominant representations of black women as amas de leite, mães pretas, and mucamas have traditionally placed them in positions of surrogate motherhood, with a curious absence of white women as the legitimate biological mothers of the children cared for by black women. It is worth noting that the image of the mãe negra operates on a different discursive and structural register than the “mother of the nation” role accorded to Afro-Brazilian women in Brazilian nationalist discourse. While the notion of Afro-Brazilian women as biological reproducers of a mixed-race population emphasizes blood ties, albeit ones that serve the nationalist goal of whitening the population, inclusion of the mãe negra into the domestic life of white families, and by extension the nation, is premised on relations of economic exchange. The relationship between the market owner’s family and the family of her mãe negra also underscores intergenerational patterns of economic subordination.24 Although the market owner referred to the relationship

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between her family and that of her mãe negra in positive terms, this relationship was characterized by multigenerational practices of labor exchange that closely resembled those existing during the slave era. Moreover, the fact that this “cycle of cumulative disadvantage” (Hasenbalg , ) seems to have been overlooked, and was perhaps even viewed in a positive light by the market owner, further indicates the extent to which such relationships are naturalized and thus escape critique.

Benetton, Wet Nurses, and Racial Democracy Benetton’s advertising campaign in Brazil during the early s further underscores contemporary constructions of the mãe preta image in Brazil. During June , a photograph of a bare-breasted black woman nursing a white infant was placed on billboards throughout Brazil. Both France and Brazil were chosen for the advertisements because racial animosity was not considered to be a significant market factor in these countries. Although the advertisement was rejected by black magazine publishers in the United States, it was pushed for use in Brazil with the understanding that it “would not generate racial animus, given the distinctiveness of Brazilian culture” (Hanchard b, ). The politics of representation in Brazil and within transnational arenas underpinned Benetton’s advertising campaign. The company’s adoption of “the United Colors of Benetton” slogan in  coincided with a global advertising thrust based on the use of controversial photographs in magazines and on billboards. Although the United Colors campaign centered on the use of images that depicted interracial harmony, these images masked how relations of domination and inequality undergird contemporary understandings of difference. As Henry Giroux argues, the United Colors campaign was informed by an underlying ideological imperative that sought to “contain potentially antagonistic cultural differences and an insurgent multiculturalism through a representational politics that combines pluralism with a depoliticized appeal to world harmony and peace” (, ). Brazil’s national self-image as a racial democracy encouraged the belief that a visual representation of a black woman nursing a white infant would not be offensive. The fact that Benetton’s marketing campaign utilized forms of representation that have been endorsed and legitimated in Brazilian nationalist discourse further encouraged the uncritical deployment of such images. Moreover, since dominant social expectations have placed AfroBrazilians in much the same way as the Benetton advertisement attempted to, the United Colors campaign was expected to yield positive results. Ultimately, however, past and present practices of race- and gender-based domination subverted the United Colors campaign’s intended message of racial

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tolerance. Rather than being viewed as a benign depiction of racial harmony, the billboards conjured up images of the oppression faced by enslaved African and Afro-Brazilian women. A number of Brazilians denounced this representation as a reminder of the cruel realities of the nation’s history. In some Brazilian cities, antiracist activists spread graffiti across the advertisements with the phrase “ ‘Mucama’ (nursemaid) never more” (qtd. in Hanchard b, ). The seemingly benign and progressive images used in Benetton’s Brazilian ad campaign masked the naturalization of racial and gender domination. Given Afro-Brazilian women’s historical and contemporary positioning as wet nurses and domestic servants, the Benetton campaign reproduced and reified colonialist representations. Ultimately, however, dominant images of Brazil as a racial democracy, or at least as a place where race is not highly contested, led to the use of visual representations that were clearly considered to be inappropriate in other national contexts, particularly the United States. The resonances between Benetton’s corporate ideology of a “world without borders” and Brazilian discourses on mestiço essentialism and racial democracy are noteworthy. Benetton’s advertising campaign was shaped by representational politics that reproduced conventional representations, rather than challenging them (Giroux ). These practices were developed “in the service of a corporate narrative whose purpose is to harness difference as part of an ideology of promotion and political containment” (Giroux , ). While affirming difference, Benetton promoted a politics of representation that denied the radical implications of rethinking difference in truly egalitarian terms. As chapter  suggests, a similar critique can be made of the harnessing of racial difference by and within Brazilian nationalist discourse. A gendered analysis of Brazilian nationalist discourse provides further insights into these processes by highlighting how racialized and gendered notions of difference have been used to subordinate women of African descent while, at the same time, assigning them a central role in the formation and maintenance of the nation.

Conclusion In many ways, the ideology of racial democracy has positioned Afro-Brazilian women as the caretakers of Brazilian identity and culture. Nationalist narratives of racial democracy posit that, by offering their bodies as sources of sustenance, pleasure, and support, Afro-Brazilian women have been essential to the physical, cultural, and economic development of the Brazilian nation. As a result, rather than having an autonomous existence, black women’s identities have been predicated on and defined by their service

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to white Brazilians, both sexually and economically. While, on one hand, mulatas are idealized as the epitome of female sensuality and the essence of Brazilianness, such representations obscure historical and contemporary patterns of racialized sexual exploitation. In a situation much like that of Brazilian mulatas, controlling images of darker-skinned Afro-Brazilian women as domestic servants serve a functional role as evidence of racial and cultural fusion and mestiço national identity in Brazil. Ultimately, however, such narratives also reinforce gendered notions of white racial privilege by positioning Afro-Brazilian women as the altruistic caretakers of white Brazilians, rather than as full citizens and equal participants in Brazilian national culture.

3 “Look at Her Hair” The Body Politics of Black Womanhood

This chapter examines Brazilian ideals of female beauty and explores their

impact on Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of identity construction. Given Brazil’s long-standing image as a “racial democracy,” examining the racialized and gendered significance of hair provides key insights into the ways in which Afro-Brazilian women’s bodies are marked by larger political and social forces. My analysis focuses on hair as a key site for investigating how black women’s identities are circumscribed by dominant discourses on race and gender. I examine the pervasiveness of anti-black aesthetic standards in Brazilian popular culture and explore several women’s attempts to reinvest their bodies with positive significance.1 Until recently, the racial implications of hair have received scant atten-

tion in most research on race in Brazil.2 However, as a key marker of racial difference, hair assumes a central role in the racial politics of everyday life in Brazil. Most Brazilians are keenly aware of the social and racial significance of gradations in hair texture and use this knowledge as a standard for categorizing individuals into racial and color groups. The racial implications of hair texture take on added significance for black women given the central role accorded to hair in racialized constructions of femininity and female beauty. As Angela Gilliam and Onik’a Gilliam’s () work argues, hair type often becomes the primary signifier of race in Brazil, particularly for women.

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“Look at Her Hair” The song “Veja os cabelos dela” (“Look at Her Hair”) provides a telling example of black women’s portrayal in Brazilian popular culture. “Look at Her Hair” was written by an ex–circus clown, named Tiririca, and distributed by Sony Music in . While popularly regarded as a playful and humorous tune, the lyrics evoke a number of negative stereotypes about black women and highlight the gendered dimensions of Brazilian racism. The lyrics state: Look, look, look at her hair It looks like bombril (a scouring pad) When she passes she calls my attention But her hair, there’s no way no Her catinga (body odor)3 almost caused me to faint Look, I cannot stand her odor Look, look, look at her hair! It looks like a scouring pad for cleaning pans I already told her to wash herself But she insisted and didn’t want to listen to me This smelly nega (black woman) Stinking animal that smells worse than a skunk.

In a few short lines, this song verbally assaults the images and identities of black Brazilian women. The offensive nature of the lyrics created an outcry amongst black activists and resulted in both Tiririca and his recording label, Sony Music, being sued for racism. The Center for the Articulation of Marginalized Populations (CEAP or Centro de Articulação de Populações Marginalizados), a nongovernmental organization in Rio de Janeiro, requested that the Brazilian Public Ministry prohibit the music on the basis of discrimination against blacks and women. A formal denouncement of racism was presented in July  based on the  Lei Caó, which considers racism in the Brazilian media to be a crime. As a result of the charges of discrimination, Tiririca was forbidden to perform the song in public. Sony also responded to the charges of racism by complying with a request that the record be removed from stores throughout Brazil. During a hearing held in September , the black department of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB or Partido do Movimento Democratico Brasileiro) sought $ million as indemnification for moral damages. In response, Sony proposed donating ten thousand dolls and videos of the film Pocahantas to needy children on Children’s Day. During the hearing, Sony’s representative asked that their proposal for the donations be evaluated kindly because it was made with “the greatest and best intentions.”4 Oswaldo Ribeiro, a representative from the PMDB, considered the

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proposal to be degrading. At the hearing Ribeiro stated, “The white always thinks that whatever he does to the black is a joke. We want respect for the race. The case is not as simple as you think.”5 Ribeiro also added that the lyrics of “Look at Her Hair” were offensive to black women, including his mother, daughter, and female friends.6 In February  Judge Carlos Flores da Cunha absolved Tiririca and two Sony executives of charges that “Look at Her Hair” was racist. This ruling reversed Judge Flávia Viveiros de Castro’s  order that Tiririca’s album be removed from stores based on her view that the song contained racist lyrics. Da Cunha did not consider the song to intentionally offend black women. His decision allowed Tiririca to resume performing the song in public shows. Sony was also granted permission to resume sale of the album, which sold , copies prior to being pulled from stores. During , Benedita da Silva, the first black woman to serve in the Brazilian Congress and Senate, wrote a magazine editorial entitled “Negros tiririca da vida” (Black clowns of life) as a response to the controversy. She argued that the song “should be observed as a typical case of propagating racist stereotypes, which signifies an aggression, an insult to the black woman, even if involuntary, because it animalizes this woman and associates and compares human beings and animals” (B. Silva , ). She further argued that freedom of expression should not be used as a pretext, or excuse, for acts of racism. While acknowledging Tiririca’s role as a popular musician and his significance as the embodiment of Brazilian joviality, Silva suggested, “This way of being Brazilian, happy, carefree, translated in the singular feature of Tiririca should prevail. Not pejorative and prejudiced jokes relating to the racial characteristics of a population [Afro-Brazilians], because they affect our self-esteem, principally that of black children” (, ). Despite Benedita da Silva’s insightful critique of the negative images in “Look at Her Hair,” the song was seen as humorous and non-offensive by many Brazilians. In fact, Tiririca’s agent was quoted in a newspaper interview as saying, “This type of joke is innocent.” The belief that “Look at Her Hair” was a joke suggests that the comedic and ostensibly benign tone of the song was thought to provide immunity from charges of racial discrimination. However, it is also important to note that the negative images and the humorous style employed in the song are validated by Brazilian discourses on race. The frequent use of humor to transmit racist stereotypes validated the claim that the song was seen an “innocent” joke. Brazilian brincadeiras (jokes) often involve comparisons between Afro-Brazilians and animals, especially monkeys. The popular acceptance of racist humor indicates that joking provides a culturally sanctioned means of articulating beliefs that reproduce dominant notions of white superiority and black inferiority in Brazil (Telles ; Twine ).

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The gendered dimensions of Brazilian racism are also foregrounded by the song “Look at Her Hair.” The song parodies and insults Afro-Brazilian women on a number of different levels. While the narrator describes an initial attraction to the woman described in the song, his attraction quickly turns to revulsion as he observes the woman’s hair texture and body odor. The visual and olfactory images invoked by the song’s lyrics were closely linked to racialized descriptors of the song’s main character. It can be argued that the descriptors used in the song were racially specific and would have been ineffective without reference to the woman’s racial identity. Use of the term nega (black woman) in “Look at Her Hair” was essential to achieving the song’s intention of presenting derogatory images of black women. The term nega conjured up long-standing stereotypes of black women that could be employed for comedic value. Use of the term nega was also essential to constructing an absolutely deprecating image of the woman portrayed in the song. Although the term nega, a colloquial form of negra, is not inherently insulting, it has negative connotations that make it a racially loaded term in Brazil. Like many other terms that reference blackness, nega can be used in a positive sense as a term of endearment or as a form of insult. However, widespread beliefs regarding the inferiority and undesirability of blackness have caused referential use of terms such as nega and negra to primarily be seen as forms of insult and deprecation. As Denise Ferreira da Silva has argued, “To name someone black, without the qualification that this person does not share negative meanings associated with blackness, is highly offensive” (, ). The negative linguistic connotations of the term nega suggest that its usage in the song “Look at Her Hair” constituted a form of insult in and of itself. Furthermore, when placed in the context of Brazilian discourses on race and gender, it is clear that the images used in “Look at Her Hair” were reinforced and solidified through their association with the woman’s description as a nega. While verbal forms of racial discrimination are frequently associated with societies characterized by overt forms of racial conflict, they have rarely been given adequate attention in societies, such as Brazil, where notions of racial tolerance and cordiality enjoy discursive dominance. However, as recent research has shown (Sheriff ; D. Silva ), verbal forms of racial discrimination perpetuate the subordination of Afro-Brazilians in culturally and linguistically specific ways. Racial epithets serve to erase the personhood of Afro-Brazilians and replace it with a racialized sense of difference that, by virtue of being marked particular and non-universal, is inherently inferior to whiteness. Silvia, an antiracist and feminist activist in the city of Belo Horizonte, commented on the controversy created by the song “Look at Her Hair” during an interview. She observed, “When Tiririca released this music about the

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negra—you remember–the black movement denounced Tiririca, this singer . . . that said that the mulher negra smells worse than gambá (a skunk) . . . and the black movement reacted, [but] people banalizaram (made it banal),7 saying that the black movement was exaggerating, that he was only joking.” Silvia’s comments call attention to the risk of “banalization” in cases of racism and sexism. She notes that black activists’ attempts to criticize and challenge the negative representations of black women in “Look at Her Hair” were dismissed as exaggerated responses to an inconsequential joke. Silvia also suggests that challenging racism and sexism becomes more difficult when acts of discrimination are accepted as banal or commonplace. Finally, as she notes, the popular acceptance of symbolic violence against black women delegitimizes efforts to denounce it. Silvia’s discussion of banalization highlights the dangers of regarding “Look at Her Hair” as a benign expression of contemporary popular culture. When Tiririca sang “Look at Her Hair,” he was not simply making fun of a fictional song character; instead, he was reinforcing and reinscribing practices of racial alterity that construct black women as “outsiders-within” Brazilian society (Collins ). However, it is important to note that these representations were not invented by Tiririca; instead, they called upon pre-existing tropes regarding black women’s bodies, tropes that have long been validated by Brazilian discourses on race and gender. While the song “Look at Her Hair” utilized popular culture as a vehicle, it drew upon sociocultural beliefs and prejudices that are deeply engrained in Brazilian society. Furthermore, although the language used in the song was dismissed as an “innocent joke” by Tiririca’s agent, in many ways it can be considered hate speech.8 The song performs acts of symbolic violence that humiliate and assign a subordinate place to the woman portrayed in the song and, by extension, all black Brazilian women. These acts of symbolic violence both utilize and rely on linguistic knowledge of the social-symbolic structure to demean the victims of hate speech. As one author has noted, “The social-symbolic structure within racism is always already in place, otherwise the racist speaker would have no independent idea that words have the potential to wound. . . . [T]he subject always quotes from the vast historical corpus of racist vocabulary. . . . [I]t is never the individual subject who invents racist speech. But with every racist sentence . . . the subject reinstalls this symbolic space anew” (Salecl , ). By focusing on physical characteristics such as hair texture and body odor, “Look at Her Hair” perpetuated popular beliefs that Afro-Brazilian women are unattractive and lack proper hygiene. One of the central images used in the lyrics compared the scent of the woman portrayed in the song to that of a skunk.9 This comparison reinscribed gendered practices of racial alterity that regard whiteness as essential criteria for femininity

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and true womanhood. Several of my informants recounted experiences of racial discrimination that underscored how practices of racial alterity operate in Brazil. Maria, a forty-six-year-old educator and former domestic worker, described the following experience of racial alterity in her personal narrative: The other day I saw . . . on the television. I hated being black. It was in the month of August. I changed the channel. They were in Bahia talking about the blonde in the group Tchán,10 this horrible thing. They were talking about the other one . . . until a woman arrived and the reporter asked, “Do you like Gilberto Gil?” “No, I only like Betânia and Caetano Veloso.” “And Gilberto Gil?” “No.” “Why don’t you like Gilberto Gil?” “Because I am not a veterinarian.” . . . So the reporter asked, “Why?” “Because I don’t like monkeys.” . . . I hated being black. I hated it. I began questioning. I started to question religion, many things. . . . The reporter didn’t do anything. He was like, “ . . . but you are discriminating.” The woman responded, “Yes, I am. They also discriminate.” So, I felt hatred for being black, because I was not able to do anything to respond. I tried. I said, “What am I going to do? I am going to write. How am I going to do it?” . . . But at times it makes you so angry.

In retelling this experience, Maria described how negative images of Afro-Brazilians are transmitted through everyday social practices. This incident provides a clear example of an animalizing representation of an Afro-Brazilian entertainer, one that enacted hegemonic notions of racial difference. By associating monkeys with Gilberto Gil, the woman in the television interview conveyed her negative view of all blacks, even those who are as prominent as Gil. The use of animalizing images of Afro-Brazilians suggests that, much in the same way that universal humanity is equated with whiteness, a status less than fully human, and one that in many cases is closer to animality, is associated with blackness in Brazil. Maria’s response to this incident also illustrates the impact of Brazilian racial practices on the subjective level. Maria’s description of this incident resonates with Philomena Essed’s view of vicarious experiences of racism as “racism directed against other identified blacks, which may be witnessed as well as reported” (Essed , ). Both a sense of racial shame and a hatred of her own blackness characterized Maria’s reaction to this experience. Although Maria has devoted much of her life to promoting racial consciousness and self-esteem among Afro-Brazilian youth, her own sense of self was severely undermined by this incident. Maria’s feelings appear to have been further compounded by a sense of disempowerment because she was unable to respond to the comments that were made.

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Silvia’s comparison of racism and sexism as forms of dehumanization speaks to the political significance of “Look at Her Hair” as well as to Maria’s vicarious experience of racism. As Silvia notes, “every violent act seeks to dehumanize the other, to cause the other to lose his condition of being human, of being a person. . . . How is it that people have the nickname of monkey, or an animal, or anything that is not human? . . . What attitudes do people have that justify this, that allow aggressors to continue their aggression, that allow machismo and racism to be perpetuated?”

“Bad Hair” in a Racial Democracy: Mapping the Aesthetic Terrain of Black Womanhood While not explicitly stated in the song “Look at Her Hair,” the notion of having “bad hair” was implicit in the song’s lyrics. By comparing the woman’s hair to a scouring pad, Tiririca made a clear statement, regarding the coarseness of her hair, that resonated with Brazilian notions of cabelo ruim, or “bad hair.” In Brazil, the concept of bad hair is associated with individuals who have black or African ancestry. Having “good” or “bad” hair is also used as a means of assigning individuals who have questionable or ambiguous racial origins to either the “white” or “black” racial category. Given the high degree of racial intermixture in Brazil, individuals with African ancestry may not readily appear to be black. One of my interviewees commented on the stigmatization of black hair by stating, “Why ruim (bad)? Cabelo crespo (kinky hair), but cabelo ruim (bad hair) is already a sign of this racist thing [belief] that the hair of blacks is bad.” Although the Brazilian terms cabelo bom and cabelo ruim resonate with notions of good and bad hair found elsewhere in the African diaspora, the use of these terms is not confined to the Afro-Brazilian community. Instead, commonsense understandings of their significance permeate most levels of Brazilian society. It is not uncommon to hear white Brazilians describe someone as having cabelo ruim, or bad hair. Widespread familiarity with the significance of hair texture amongst all racial groups further underscores the significance of hair as a marker of racial and social identity in Brazil. Hair texture has long been used as an indicator of racial background and a basis for racial classification. As a key marker of racial difference, hair assumes a central role in the racial politics of everyday life in Brazil. The inextricable relationship between Brazilian constructions of race and gender is underscored by black women’s positionality vis-à-vis dominant discourses on female beauty. Of all Brazilian social groups, black women are the most profoundly impacted by Brazilian beliefs and prejudices regarding hair texture. While one could argue that black men experience discrimination based on their hair texture, this discrimination pales in comparison

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to the countless incidents of humiliation experienced by black women on an everyday basis. As Gilliam and Gilliam note, “Of all the physical characteristics, it is particularly hair that marks ‘race’ for women. . . . It is in the issue of hair that one sees a distinction between men and women and the differential social coding of race and ethnicity. Thus ‘race’ is gendered” (, , ). Moreover, as other black feminist scholars in the United States and England have observed, the dynamics of race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect in ways that multiply marginalize women of African descent (Collins ; King ; Mama ; Mirza ). The experiences of Afro-Brazilian women indicate that they face multiple forms of discrimination as their bodies are assessed and valorized according to standards established by dominant discourses on race, gender, sexuality, and beauty (Piscitelli ). In contemporary Brazil, racialized gender hierarchies also classify women by dissecting their bodies and attributing certain physical features to the category of either sex or beauty. This dissection process assigns features such as skin color, hair texture, and the shape and size of the nose and lips to the category of beauty, while features such as the breasts, hips, and buttocks are assigned to the sexual category. Given the Eurocentric aesthetic standards that prevail in Brazilian society, black women have traditionally been defined as being sexual, rather than beautiful. Ironically, however, black and mulata women’s association with sensuality and sexuality has been lauded as evidence of racial democracy in Brazil (Gilliam ). Ultimately, the social identities of black, mulata, and white women demonstrate how physical differences are linked to gendered notions of racial superiority. Representations of mixed-race or mulata women in Brazilian popular culture reveal the complexities of Brazilian discourses on race, gender, and beauty. A carnival song from , “Teu Cabelo Não Nega” (“Your Hair Gives You Away”), highlights the ambivalent portrayal of mulata women in Brazilian popular culture. The song states: In these lands of Brazil Here You don’t even have to cultivate it The land gives Black beans, many learned men, and giribita A lot of beautiful mulatas The hair gives you away. Mulata. You are mulata in color But since color doesn’t rub off, mulata, Mulata, I want your love.

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“Your Hair Gives You Away” was the carnival success of  and became one of the most successful carnival songs of all time (D. Davis ). The portrayal of mulata women in the song reinforces Brazil’s nationalist image as a racial democracy and racial-sexual paradise. The lyrics portray mulata women as being quintessentially Brazilian. Like black beans, they seem to spring from the land in large quantities. However, on closer observation, the lyrics also reveal racist beliefs premised on anti-black aesthetic values. Both the title of the song and the lyrics contain the phrase “hair gives you away.” When analyzed in the context of Brazilian racial beliefs, this phrase can be seen as an expression of racial “outing.” By referring to the mulata’s hair, the narrator of the song states his belief that this desirable woman has African ancestry. Her hair texture is the marker that reveals this ancestry. The narrator then goes on to describe the mulata as being mulata in color. This statement reinforces the mulata’s phenotypic characteristics and the fact that she is not negra or black in color. The narrator further states that the mulata’s color is inconsequential since it will not “stick” to him. His desire to have the mulata’s love, or more accurately her sexual favors (Carvalho ), is unchanged and he continues to sing her praises, albeit with a double-voiced message of attraction and revulsion. The process of racial outing performed in “Your Hair Gives Away” demonstrates how Afro-Brazilian women’s bodies are marked and categorized by Brazilian practices of racialization. Despite the prevalence of official and popular discourses that emphasize the importance of racial miscegenation, practices of racial differentiation and categorization are pervasive in Brazil. As recent work has shown, the much acclaimed Brazilian color continuum coexists with practices of racialization that center on categorizing individuals into bipolar categories of whiteness and blackness (Guimarães a, b; Sherrif ). These practices of racialization reflect a decidedly antiblack bias that privileges whiteness as an unmarked and universal identity. Lewis Gordon’s () work on anti-blackness provides significant insights into these processes. As he provocatively argues, “Not being colored signifies being white, and, as a consequence, being raceless, whereas being colored signifies being a race. Thus, although the human race is normatively white, racialized human beings, in other words, a subspecies of humanity, are nonwhite. . . . In effect, then, in the antiblack world there is but one race, and that race is black. Thus to be racialized is to be pushed ‘down’ toward blackness, and to be deracialized is to be pushed ‘up’ toward whiteness” (L. Gordon , ). “Your Hair Gives You Away” demonstrates how a national preference for whiteness and the concomitant devaluation of blackness circumscribe the social identities of Afro-Brazilian women. The anti-black aesthetic values articulated in “Your Hair Gives You Away” describe the mulata’s hair

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texture and skin color as being unappealing. These physical attributes are considered to be undesirable largely because they are associated with the mulata’s African ancestry. Furthermore, while not explicitly stated, Brazilian notions of good and bad hair are present in the narrator’s evaluation of the woman described in the song. By stating that “the hair gives you away,” the narrator indicates that she does not have “good” hair and thus has not completely escaped the “stain” of blackness.11

“Circles and Squares”: The Body in Constructions of Black Womanhood Critical analysis of anti-black aesthetic standards is fundamental to understanding how Brazilian racial discourses operate in everyday social interaction and in Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation. However, until recently, there has been little discussion of blackness as a signifier of difference and the biases against black physical features in most research on Brazilian race relations (Burdick a; Guimarães a, b; Twine ). Instead, most scholarship has focused on the prevalence of whitening, as both ideology and practice, in twentieth-century Brazil (D. Davis ; Hanchard b; Skidmore , ). Nonetheless, while examining the ideology of whitening is essential to understanding Brazilian racial thought and practice, my informants’ life experiences and processes of identity formation suggest that anti-blackness is both a by-product of and an indispensable companion to the whitening ideology. Focusing on the embodied dimensions of black womanhood highlights the prevalence of anti-black aesthetic standards in Brazil and underscores the impact of these standards on the subjective level. In their attempts to develop positive self-images and identities, Afro-Brazilian women are forced to confront dominant values that caricature and malign their physical features. Many of my informants described personal struggles, related to beauty and self-image, that centered on acceptance of their hair. In addition, despite differences in their experiences, many women underwent a process of acceptance that required them to reassess the social stigma associated with having cabelo crespo. John Burdick’s (a) study provides a rare and insightful analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s subjective experiences and views related to beauty. Burdick refers to the painful struggles faced by Afro-Brazilian women as “the everyday wounds of color.” This phrase aptly describes the relentless personal torment that black women experience as a result of being judged according to anti-black aesthetic standards. During my field research, several interviewees recounted experiences that highlighted the centrality of hair and beauty in Afro-Brazilian women’s lives. Their experiences resonate

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with Burdick’s notion of “the everyday wounds of color” and underscore the racialized and gendered significance of black women’s bodies. Gislene is thirty-six years old. When asked whether she had memories of racial discrimination from her childhood, she recounted the following: I always wanted to be some sort of majorette or ballerina. The type that did acrobatics, that danced and carried the school flag. They went in front, turning and doing acrobatics on the ground. And I was never able to. Back then, I thought that it was because I did not have money to buy that type of clothing. . . . I was never able to buy those ballet slippers! I was a student of the caixa escolar—this is for the poorest students. So, I thought that I was not a ballerina and that I did not participate in the theater at school because I could not buy the clothes. Today, I think that, even if I had had the money back then, even if I had had financial means, I still would not have participated, because I did not fit the standard of beauty to be in the front representing the school. The goal was to get the prettiest girls to do that. Those who were considered the most pretty, who coincidentally were white, with straight hair . . . preferably with light colored hair, very light hair, blonde even.

While, as a child, Gislene thought that she was unable to be a ballerina or majorette because of her family’s financial status, she later realized that class was not the determinative factor. As a young black woman, she did not fulfill the aesthetic criteria required to serve as her school’s representative or to be a ballet dancer, a quintessentially feminine activity. Gislene’s experiences demonstrate how the body functions as a racialized and gendered signifier of difference. In the preceding passage, Gislene noted that the girls who were chosen as ballerinas and majorettes were usually white and had straight, blonde hair. Gislene’s exclusion from ballet and the marching band was not based on her artistic or athletic skills. Instead, her ability to participate was decided on the basis of her non-European physical features. Gislene’s skin color, hair texture, and body shape were all physical signifiers of racialized difference. Ultimately, these physical attributes disqualified her as a potential representative for her school. Using squares and circles as metaphors, Gislene described Brazilian intolerance of non-European physical features in her personal narrative: “In Brazil there is only the circle; the square does not exist. Just a little while ago the square began to appear, very slowly. . . . I think that is what is most serious because you have to work with two models. They are different. But in Brazil, there are not two models; there is only one model. Whoever is not inside this model is outside. He does not exist. He is worthless.” Regina is thirty-nine years old. Based on her age, she can be grouped into the same generational cohort as Gislene. Regina described her

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childhood experiences in the following way: “The dream of all girls who had cabelo crespo was to have cabelo liso (straight hair), that balançava (swung). I had an acquaintance that went to high school. She would take her hair loose like this and put her head outside, so that when the bus passed her hair would fly. Not that it ever did. People invented [things]. My cousin had a wig. I put on my cousin’s wig so that my hair balançava (would swing).” The importance of having hair that swung is central to Regina’s comments. She describes straight hair as being the type that could swing. Regina and her peers felt themselves to be at a disadvantage because their hair was not straight and thus did not swing. After recounting her childhood experiences, Regina expressed a desire to see her daughter grow up with a more positive self-image than she had as a child: I want Ana to grow up knowing that her hair is pretty the way that it is, that she is pretty the way that she is. . . . Because if you compare yourself with that model that everyone says is pretty . . . If you put Xuxa and Regina together, everyone will say that Xuxa is pretty and you lose.12 It is unfair to do this. And this is what happened with my generation. The models that were put out there for us were very different. There were a lot of blonde, blue-eyed women and everyone said that they were pretty. It was very difficult for me to believe that I was pretty. Today, no, you have Isabel Fillardis, Camila Pitanga, . . . and others. . . . It was very hard for my generation to not only accept itself as black, but also to create a space—because we did not have a model. The models are developing now.

Regina’s narrative provides important insights into the role of hair and beauty in black women’s processes of identity construction. She notes that during her childhood Eurocentric standards of female beauty excluded black girls like herself. Regina’s comment about making comparisons between Xuxa, a blonde-haired television star, and herself underscores the fact that black girls and women emerge as losers in aesthetic competitions with white girls and women. Regina does call attention to changes in the arena of beauty, however. She mentions that the presence of nonwhite models and actresses, such as Isabel Fillardis and Camila Pitanga, in the Brazilian media provides alternative models of beauty that valorize an aesthetic standard that is not wholly based on Eurocentric standards.13 Regina further notes that these alternative models can be used to promote and reinforce a positive self-image for her daughter: “So, when Ana sees a photo of a woman with extremely straight hair [and thinks], ‘My hair is going to be like that,’ [I can say,] ‘No, your hair is going to be like this,’ because there are a lot of styles with a lot of hair, but like hers—crespo—to

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show her.” Regina’s comments suggest that the existence of media representations that affirm blackness can play an important role in promoting a positive self-image amongst black girls and young women. Regina also notes that photos of black women’s hair can serve as a valuable reference as she encourages her daughter to accept and value her hair.

Raça Brasil: New Representations of Blackness? My field research in  coincided with Raça Brasil’s first year of publication. As Brazil’s first monthly magazine targeting the black population, Raça had a tremendous impact. The magazine’s first edition was released in September  and received an unprecedented response. Two hundred thousand copies of the first edition were printed, and the publication’s high print volume was met with an equally high demand. Eighty percent of the copies of Raça for sale in Belo Horizonte sold within three days. The cities of Porto Alegre and São Paulo also sold  percent and  percent, respectively, of the magazines within three days. The phenomenal success enjoyed by Raça in its first year of publication challenged several myths concerning Afro-Brazilians and the role of blacks in the Brazilian media: first, the belief that a black middle class capable of purchasing luxury items did not exist; second, the belief that magazines with blacks on the cover would not sell; and third, the belief that Afro-Brazilians felt more shame than pride in their ethnic and cultural identity (Cadernos Pagu ). Although magazines such as Black People and Pode Cre were published during the middle and late s, Raça was the first black monthly magazine with a nationwide circulation. The importance of publications that either preceded or were smaller in circulation than Raça should not be underestimated, however. While most other black magazines were short lived or more local in reach, they played a crucial role in increasing the visibility of blacks in the Brazilian media. The language and imagery used in Raça Brasil highlight the significance of race and identification with blackness in positive terms. By utilizing the Portuguese term raça (race), the magazine’s title calls attention to race, rather than skin color. In addition, use of the phrase “A Revista dos Negros Brasileiros” (The magazine of black Brazilians) on the magazine’s cover clearly identifies its intended audience. The cover of the magazine’s first edition appealed to black consumers by depicting a young black man and woman and stating, “Essa é pra mim” (This is for me). The covers of subsequent editions affirmed the value and beauty of blackness by including photos of Afro-Brazilian actors and models overlaid with phrases such as “Tenho orgulho de ser negro” (I am proud to be black), “Jovems decretam: a nova onda é ser black” (Young people proclaim: the new wave is to be black),

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FIGUR E 3.1 Cover of the September  edition of Raça Brasil. Courtesy of Raça

Brasil.

“Negro é lindo” (Black is beautiful), “Black Power,” “Beleza negra” (Black beauty), and “Negra, sim!” (Black, yes!). Most of the articles in Raça Brasil focus on beauty, fashion, entertainment, and music. Afro-Brazilian celebrities, especially actors, musicians and models, have consistently been featured on the cover and profiled on the pages of Raça. African American musicians from the United States have also

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been prominent in the magazine. The November  issue of Raça contained an article on the recently deceased African American rapper Tupac Shukar, along with a translation of his song “Life Goes On.” Subsequent issues of Raça profiled African American entertainers from the United States such as Prince and Toni Braxton. The editors also responded to criticisms that the magazine was too superficial by including more material focused on issues of race and racism, in Brazil as well as in other parts of the world. The content of the magazine’s first anniversary issue in September  reflected this change in focus. The issue contained an interview with South African film director Jo Menell, a short piece on Steve Biko, several articles on racial discrimination, as well as an article titled “Quilombos: A luta de Zumbi continua!” (Runaway slave communities: The struggle of Zumbi continues). In many ways, the visual representations in Raça have a greater impact on the tone and message of the magazine than do the articles and journalistic content. Perhaps most striking to most readers is the emphasis on hair in the magazine, both in advertisements and in written pieces. Advertisements for hair products manufactured in Brazil and the United States are found throughout the magazine, far outnumbering advertisements for any other type of product. Ethnically specific hair products such as shampoos and chemical straighteners are common in the magazine. Advertisements for human hair products and alongamento (hair weaves) are also featured. The interest in and demand for ethnically specific hair products is also demonstrated by the fact that Raça launched a separate monthly publication focusing on cabelos crespos titled Visual in . Despite the emphasis on ethnically specific hair products in Raça, the images and text of most hair advertisements highlight the magazine’s ambivalent representation of black hair and beauty. In the November  issue of Raça, an advertisement for Essenza hair products stated (see fig. .), “Finally someone remembered that Brazilian women exist in Brazil. Essenza is a line developed especially for cabelos crespos, very common in our country. But, as with almost everything that is beautiful, they are fragile. . . . In truth, using Essenza you will only have one doubt: why are there still people straightening their hair?” The text of this advertisement attempts to valorize the hair of Afro-Brazilian women without directly referencing race. Instead, the term cabelos crespos is used as a commonsense signifier of blackness. The phrase, “Finally someone remembered that Brazilian women exist in Brazil,” can also be read as a coded message about race in which the term Brazilian women stands in for black or non-European women. The advertisement describes cabelos crespos as being “beautiful” yet “fragile” and indirectly critiques the practice of hair straightening. While in many ways the text of this advertisement challenges dominant aesthetic standards, the visual representation in the advertisement reinforces Eurocentric definitions of beauty.

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FIGUR E 3.2 Advertisement for Essenza Hair products. Courtesy of Raça Brasil.

The advertisement contains a photo of a nearly white, if not white, woman running her fingers through hair that appears to be naturally wavy. None of the woman’s phenotypical features indicate African ancestry, nor does she have the type of cabelos crespos described in the advertisement’s text. Unlike the advertisement for Essenza, most advertisements for hair products in Raça focus on chemically relaxing or straightening cabelos

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crespos. Advertisements for products that straighten hair or produce an Afro permanente (curly Afro) typically describe the results in terms of hair that will be soft, light, versatile, free, and have movement. In contrast, terms such as difficult and rebellious are associated with unprocessed cabelos crespos. In the September  issue of Raça, an advertisement for AmericanHair featured the Afro-Brazilian model and actress Isabel Fillardis (see fig. .). The text of the advertisement conveys Fillardis’s thoughts in the first person: “With AmericanHair, I transform myself into the woman that I always imagined, completely happy, pretty and radiant. And the best thing is: that is exactly how other people see me.” The advertisement also features a large photo of Fillardis smiling and wearing her long hair in a wavy hairstyle. A small photo of Fillardis can be seen in the left corner of the page. Fillardis is frowning and her hair is shown in an unruly, ostensibly natural hairstyle. A caption stating, “Look how I was before AmericanHair,” is found below the small photo. Several of my informants commented on the significance of Raça and recent trends in media images of blackness during their interviews. I also had a number of informal conversations with people who expressed their views of the images found in Raça. While many women supported the increased media visibility of Afro-Brazilians that Raça clearly helped to promote, some were also critical of the magazine. Suely, a twenty-six-year-old college student, explained: Raça is important in so far as the negro is able to walk with Raça and say, “Nossa (wow), I am negro! Look how barato (cool)!” You know? I saw a very cool photo in Raça. It has a negro with a library in the background. . . . So, a person who sees that . . . A negro that sees that will say, “A negro intellectual,” you know? Valorization, I think that this is something important. But I think that Raça also has to see that here we have negros that are poor and valorize a more negra aesthetic. Because it is just like one of my friends told me, the negro with features of the branco will always lose if he competes with a branco [standard of] beauty. . . . But the negro with beauty characteristic of himself has no way of losing, you know? Because they are two different things, they are different levels of beauty. . . . Whoever looks at a negro seeking a branco is not going to see this negro. He is going to have to look with another type of eye in order to see another type of [beauty].

Suely’s comments touch on points that were also articulated in my conversations with other women. While noting Raça’s importance in valorizing the experiences and accomplishments of Afro-Brazilians, she also criticizes the magazine’s failure to promote “a more negra aesthetic.” Her insightful

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FIGUR E 3.3 Isabel Fillardis in an advertisement for AmericanHair products. Cour-

tesy of Raça Brasil.

comments also highlight the pervasiveness of Eurocentric standards that privilege the physical attributes of white Brazilians and largely render AfroBrazilians invisible.14 During our interview, I asked Suely to expound on her view of the images in Raça. I also asked her if she thought it was important to have a space for black media images. She responded by stating:

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If you want to change the racial problem in Brazil, you should do a campaign with negros. I am not talking about the mestiço; no, I am talking about negros. Because if you do a campaign with the mestiço, then a negro will appear, but the branco will always think that he is much better than the mestiço because the mestiço is trying to be branco. Understand? The mestiço is not trying to be negro. So, if you put a branco, you have to put a negro. In the sense of the negro [being attractive], I think that this is it. For example, if we negros retain a space within the media, some space—if we had this consciousness of valorizing a negro aesthetic that was totally the inverse of a branco aesthetic, I think that within an extremely short time we would invert a lot of things.

Suely’s comments highlight the realities of aesthetic competitions between brancos, mestiços, and negros. They also underscore the importance of valorizing a negro aesthetic as an integral part of the antiracist struggle in Brazil.

Resignifying Black Bodies While recognizing the pain and victimization experienced by many AfroBrazilian women in the realm of beauty, my analysis also seeks to explore how women attempt to challenge anti-black aesthetic values and resignify the embodiment of black womanhood. John Burdick’s (a) work provides a nuanced discussion of the politics of black women’s hair and appropriately cautions against oversimplifying the complex issues and struggles involved. He openly critiques the view that black women only experience oppression with regard to their hair. Instead, Burdick highlights the need to examine black women’s activities and positionalities as subjects within the realm of hair and beauty. Although Afro-Brazilian women have had little control over shaping the norms and values that define beauty in Brazil, it is crucial that their agency be recognized and critically examined. While Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences with regard to beauty underscore the political importance of the body as a marker of racial and gender identity, their resistance in the realm of beauty also demonstrates how they struggle against dominant ideologies and work to give meaning to one of the most intimate aspects of their lives, their bodies. Two of my interviewees stand out as examples of black women’s attempts to reinvest their hair with positive significance. Their experiences highlight the central role that hair plays in black women’s processes of identity construction. Their experiences also underscore the relationship between the valorization of blackness as a form of racial self-identification and the acceptance of black or Africanized physical features.

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Cleonice At the time of our interview in , Cleonice was fifty-one years old. She wore her hair in a short, “naturally” curly style.15 As a child, Cleonice experienced the impact of anti-black aesthetic values firsthand. One day at school another child told her that her hair was arame, or “wire.” This incident caused Cleonice to run home crying. During our interview, I asked Cleonice to explain the significance of arame. She stated that it is a fiber that is harder and thicker than bombril, the wire used for kitchen scouring pads. Her description of arame suggests that the term has a more negative meaning than other terms, such as bombril,16 that are commonly used to describe black hair in Brazil. Cleonice straightened her hair as a young woman. However, during the early s she began to wear her hair in an Afro. In her personal narrative, Cleonice noted that she began to “me assumir como negra” (assume myself/self-identify as black) when she moved to Salvador, Bahia, in . On a symbolic level, it is important to note that Cleonice’s racial transformation began to take place in Salvador. The city of Salvador and the state of Bahia are popularly known as the “most black” areas of Brazil. Afro-Brazilian religion and culture permeate the city of Salvador, and Bahia has one of the largest populations of African descent in Brazil. Cleonice’s racial transformation was also facilitated by the encouragement of her boyfriend Pedro, a Brazilian of German ancestry. Pedro encouraged Cleonice to stop straightening her hair and begin to wear cabelo black (black hair or an Afro). Cleonice’s transformation was also prompted by her exposure to images of Angela Davis in the Brazilian media. She admired the images of Davis that she saw in Brazilian newspapers and sought to emulate Davis’s pro-black aesthetic.17 In addition to wearing an Afro that closely resembled Davis’s, Cleonice also began to wear the same style of eyeglasses. In her narrative, Cleonice states that she thought it was chique (chic) when people said that she looked like Davis. Through use of cabelo black, Cleonice was able to transform her cabelo arame into a symbol of racial pride and political resistance. Cleonice’s experiences highlight the lack of affirming images of black women in the Brazilian public sphere and point to the transnational circulation of body politics within the African diaspora. My conceptualization of diasporic body politics includes discourses, practices, and aesthetics that valorize black bodies and resignify them as beautiful. In my view, diasporic body politics challenge Eurocentric aesthetic standards and promote the affirmation of blackness and black political consciousness. In many ways, Cleonice’s experience of racial transformation was both symbolized by and embodied in her cabelo black. Linguistically, the term cabelo black

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exemplifies interaction between black politics and culture in Brazil and the United States. The term combines the Brazilian word for hair, cabelo, with the English word black, thus underscoring the transnational dimensions of black body politics in Brazil. Cleonice identified with the image of radical black womanhood that Angela Davis represented and used Davis as a model in the reconstruction of her own racial, gender, and political subjectivity. Moreover, for Cleonice, the Afro was more than a hairstyle; it was also an expression of her nascent racial consciousness. Jacqueline Brown’s () discussion of diasporic resources resonates with the engagement with diasporic body politics described in Cleonice’s narrative. In Brown’s analysis of relationships and connections between blacks in Liverpool and the United States, she observes that diasporic resources “may include not just cultural productions such as music, but also people and places, as well as iconography, ideas, and ideologies associated with them” (, ). Brown uses the concept of diasporic resources to convey the ways in which “black Liverpudlians actively appropriate particular aspects of ‘black America’ for particular reasons, to meet particular needs—but do so within limits, within and against power asymmetries, and with political consequences” (, ). Brown’s ethnographic research elucidates the ways in which blacks in Liverpool engage in processes of diasporic identity formation by seizing and appropriating diasporic resources and utilizing them in a local context (, , ). Much like Cleonice, one of Brown’s interviewees described the appropriation of diasporic resources and engagement with diasporic body politics in terms of “growing Afros, wearing arm bands, wearing one black glove to a certain extent” (, ).

Marcia Marcia was thirty-six years old at the time of our interview in . By that time, she had been wearing her hair in a natural style for eight years. She had also been working as a model in hair shows for five years. When asked about her racial identity, Marcia recounted the following: “I was always conscious of being negra. Although, I think that, let’s say, the only thing that was not assumida (accepted) was the issue of hair. Today I would pass through all of the process that I already went through of straightening my hair. But today I have the consciousness that if I straighten my hair, I will not stop being black. Although, when I straightened it, I did not think that I was going to stop being black. But it was a question of vanity. I wanted that type of hair that swung and so forth.” This excerpt touches on key issues related to hair, beauty, and racial identity in Brazil. It is interesting to note that Marcia responded to my question about racial identity by discussing her experiences and views

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related to hair. Marcia states that she was always conscious of being black and that hair was the only thing that she did not “assume.” Her use of the term assumida can be viewed as a reflection of her racial consciousness. This interpretation is consistent with use of the term negro/negra assumido/assumida (self-identified black) by black Brazilian activists as a way of describing individuals with a strong sense of racial consciousness. Unlike the English verb to assume, in Portuguese assumir signifies personal assumption of a political identity that an individual takes on and adopts. As Robin Sheriff has noted, to become a negro assumido “is to reject the polite discourses and miscegenated identities associated with intermediate racial terms (moreno, mulato, pardo, etc.) in favor of an unambiguous, unsoftened, and unqualified negro identity. It is to make a psychological leap into what activists sometimes call ‘negritude’ and to undergo what they describe as something akin to a conversion experience” (, ). Many black activists would regard Marcia’s negative view of her hair as a rejection of blackness and thus as a reflection of her lack of racial consciousness.18 However, in her narrative Marcia states that, based on her current consciousness or way of thinking, she realizes that she would not stop being black if she straightened her hair. She revises this statement slightly in the next sentence by stating that she did not think that she would stop being black when she straightened her hair in the past. She concludes by focusing on vanity as being the motivation for straightening her hair. As in Regina’s description of her childhood, Marcia describes her former preference for hair that swung. However, it is worth noting that Marcia describes her hair preference as an expression of personal vanity, rather than describing it as a reflection of a socially constructed standard of beauty that privileges straight hair. In other sections of her narrative, Marcia states that shame about her hair caused her to straighten it. At the time, however, Marcia did not admit that she chemically straightened her hair. Instead, she told people that she used a banho de óleo (oil bath) to achieve a straighter texture. Marcia’s denial about the use of chemicals in her hair gave the impression that her hair underwent less extreme alteration than it actually did. Despite her favorable public representation of her hairstyling practices, Marcia described the straightening process in decidedly unfavorable terms. She notes, “The process of straightening was terrible. There were burns. When you straightened, you ended up with that really straight thing [hair]. And you couldn’t do anything with it. If you went to a party and it rained, oh my God. How terrible. Torture.” Although Marcia wore her hair in a natural style at the time of our interview, the transition from straightened to natural hair was a somewhat difficult one. She described this process by stating, “When I wanted to stop straightening my hair, I kept asking her [the hairstylist], ‘If I stop straightening my hair, how is it going to look?’ Of course, she did not know

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how to respond. So, she said, ‘It is going to be crespo.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ ” Marcia’s narrative describes her difficulty in accepting her hair in its natural state. Her repeated questioning of her hairstylist suggests that she was seeking to allay personal concerns regarding her hair’s natural texture. In her personal narrative, Marcia notes that her hair preferences changed after she began to socialize with larger numbers of blacks. During the late s, she started to frequent pagode dances and have greater “convivência com negros” (interaction with blacks). Since pagode is a blackdominated social and cultural space, Marcia encountered larger numbers of black women wearing natural hairstyles there. After Marcia decided to let her chemically straightened hair grow out, she began the process of addressing and accepting her hair’s natural texture. This process involved the use of braids in her hair. Wearing her hair in braids forced Marcia to confront her previous dislike for braided hairstyles. As she notes, “Each week I braided my hair. I braided it to stop straightening it. . . . It was a shock for everyone.” Despite her earlier struggles to accept the natural texture of her hair and the process of braiding, Marcia’s pride in and acceptance of her hair was clearly visible during our interview. As she observes, “I love my hair. I always liked it, straightened or not. I feel an enormous energy in my hair. . . . I think it [natural hair] is pretty, practical. You’ve seen all the things I do with my hair. I am not going to say, ‘I repent for not having accepted (assumido) this.’ I really do not repent, because I think that everything is a process. It is all a question of time, a question of maturity. But, I think that it is fantastic.” Marcia displays a nonjudgmental attitude regarding her former hairstyling preferences. Rather than engaging in self-condemnation because she straightened her hair in the past, she describes her hairstyling practices as being a reflection of her growth and maturity. Unlike Cleonice, however, Marcia does not explicitly link these processes of growth and maturity to changes in her racial consciousness. Instead, Marcia’s comments suggest that some Afro-Brazilian women may drastically change their hairstyling practices without developing a forceful critique of racism.

Untangling the Politics of Hair and Identity Cleonice’s and Marcia’s narratives raise a number of important questions regarding Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences in the realm of hair and beauty: To what extent do Afro-Brazilian women’s hairstyling practices reflect racial consciousness? Does straightened or chemically altered hair reflect the internalization of anti-black aesthetic standards or racial self-hatred? Can the use of “natural” hairstyles be seen as a form of resistance to anti-black aesthetic standards even when it is not consciously linked to transformations in racial consciousness?

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Attempting to untangle the relationship between hair and Afro-Brazilian women’s identities is a difficult and perhaps never-ending task.19 As Cleonice’s and Marcia’s experiences suggest, each generation of women must come to terms with the embodied significance of black womanhood within a specific sociopolitical context. Additionally, individual women must come to terms with the significance of their hair in personal and intimate terms. My interviewees’ experiences indicate that this can be done in a variety of ways. Cleonice’s change in hairstyling practices was nearly inseparable from the transformation in her racial consciousness. However, Marcia’s process of returning her hair to its natural state was not explicitly tied to changes in her consciousness about race or racism. The impact of larger social forces on each woman’s individual process of transformation is also worth noting. As someone who came of age in the s, Cleonice was profoundly influenced by the U.S. black power movement. She utilized the pro-black aesthetics of the era to fashion a new form of body politics and racial subjectivity. Unlike Cleonice, however, Marcia’s process of personal transformation occurred during the late s. By this time, s-style pro-black aesthetics had begun to decline in influence. Nonetheless, Marcia drew upon styles and discourses found in the black-dominated cultural space of pagode dances. While stating that black Brazilian women’s hair is a direct reflection of their racial or political consciousness would be an oversimplification of the issues involved (see Banks ; Mercer ), the personal narratives examined in this chapter suggest that hair is a significant indicator of the extent to which women are negras assumidas (self-identified black women). The relationship between hair and consciousness also suggests that black women’s hair is a key site for mapping internal struggles and transformations related to race and gender. By representing the experiences of two different generations, Cleonice’s and Marcia’s narratives demonstrate how the political connotations of hair and particular hairstyles are subject to change. Transformations in the political significance of particular hairstyles can perhaps best be seen in relationship to cabelo black as a style that affirmed black pride and black beauty during the s but decreased in popularity in later years. These changes suggest that, although hair is a permanent part of Afro-Brazilian women’s embodied experiences, its significations are shaped by political struggles and transformations, both within Brazil and across the African diaspora.

Racialized Embodiment, (De)Humanization, and Citizenship Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences in the realm of hair and beauty suggest that bodies are privileged sites for the enactment of racialized and gendered notions of difference and inferiority. Their experiences also underscore the

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ways in which bodies serve as both sites and reference points for gendered and racialized constructions of social meaning. Afro-Brazilian women’s resistance in the sphere of beauty challenges hegemonic discourses on gender, race, and nation that privilege whiteness and racial hybridity while deprecating blackness. In their attempts to reclaim their bodies and reinvest them with positive significance, Afro-Brazilian women affirm their right to belong in the Brazilian nation as differently embodied subjects. These processes of reclaiming subjectivity and citizenship emphasize the “right to be equal” and also imply “the right to be different and the idea that difference shall not constitute a basis for inequality” (Dagnino , ). The role of blackness as a signifier of difference is key to understanding how Brazilian practices of racial alterity perpetuate beliefs that AfroBrazilians are the racial “others” of white Brazilians. My view of racial alterity resonates with David Theo Goldberg’s () analysis of the role of “otherness” in racist discourse. By highlighting the relationship between physical bodies and the body politic, Goldberg’s analysis provides a basis for understanding how Brazilian racist discourse operates through processes of exclusion that are constructed on and through physical bodies.20 Such processes of racialization are largely predicated on the normalization of blackness as inferior and whiteness as superior. Iris Marion Young’s () work provides additional insights into Brazilian practices of racial alterity. Her analysis of the aesthetic scaling of bodies underscores the political significance of prejudices regarding bodies that are defined as other. Young notes that embodiment and oppression are closely linked in the realms of everyday life and social interaction. She argues that group oppressions are not primarily enacted in official laws and policies, “but in informal, often unnoticed and unreflective speech, bodily reactions to others, conventional practices of everyday interaction and evaluation, aesthetic judgements, and the jokes, images, and stereotypes pervading the mass media” (I. Young , ). The song “Look at Her Hair” supports Young’s view by demonstrating how racialized and gendered notions of difference, otherness, and inequality are enacted and perpetuated through ostensibly benign images and social behaviors. Young’s analysis of the politics of difference further suggests that traditional scholarly notions of citizenship need to be rethought and broadened to both include and account for the political significance of racist and sexist imagery. As she argues, “If contemporary oppression is enacted through a body aesthetic . . . and through images and stereotypes that simultaneously feed such behavior, legitimate it, and allay the fears it expresses, then normative reflection on justice should include attention to such phenomena” (I Young , ). Young’s call for an expanded notion of justice allows for the possibility of viewing body aesthetics in relation to larger social

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and political practices. Her analysis also offers a much needed corrective to hegemonic understandings of race in Brazil that minimize the social and political significance of ostensibly personal biases and judgments related to black bodies. Linking body aesthetics to larger issues of justice provides a basis for understanding the relationship between dominant notions of beauty and hegemonic discourses on citizenship and national belonging in Brazil. While the relationship between embodiment and citizenship has received little scholarly discussion, discourses and practices of embodiment provide a crucial basis for understanding the construction of boundaries between groups that enjoy the rights of full citizens and those that occupy a status of de facto non-citizens. The relationship between physical bodies and citizenship merits close discussion since bodies form the material substance of citizensubjects, and normative notions of acceptable and unacceptable bodies are used to determine who belongs to the nation. In Brazil, as in many other nation-states, individuals whose bodies deviate from the body type of the ideal citizen-subject are commonly forced into a position of subaltern citizenship. By operating through the physicality of bodies, modern and post-modern forms of racism construct boundaries between self and other, both on the interpersonal level and at the level of the nation. As the song “Look at Her Hair” demonstrates, negative views of black women’s bodies play a central role in perpetuating gendered and racialized practices of alterity and dehumanization. Ultimately, such practices position Afro-Brazilian women as de facto non-citizens by denying them full membership in the human family, as well as in the family of the Brazilian nation.21

4 Becoming a Mulher Negra How do you identify positively as a black woman when the socialization process is primarily based on the vision that “the black is bad, ugly and dirty” and that the “woman has a less favorable place”? To look at oneself in the mirror and recognize one’s own characteristics—nariz chato (flat/bad nose), cabelo pixaim (kinky hair), bunda grande (large buttocks)—as valuative attributes is very difficult. —Matilde Ribeiro, “Tornar-se negra”

The battle for racial justice is fought not only in the open political arena of the state and social movements, not only in the struggle for adequate cultural representations, significations, and consciousness of difference; it is also fought on the interior terrain of the individual—her/his intrapsychic world and immediate relationships. —Howard Winant, Racial Conditions—Politics, Theory, Comparisons

My initial contact with members of the Brazilian black movement and

black women’s movement in  and  prompted me to examine how processes of racial identity formation operate on the individual level. Although much of the scholarship on race in Brazil has tended to focus on the pervasiveness of the color continuum, and thus in many ways deny the salience of racial categories (Pierson ; Twine ), my interaction with Afro-Brazilians who identified as negro/negra suggested that more complicated processes of racial identification were at work in Brazil. My curiosity about practices of racial and gender identity formation on the individual level prompted me to explore how and why some Afro-Brazilian women adopt black racial identities in a social environment that encourages colorbased forms of self-identification. Recent ethnographic research has explored the complexities of Brazilian racial consciousness (Burdick a, b; Sansone ; Sheriff ; Twine , ; Warren ). While adopting different approaches, all of 1 07

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these studies highlight the difficulties associated with the development of “black” identities in Brazil. In particular, this scholarship demonstrates that the process of adopting a black identity or coming to racial consciousness is often fraught with difficulty. Much of this work also suggests that few Brazilians of African descent consciously identify as black (Burdick a, b; Twine , ). Despite a marked increase in scholarship focusing on racial consciousness in Brazil, Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of racial and gender subject formation have gone largely unexplored. As a consequence, the gendered dimensions of racial identity formation have not been discussed in most of the literature on race in Brazil.1 This chapter examines how several AfroBrazilian women have developed resistant forms of racial and gender subjectivity. The narratives that are presented and analyzed illustrate how my informants have come to terms with race, gender, and class, as well as with socially constructed notions of sexuality and femininity. My informants’ experiences, as constructed in their personal narratives, illustrate how Afro-Brazilian women negotiate dominant discourses on color and race. Personal struggles over the acceptance and negation of blackness were expressed by many women during the course of my field research. I asked, Edna, a thirty-seven-year-old schoolteacher, if she identified as negra: EDNA: K I A:

Yes, but at times I did not like it.

You did not like it?

EDNA:

No. I think all blacks deal with the issue. . . . It could be a phase, or it

could exist for the rest of one’s life. It is a period of negation. . . . There’s always negation, before acceptance. You try to verify it. You see it—live and in color—but you do not want to be it. I remember that I used to imagine: “If I were not black, how would my life be?” And, at times, I did not want to be [black], so that my life would be different. This is a reality. Dona Nilza, a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher, also noted the complexities of color and race classification in Brazil, stating: “I, for example, have no way of denying that I am negra. Another woman who has a little less color than me says that she is morena. Another woman who is lighter still says that she is moreninha (little brown one). The mulata that is tired of knowing that she is negra, the one that mixes in the society, she does the following: when she is around brancos, she is branca; when she needs to use someone from here, she is negra. So, the poor thing does not have an identity.” Describing the enactment of color and racial identities on the subjective level, Dona Nilza admits that her self-identification as negra has largely been

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determined by her darker skin tone. However, she notes that women who are slightly lighter than herself are able to dis-identify as black and adopt a color identity as morena or moreninha. Dona Nilza’s view of the self-identification of the mulatas is less favorable still. She notes that women of mixed racial ancestry use their intermediate racial status as a way to reap benefits from both white and black segments of the population. However, while expressing a critical view of mulatas, Dona Nilza concludes her observations by expressing sympathy since, in her opinion, they do not “have an identity.” Dona Nilza’s view of the mulata’s ostensible lack of identity resonates with the perspectives of many activists in the black movement as well as with scholarly conceptualizations of racial identity in Brazil (Hanchard b; Moura ). Black activists commonly refer to Brazilians of African ancestry who appear to lack racial consciousness as negras/negros não assumidas/assumidos, or “individuals who do not self-identify as black.” As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the notion of being a negra/negro assumida/assumido suggests that an individual has taken on or consciously adopted a black identity. This process of assuming blackness stands in sharp contrast to the adoption of color categories as forms of self-identification. It has also been argued that Brazil’s system of color identification leads to identity fragmentation within the nonwhite population, particularly amongst Brazilians of African descent (Moura ). A number of scholars have noted that the devaluation of blackness in Brazil causes Afro-Brazilians to use color categories as a way to disassociate from racial identities that are deemed inferior (D. Silva ; Gomes ; Guimarães a, b; Moura ; Nascimento ; N. Santos ).

Narrative Reflections on Gender, Race, and Subjectivity My analysis of Afro-Brazilian women’s personal narratives conceptualizes subjectivity as the “conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world” (Weedon , ). Rather than viewing experience as an unmediated guide to truth, experience is used as a basis for exploring how Afro-Brazilian women relate to dominant social discourses and practices in the formation of their subjectivities. In this way, experience is seen as “the originating point of knowledge, an interpretation, a relational sensemaking which incorporates social meaning. . . . Experience, therefore, is that crucible in which the self and the world enter into a creative union called ‘social subjectivity’ ” (Bannerji , ). The concept of “social subjectivity” is well suited to the task of investigating gendered and racialized processes of subject formation. By examining Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of “sense-making,” this chapter explores how the construction

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of subjectivity involves complex interactions between individual women and macro-level social discourses. Ultimately, the psychosocial conceptualization of subjectivity employed in this analysis points to a dialectical relationship in which the individual and society are mutually, although not equally, influential. The following section provides a detailed analysis of three women’s personal narratives. Excerpts from each woman’s narrative provide the basis for investigating the formation of racial and gender subjectivities in contemporary Brazil. The theoretical and methodological approaches used in this analysis underscore the importance of examining the impact of dominant social discourses on the individual level. By undertaking a psychosocial analysis of subjectivity, I explore how individual Afro-Brazilian women contest practices of race and gender domination. The following questions are central to this analysis: How does being an Afro-Brazilian woman influence social experience and subject formation? How do individual women come to identify as black in a society where racial identification is discouraged and a discourse of color, rather than race, is privileged? How do race and gender intersect in influencing Afro-Brazilian women’s self-perceptions and practices of identification?

Regina We were introduced to Regina, a thirty-nine-year-old tax inspector, in chapter . I met Regina through her brother, João, a writer and promoter of Afro-Brazilian culture in Belo Horizonte. Regina does not have a history of antiracist or feminist activism. In the following passage, Regina describes the family environment in which she was raised: “My father was born in . That was twenty-three years after the abolition of slavery, so he had a sense of pride: ‘I am not a slave; when I was born slavery had already been abolished for twenty-three years.’ But he was very much a type of ‘yes sir’ black. You know. He was used to being subservient. ‘Stay in your place.’ So, you had to figure out what place that was and stay in it. We were raised in an environment that encouraged conformity and subservience. Things did not begin to change until we realized that not being a slave was not enough, but that we needed to create conditions for taking action.” In this excerpt, Regina distinguishes between the formal status of blacks (i.e., not being a slave) and the development of racial identity. She notes that her father’s legal and civil status, as someone who was born after abolition, did not mean that he had addressed the significance of his identity with respect to race. According to Regina, change did not occur for her brother and her until they realized that “not being a slave was not enough.” She further notes that being black involves a process of acceptance and making proactive choices that seek to “create conditions for taking action.”

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Like Regina, most of the women that I interviewed stated that race was not discussed in their families when they were children and that their parents did not instill a sense of racial pride in them. The frequency of these experiences suggests that explicit and intentional practices of racial socialization have been absent from many Afro-Brazilian homes. In my view, explicit and intentional practices of racial socialization presuppose conscious effort on the part of parents or other family members to instill constructive knowledge about race, racism, and racial identity in Afro-Brazilian children. Until recently, the ideological hegemony of racial democracy and the resulting absence of public discourse on Brazilian race relations have led to a lack of discussion about race in the private sphere of Afro-Brazilian homes and families (see Sheriff ). As a result, rather than fostering positive environments for the formation of racial identities, socialization practices in Afro-Brazilian homes often perpetuate negative views of blackness, blindness to the existence and effects of racism, and reluctance to identify as black or with blackness. Like that of many of my informants, Regina’s childhood experiences suggest that non-enriching practices of racial socialization reproduce the same “alienating symbolic reality” (Moura ) within the private sphere that dominant discourses on race perpetuate in the public sphere. This observation resonates with Nilma Lino Gomes’s assertion that “parents or those who are responsible for children are the first to point out a black child’s racial belonging and to valorize, or not, their culture. . . . It is also in the family that blacks learn to see whites as the standard to be achieved and whites learn to see blacks as the standard to be negated” (, ). Regina’s narrative describes her personal journey from a family environment that encouraged “conformity and subservience” to the development and assertion of a resistant black identity. Her experiences also point to the difficulties associated with developing a positive self-image in a society that valorizes whiteness and miscegenation and deprecates blackness. She observes, “It was very hard for my generation to not only accept ourselves as black, but also to attempt to create a space—because we did not have a model. The models are being developed now.” In her narrative, Regina also describes the psychological impact of Brazilian discourses on race and gender. She makes a number of astute observations regarding dominant constructions of female gender identity and Afro-Brazilian women’s attempts to adopt dominant standards of beauty. In the following passage, she describes how she came to terms with the physical signifiers of black womanhood: R EGINA:

We have more curves than other women. We have certain parts that

are much larger—wider hips, larger bottoms. Wow, it was so much work for me to try to hide [this]. I thought that I had to hide. This was just

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awhile ago. And this was a process that happened largely due to analysis, therapy. How am I going to hide something that is part of me? K I A:

Of your body?

R EGINA: K I A:

Of my body. How am I going to hide it?

So you used clothes that were more . . .

R EGINA:

Larger. Since I am not fat it was easy to dress in clothes that were

larger and disguise the rest. But if I were fat, it would have been harder. I used larger clothes, long shirts and such. And after going through therapy was when I arrived at the conclusion, “Wait a minute, this is part of me. It does not make sense to try to hide.” K I A:

Was it because you did not want to call attention to yourself? Was it something like “a black woman’s bunda (buttocks)”?

R EGINA:

Yes. It was very much like that. It was very much like that. Because,

for you to see, a larger bunda is always put forth as the national preference. This is put out there for the mulata, the negra. . . . But this process was not a conscious one. It was clear to me after I realized that I was hiding; which means that I did not have any idea that I was hiding. Now this is very clear for me. And I am trying not to repeat the same mistakes with my daughter. Regina’s narrative highlights the psychological impact of dominant discourses on gender and female sexuality. She notes that in Brazil large buttocks are the “national preference” and, as such, are valorized as symbols of female sexuality and sensuality, particularly for mulata and black women. However, as Regina’s experiences suggest, Brazilian practices of sexual objectification also have a profound psychological impact on black women’s views of their bodies.2 Regina’s process of developing a positive self-image involved valorization of the physical particularities of being a black woman. Her involvement with psychotherapy was central to this gendered and racialized reconstruction of her subjectivity. After several years of counseling, Regina began to develop a more positive view of her body. Regina’s struggle with her body image also highlights the racial implications of Brazilian constructions of gender and female sexuality. As a petite woman, Regina’s concern was not focused on weight but rather on areas of her body that she considered to be problematic, especially her hips and buttocks. Regina’s narrative suggests that these areas constitute Africanized or racialized signifiers of difference in Brazil. Regina’s tendency to conceal her body demonstrates her awareness of the negative connotations of these physical markers of racial difference. A critical reading of the bunda as the “national preference” in Brazil also reveals the relationship among gender, race, sexuality, and nation. The

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high regard given to women’s buttocks in Brazilian discourses on sexuality is closely tied to the presence of Africans and Afro-Brazilians in the country. In many ways, Brazilian preferences for large buttocks reflect long-standing processes of racial intermixture premised on the sexual objectification of black women. Both discursively and in practice, buttocks function as a key signifier of female sexuality and womanhood. Unlike many European countries where breast size is paramount,3 in Brazil buttocks are regarded as the single most important area of women’s bodies. In her narrative, Regina expresses a desire to pass the lessons that she has learned on to her daughter. She states, “I do not want Ana to feel diminished. That is why I insist that she knows that she is a pretty girl, that she is intelligent, that she is capable, that she is able to get where she wants to go, that these are not prerogatives only of white people.” Regina adds, “This whole process took me years to discover. I want her to grow more integrated. . . . It is not possible for us to transmit our experiences to another person, but I can avoid her repressing herself as much as I repressed myself.” Regina’s comments underscore the psychological impact of dominant constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. By stating that she wants her daughter to “grow more integrated,” Regina implies that a state of psychological disintegration is possible. This observation resonates with Clovis Moura’s () view that Brazilian racial practices often lead to a process of identity fragmentation. Regina also links race, gender, and sexuality in Freudian terms by stating her desire to see her daughter avoid the type of repression that she has experienced. For Regina, repression involved shame about her body and attempts to hide gendered physical markers of racial difference. While stating her belief in the importance of assuming a black identity, Regina’s narrative also highlights the frustrations associated with identifying as black in Brazil. Noting the difficulty of assuming a black identity when others do not see her in those terms, Regina states: “I identify as negra. For me there is no problem in being called negra. Now, no. Now, it has been awhile. . . . The problem is with people who live with us. If I say that I am black, [they say,] ‘No, no, you are not, you are . . . ’ Then they begin to invent loads of things.” Regina’s comments suggest that racial subjectivity is not just a matter of individual choice or preference; instead, it is constructed within a larger context where competing discourses exist. As a result, even when a person self-identifies as black, dominant discourses on color are often used to delegitimize the assertion of black subjectivities. Regina’s experiences of identifying as black also relate to how her daughter’s identity is interpellated by dominant discourses on color, particularly as the light-skinned child of a

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black mother and white father. In the following passage, Regina notes that although she considers her daughter to be black, others may not agree: R EGINA:

The other day I was talking at my job about the black question. And

I said that my daughter is negra. My colleague said, “Why is she negra?” I said, “Why? Look at her color and look at me; I’m her mother.” He said, “Look at her father; he’s branco.” . . . I am saying this because she lives with me. I am raising her. She is around my friends and lives with my family. She is negra and she knows this. She is growing up with a consciousness of being negra. My colleague said, “But she cannot grow up that way because she is the daughter of a branco also. She is half branca and half negra.” K I A:

What is this mulata, mestiça?

R EGINA:

In my head, saying that someone is mestiço, mulato is strange.

This does not exist as far as I am concerned; either you assume yourself [identify] as negra or you do not. Regina expresses a critical view of multiple color categories in the preceding passages. She suggests that no middle ground exists between negro and branco and advocates the assertion of non-fluid racial identities. Regina states that her daughter is “growing up with a consciousness of being negra” and identifies her as negra based on the fact that she has stronger ties to Regina and her family. In the following passage, Regina describes her view of her daughter’s racial identity: K I A:

What does race mean to you? . . . What did you mean when you said that your daughter is negra, for example?

R EGINA:

I am talking about race. . . . I think it’s interesting that you men-

tioned this. Because for me it is very clear that my daughter is negra. I think that this is because I am negra; my race is negra. It is not that I forget that she has a father and that he is branco. But she lives with me, with my family, and in the environment in which I live. I am not able to see it any other way. I am not denying that she has a father who is branco. But she is not. . . . I see her as negra. And this has to do not only with race. I think that it is also related to consciousness. . . . It is not just a matter of skin color. I know people who have very light skin, straight hair, and slender noses who say that they are negro. I do not doubt them. They say that they are negro and accept themselves as negro. They have one parent that is negro and one parent that is branco. They say that they are negro and I have no reason to doubt them. In the same way, my daughter is negra to me. So, for me this issue is beyond skin color. It has more to do with acceptance. Even if she were branquinha (a little white one) just like her father, she would be negra—for me she would be.

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This passage illustrates several key aspects of Regina’s conceptualization of race. She observes that being negro/negra is not just about skin color, nor is it an issue of “pure” racial ancestry; instead, it is primarily based on an acceptance of blackness. As a result, she notes that the offspring of interracial relationships can consider themselves to be negro/negra. Regina’s view of the relationship between blackness and racial intermixture challenges Brazilian discourses on hybridity and mestiço essentialism. In her narrative, Regina implies that she would be doing her daughter a disservice by raising her to think that she was mulata, mestiça, or white. Instead, her comments suggest that she views blackness as an objective reality. Regina also indicates that accepting and embracing blackness is a matter of survival and is thus essential to life in a more general sense. She notes later in her narrative: “I think that it is easier for people to discern (enxergar) the world if they discern it as black, primarily as black even.” Regina further states that if her daughter is not aware of her racial identity, “she could be left without knowing which side to go to. But if it is left up to me, she will identify (se assumir) as negra. I think that she will have fewer problems that way. Of course, she will have all of those problems—in this country in which we live—that come with the enormous baggage of racism, on top of her. But in terms of being a person, individually, I think that she will have fewer problems if she knows that she is negra.” Regina’s comments resonate with Dona Nilza’s observation that mulatas do not “have an identity.” Regina’s narrative also suggests that valuing and embracing a black racial identity will help her daughter to escape the “alienating symbolic reality” offered by Brazilian color categories (Moura ). Finally, her comments indicate her belief that adopting a black identity will help her daughter to recognize how racism affects her despite her mixed racial ancestry. During our interview, I was struck by Regina’s keen insights into Brazilian racial dynamics. Her narrative also displayed a great deal of awareness regarding the relationship between race and gender. Regina’s critiques of racial and gender domination were made all the more surprising by the fact that she was not active in the black movement or the women’s movement. As I reviewed our interview, I began to realize that Regina’s involvement with psychotherapy facilitated her critiques of race and gender domination and the reconstruction of her subjectivity. While the connection between psychotherapy and racial subjectivity was not clearly spelled out during my interview with Regina, her experiences point to the role that therapy potentially plays in the lives of middle-class Afro-Brazilian women. During my visits to Brazil, I was often struck by the popularity of psychotherapy amongst members of the middle class. I was particularly surprised by the fact that seeing a therapist seemed to be far

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more common and acceptable in Brazil than it was in the United States. During my period of extended fieldwork in , I had middle-class acquaintances in Belo Horizonte who saw therapists on a regular basis, and several of my friends in São Paulo worked as therapists. The seeming preponderance of psychotherapists in major Brazilian cities and their popularity amongst members of the middle class made me wonder why therapy was so appealing to middle- and upper-class Brazilians. What did therapy offer to Brazilians that was not offered in other social arenas? What accounted for differences in the levels of social acceptance of therapy in Brazil and the United States? I frequently pondered these questions both during and after my field research and began to think that therapy has been used as a means of coming to terms with individual and collective psychological issues and traumas that affect Brazilians. I believe it is particularly important to link the demand for psychotherapy to patterns of social and political authoritarianism in the country. Because therapy offers a legitimate way of talking about personal feelings, as well as larger social issues, it likely provided an important coping mechanism for more affluent Brazilians during the country’s most recent period of authoritarian rule. Similar spaces for self-reflection and catharsis were probably quite scarce during the military dictatorship, particularly for poor Brazilians. While psychotherapy is often viewed as a private and personal practice of coming to terms with individual psychological issues, in many ways it is inextricable from larger social relations. Patterns of access to psychotherapy are particularly important barometers of class privilege and class identity in Brazil. In her () work, Donna Goldstein examines the class implications of psychotherapy in Brazil, noting that members of the middle class may have sought refuge in psychotherapy during the late s and s as the country endured an acute economic crisis and began the transition from authoritarian rule. Goldstein further describes middle-class Brazilians’ engagement in psychotherapy and other forms of psychological intervention as an “inward turn” that seems to have increasingly become a marker of their class identity during the s (, ).

Gislene We were first introduced to Gislene in chapter . She is a thirty-six-year-old human resources administrator with a background in teaching. Gislene and Regina belong to the same generational cohort, and therapy played an important role in both of their lives. At the time of our interview, Gislene had been active in the black movement for nine years and participated in a black women’s organization for seven years. I first met Gislene during a churrasco (barbeque) and pool party that a large number of black activists

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attended. Our paths later crossed during numerous meetings and events sponsored by the black movement and black women’s movement. Although Gislene identified as a negra before participating in the black movement, activism provided her with the tools necessary to critically examine Brazilian racial practices. Participation in the black movement also gave her access to a counterhegemonic discourse of black subjectivity that facilitated the reconstruction of her self-image. In the following passage, Gislene describes the impact of her involvement with the black movement on the re-reading of her childhood experiences: K I A:

Was there discussion of the racial question with your parents, your brothers and sisters?

GISLENE: K I A:

No.

Was it discussed? Was it not discussed?

GISLENE:

At this time, no. This type of discussion only began to appear when

I participated in the black movement . . . and I began to take it home. Because then I began to see what the basis of my development was. . . . Why I felt ugly; why I felt . . . without rights. The basis [for my development] was partly due to my parents’ perspective. It was due to them. Gislene’s narrative suggests that her involvement in the black movement enabled her to confront personal issues of identity and self-image. Through antiracist activism, Gislene began to address her sense of being unattractive and without rights. A critical re-reading of these issues also pointed to Gislene’s parents’ involvement in her personal development. Although she does not elaborate on this point in her narrative, her observations suggest that non-enriching practices of racial socialization existed in her family. Gislene’s narrative also suggests that both the sociopolitical context and her own self-image were different when I interviewed her than they were during her childhood. Pointing to changes in media images of blacks and the process of identity construction in the black community, Gislene notes that a more positive context for the affirmation and assertion of black identities existed in Brazil during the late s. Given these changes, Gislene states that her response to the discrimination that she experienced as a child might be different: “Perhaps today my reaction would be different—with the way that television is today and how the black community is building a more positive identity. If I had more self-esteem, perhaps my reaction would have been different.” In addition to her participation in antiracist activism, involvement with psychotherapy also enabled Gislene to address issues of self-acceptance on a subjective, psychological level. As Gislene notes in her narrative, “I did therapy for three and a half years. . . . Today, I say that it was the best

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investment that I made in myself. It helped me to understand a lot of things. I used to use the expression with Ricardo, my therapist, that . . . some things in me were ‘defects of fabrication.’ . . . I was able to really understand a lot of things and to see that they were not mine. . . . A lot of things were assimilated by me as being my own, but they came from the society. . . . I realized that it was not like I thought before; they were not defects of fabrication.” The process of discovery described by Gislene enabled her to re-evaluate her negative self-image. The “defects of fabrication” that Gislene refers to are personality traits that she blamed for her apparent inability to begin and sustain romantic relationships. She notes that therapy “helped in this process of reflection. Then I took the burden of the defect of fabrication off my shoulder.” Gislene’s involvement with therapy pointed to the social basis for experiences that she had formerly seen as personal failures and shortcomings. Consequently, she was able to see that these “defects of fabrication” were socially constructed rather than inherent. The negative identity that was ascribed to Gislene during her childhood had a lasting influence on how she saw herself as an adult. Feelings of alterity and subservience were especially prominent in her relationships with white women. In her personal narrative, Gislene describes her relationships with her white female friends in the following way: “Awhile ago, after I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, . . . I began to go to therapy, and I discovered that during a lot of my life I was an excellent dama de companhia (companion) for my white girlfriends because I am a nice, very pleasant person. . . . I am extroverted in conversation and I was good company for going out with them, . . . for going places and staying until whenever they were ready. I helped to liven up the parties. I livened up the table and did not compete with them for the other guys. So, I was really a dama de companhia for them. I was at their disposal.” In her narrative, Gislene attributes her realization of the nature of her relationships with her white female friends to two factors: involvement with therapy and her relationships with other black women. In the following excerpt she contrasts her relationships with white and black women: K I A:

Do you think that your relationships with black women are very different?

GISLENE:

They are very much [different]! It is equal! It is a relationship of

equal with equal. Even with black women who fit the standard of beauty, women that are very pretty, that are noticeably pretty—women who are pretty, not because they fit into the white standard, but that have a black beauty—even with them. And I do not consider myself to be a woman who fits the black standard of beauty. But even with them, it is a relationship of equal with equal. Even if they get more guys than I do,

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it still is not a utilitarian relationship; it is a relationship of equality. . . . Perhaps it’s because I did not feel like the ugly friend. I was the less pretty friend, but I was not the ugly friend. . . . I was not the “ugly duckling.” With the white women I invariably felt like an ugly duckling. Gislene’s description of her relationships with both white and black women centers on issues of beauty and self-image. Gislene describes her relationships with white women as being “utilitarian.” On the other hand, rather than being a “dama de companhia,” her relationships with other black women have been relationships of “equal with equal.” She notes that this sense of equality has characterized her relationships with other black women in spite of physical differences between them. Gislene’s observations also underscore the sense of alterity that pervaded her relationships with white women. As the “other” of her white female friends, Gislene’s physical characteristics were consistently found wanting and caused her to feel like an ugly duckling. Gislene’s relationships with other black women, informally and more formally through her activism in the black movement, have been central to the reconstruction of her subjectivity. Gislene intimates in her narrative: “When I was twenty years old, I started to have friendships with black women. There was one, then two, and then little by little we were creating a reference of black female friends. So today my friendships, my closest friendships, are with black women. I also have relationships with white women, but . . . my reference point, my space for discussing the eu mulher (me as a woman), is done with black women.” Gislene’s statements suggest that it is uncommon for black women to meet and build mutually beneficial relationships in Brazil. Her description of how this process occurred reinforces the sense of its uniqueness: Gislene was twenty years old and it occurred “little by little.” Gislene’s narrative also describes a need to develop a “reference point” and “space for discussing” the specificities of black women’s lives. Her statements contrast her relationships with white and black women, and she notes that her identity as a woman (“eu mulher”) has been best understood by other black women. In much the same way that Gislene’s involvement with the black movement provided a basis for the reconstruction of her racial subjectivity, her relationships with black women provided new insights into both the racial and gendered aspects of her identity. Comparing her relationships with white and black women caused Gislene to realize how power dynamics had shaped her interaction with white women. In her narrative, she notes that her friendships with black women were not predicated on her subservience. Instead, they were symmetrical relationships where she did not feel inferior or like the “other.” Describing the change in her self-image,

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Gislene observes: “I felt like the ugly duckling, but not now. . . . No, today I am a mulher poderosa (powerful woman)! Vitaminada (fortified)! Gostosa (tasty/appealing)!” Activism in a small black women’s group made a tremendous impact on Gislene and the other women involved. Gislene notes that all of the women have completed or are currently completing studies at the post-secondary level. She observes: “This seizing of consciousness is interesting—and not just this seizing of consciousness for us, internally. . . . We began to encourage our black sisters, our black female colleagues, . . . even black mothers. Now you meet forty-year-old black women with adult children who attend college. They attend college with their children. It is wild. This is very cool.” Gislene suggests that through their activism and friendships women in the organization encouraged one another and created a space to envision new possibilities as black women. In many ways, these women have been able to create relationships of mutual understanding and support based on their common experiences and struggles. Gislene notes that the “seizing of consciousness” by women in the group has extended to women outside of the group as well. Gislene attributes the group’s strength and effectiveness to the fact that it began “at the moment in which half a dozen ‘negrinha’ (black females) began to discuss their specific problem of the job market.” Members of the group have motivated one another to pursue their academic and professional goals. Describing how women in the group have been empowered to “carve out their space,” Gislene notes: “Sometimes we have the impression that ‘Wow, I still have not done hardly anything.’ . . . Maybe on the individual level . . . in the small actions that give an impulse, that give an impulse to change the culture . . . to construct a different identity. This was so positive that if it were not for this process of reflection that occurred eight or ten years ago, today I would not be a coordinator in Human Resources for the city.” Gislene’s narrative suggests that collective action and solidarity have positively impacted the members of this small group in personal ways, particularly in terms of education and career mobility. She also notes that change has largely occurred on the individual level for group members and expresses her belief that the women’s activism has not produced sweeping social changes. However, Gislene clearly states her belief that change on the individual level should not be dismissed as unimportant. As she explains, small actions by individuals can “give an impulse to change the culture.” As she observes: “I do not know how this works, but transformation, in reality, is first on the individual level, in order for it to really happen on the level of society. Otherwise you just stay in the realm of discourse.”

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Adriana Adriana is a thirty-two-year-old graduate student and English instructor. She does not have a history of antiracist or feminist activism. I met Adriana during a meeting, focused on Afro-Brazilian studies, that was held in Belo Horizonte. We quickly became friends and spent a great deal of time discussing the racial situation in Brazil. Adriana speaks English fluently and she preferred to conduct our interview in English. When I asked about childhood experiences regarding race and racial identity, Adriana responded by stating: “Well, I always wanted to have long hair, and I would say because, you know, you watch TV and you see all those women with very long hair and you don’t really recognize yourself anywhere. But this is what I’m seeing now. Then I didn’t have this view of it. Now when I think of the past, I realize that, somehow, I didn’t really see myself the way I really was. I didn’t have an identity so to speak” (emphasis mine). In this passage, Adriana describes her self-image as a child. She notes that her desire to have long hair was influenced by the images of women that she saw on television. Much like Regina and Gislene, Adriana points to the absence of black images in the Brazilian media. She observes, “You don’t really recognize yourself anywhere.” Adriana’s comments suggest that a lack of recognition caused her to have a distorted or false view of herself. In stating that she did not have an identity, Adriana highlights the role that valorization of blackness plays in the development of racial consciousness. It is also noteworthy that these observations are made in retrospect. This suggests that Adriana did not have the same level of insight and understanding when she was a child. In the following passage, Adriana describes her parent’s influence on the construction of her racial identity: K I A:

So, what about racial issues? Were they discussed when you were a child, in your family?

A DR I ANA:

Oh yeah, all those things about denying your own race and low

self-esteem, definitely. K I A:

So your mother discussed them?

A DR I ANA:

No, it was not a question of discussing. . . . This is what I can say

now by going back to the past and analyzing the situation. It was not about discussing at all. It was only about not having any self-esteem. K I A:

You didn’t have any?

A DR I ANA: K I A:

They didn’t—none of us.

None of you?

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A DR I ANA:

Because our parents, you know, they didn’t have any self-esteem

in my opinion. They thought themselves ugly. This is what I see now. And they wouldn’t let us think that we were beautiful. K I A:

And they never discussed racial issues with you? So there wasn’t any discussion? And as far as your self-image, it wasn’t positive?

A DR I ANA:

No, no. It was not something we would talk about, but you would

get to the point of seeing yourself as an ugly person by the everyday situations, everyday jokes, . . . everyday situations. You know? It was nothing like, “Let’s sit and talk about this.” An implied sense of black inferiority was transmitted through practices of racial socialization in Adriana’s family. Adriana notes that her parents’ negative self-image was passed on to her and her brother via informal, everyday practices. Adriana poignantly observes, “They didn’t have any selfesteem in my opinion. They thought themselves ugly. . . . And they wouldn’t let us think that we were beautiful.” Much like her comments regarding her self-image as a child, Adriana’s analysis of her parent’s behavior is retrospective. Adriana’s growing awareness of racism in Brazil enabled her to critically review her past experiences and their impact on her life. This process of “sense-making” has been crucial to the reconstruction of her subjectivity. Adriana began to develop greater awareness of Brazil’s racial situation after attending a conference on blackness in the Americas as an undergraduate student. As she notes, “I got in touch with this whole thing of being black and the fact that there were many things going on and the history we learned here had nothing to do with the truth. . . . I saw this guy explaining that we have all these names for black people here in Brazil, because black has a very, very negative connotation.” By attending the conference, Adriana gained access to an alternative discourse of racial subjectivity, one that was critical of dominant practices of color identification and negative views of blackness. In the following passage, Adriana poignantly describes the impact of internalized racism: A DR I ANA:

I am a black woman, but I was born in a racist society. So, of

course, somehow, somewhere, deep inside myself, I must be racist too. It was very difficult for me to develop a positive image of myself, to realize that I was a beautiful woman, that I was valuable, that I was beautiful, so to speak, beautiful not only in my appearance, but in general. K I A:

As a person?

A DR I ANA:

Yes, as a person.

Adriana’s comments illustrate the impact of the Brazilian social environment on the formation of her subjectivity. She contextualizes her processes of

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identity construction within the larger domain of Brazil as a racist society. As a result, she argues that she is not exempt from racist attitudes. Adriana further notes that internalized racism led her to develop a negative image of herself. Consequently, she was unable to view herself as beautiful or valuable. In her narrative, Adriana attributes the recovery of her personhood and the reconstruction of her subjectivity to her interaction with foreigners. As a popular tourist destination, Adriana’s hometown of Cidade de Minas brought her into frequent contact with foreign visitors.4 Adriana’s ability to speak English further facilitated her contact with tourists: A DR I ANA:

When I lived in Cidade de Minas, I used to meet people from all

over the world, and that was what made me realize many things about myself, about the way that society was treating me, about my relationships with men, etc. Because I met people, not only from the States, but from Europe, from many other countries. And I realized that they were treating me in a very different way when I compared it to the way Brazilians treated me. Not only men, but women, too. K I A:

How? How do you think?

A DR I ANA:

They were interested in what I had to say, you know. They wanted

to talk to me and they were treating me with respect. I was not invisible. I was somebody who had something to say and who had people interested in hearing whatever I had to say (emphasis mine). K I A:

Do you think it was because they were foreigners, too, that they were interested? You know, when people travel they are interested in learning about another society. Or do you think that they also saw black people differently?

A DR I ANA:

They saw black people differently. That’s very clear for me. They

saw black people differently. Absolutely. The people who really paid attention to me there were foreigners, men and women. You know? So, thank goodness I learned English; otherwise . . . Adriana’s interaction with foreigners provided a basis for understanding her experiences in Brazil. By offering access to alternative discourses, her contact with tourists allowed Adriana to critically assess her status in Brazilian society. In her narrative, Adriana notes that non-Brazilians showed an interest in her and treated her with respect: “I was not invisible. I was somebody who had something to say and who had people interested in hearing whatever I had to say.” In making this statement, Adriana suggests that she was not visible in Brazilian society. Other sections of her narrative also indicate that foreigners treated her better, not simply due to their fascination with “native” Brazilians, but because they viewed black people differently than many Brazilians do.

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Adriana’s contact with other societies and cultures primarily took place through her encounters with foreigners and her knowledge of English. In her narrative, Adriana notes that she began to learn about cultural aspects of the United States when she studied English. Her nascent knowledge of U.S. culture also increased her awareness of racial issues in Brazil. As she notes, “I started comparing the situation of the black people here in Brazil and in South America with the situation in North America. And from this comparison I’ve been raising my consciousness. I’m still doing it. It’s not at all what it should be.” Adriana’s contact with black tourists also provided her with comparative knowledge about the status of blacks in other societies. Meeting black foreigners gave her access to alternative discourses on blackness and her identity as a black woman. She intimates in her narrative: “The very first thing that shocked me, a long time ago, was this friend of mine from LA, she showed me this Ebony magazine. And this was very shocking for me, you know, to see a magazine for black people with lots of black people, very well dressed, driving beautiful cars. And issues . . . a magazine discussing issues for the black community. That’s when I realized that I didn’t exist here in Brazil. I was not on TV; I was not in the magazines. I was nowhere, you know. . . . And then I woke up, so to speak” (emphasis mine). Adriana’s statements underscore her sense of being invisible as a black woman in Brazil. Her comparison of media images in the United States and Brazil caused her to realize the differences in the visibility of black populations in the two countries. Adriana’s sense of marginality within Brazilian society was further compounded by her critical views of the sexual objectification of black women. In the following passage she describes her perspective on Brazilian men and their motives for becoming involved with her: A DR I ANA:

I’m very distant from Brazilian people in general. I have problems

dealing with men here, big problems. Because . . . ohhhh, it’s a very racist society. But they don’t realize it themselves. K I A:

You mean the black men? Black men and white men?

A DR I ANA:

No, everyone. It is a racist society in general, you know. They

could find me very, very beautiful, but they would never try to have a relationship with me. They wouldn’t take me seriously; they would try to get me laid and that’s it. Adriana’s comments are the most frank assessment of relationships between white and black men and black women in Brazil in all of my interviews. Most of my other informants either made vague comments on this subject or did not express a critical view of romantic relationships. Adriana’s narrative points to her refusal to be used sexually, without a more

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committed relationship, or to be involved with men who would not take her seriously. Her comments suggest that this type of treatment is very different from her interaction with foreigners.5 In the following passage, Adriana describes Brazilian modes of discussing and evading discussion of race in Brazil. Her comments are closely tied to her view of Brazil as a society where she is “invisible” because the realities of her identity as a black woman are neither valued, nor addressed: K I A:

How do people treat you in terms of race . . . and color, too—your peers, other students in school now, in the university? Do they bring up the issue of race and color?

A DR I ANA:

No, most of the time they do not talk about this. I talk about

this. K I A:

But what do people say? Do they admit that you’re black? Do they say that you’re morena? Or do they say, “Adriana, I don’t think about your color?”

A DR I ANA:

Yeah, they would say that I’m morena. And you know what? I’ve

been trying not to talk about this subject anymore. It’s very tiresome, you know. It doesn’t lead me anywhere. I have my own point of view and when I have the chance to talk . . . most of the time I discuss this issue with foreigners. I don’t talk to Brazilian people about these things anymore. It’s a big waste of time. When asked why she thought discussions of race were a “big waste of time,” Adriana responded: Because here this thing of the racial democracy is so big, you know. It is a myth and, you know, a myth is very difficult to fight against. So, if I bring this subject up, they are going to come up with all those clichés like, “There’s no racism in Brazil” and “You shouldn’t be talking about this, because this is not the point here” and “I see you as an equal.” And then it gets to the point in which they think that I have low self-esteem, . . . an inferiority complex. I heard this once. I was like, “This is not the point.” People here are not mature enough to discuss these issues at all, because of the myth of racial democracy, you know, which is a very, very big thing here in Brazil. And it blinds everyone. So, if I come up with this subject, I’m just going to make a fool out of myself. . . . But, all these things that I know and that I talk about, my awareness, comes from abroad.

Adriana’s statements highlight her critical view of Brazilian racial practices. She denounces racial democracy as a myth and describes how it functions to delegitimize racial contestation. Noting the real (i.e., non-mythical)

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impact of racial democracy, Adriana observes that most Brazilians are “blind” and “not mature enough” to discuss racial issues. Adriana’s comments suggest that she was able to engage in a common discourse regarding race with the foreigners that she met. Her knowledge of English was both instrumental and symbolic since it allowed her to speak a common “racial” language with non-Brazilians. However, while this discursive competence increased Adriana’s critical insight into Brazilian society, it also distanced her from other Brazilians. Her narrative suggests that her newly developed racial discourse was neither understood nor appreciated by other Brazilians. Instead, Adriana’s insights into Brazilian race relations have caused her to be seen as having “low self-esteem” or “an inferiority complex.” Rather than being accepted, Adriana’s critical views of Brazilian racism have been turned against her and viewed as personal deficiencies. Further describing the personal impact of her experiences, Adriana states: “It’s been very painful for me because it distances me from a lot of people. I don’t feel comfortable here anymore. I don’t know if I would feel comfortable somewhere else, abroad. But I don’t feel comfortable here because I don’t exist. I’m a ghost here. That’s the way I see it.” In her narrative, Adriana expresses her frustration with the discursive silences surrounding race and racism in Brazil. As a racially conscious person, Adriana’s insights into Brazilian society have become painful sources of isolation and alienation. She notes: A DR I ANA:

If I say that I am a black woman, people are going to think that I

am crazy, so to speak. Because I’m not black; I’m morena, which means I’m not as bad as, you know. K I A:

You’re also educated.

A DR I ANA: K I A:

Yeah, I’m also educated.

So would you be moreninha (little brown female)?

A DR I ANA:

Yeah, moreninha, morena, morena. But most people use this

word morena because it’s a word like—you’re not black, you’re not white, you’re morena. They think it’s a beautiful color. That’s what I see, you know. That’s what I feel. K I A:

It’s valued.

A DR I ANA:

It’s valued because of the beauty aspect. But for some people it’s

not about only the aspect of appearance. It is very much about the horrible connotation of the word black. Mulher negra sounds very heavy, very heavy. Homem negro (black man) sounds very heavy here in Brazil, very heavy. It doesn’t matter. If you use preto, it’s even worse. K I A:

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and when you said that you’re black, they said, “Oh no”?

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Yes, of course, when I was immature enough to be discussing

these issues with everyone, wasting my precious time. I used to talk about this. And I said to some people, “Being a black woman in Brazil is very different.” And they were like, “What? But you’re not black; you’re morena. Are you crazy?” And I was like, “God, what is this?” In this passage, Adriana describes the ways in which Brazilian discourses on color have circumscribed her options for identifying on the basis of race. She notes that other people will think that she is crazy if she self-identifies as black. Her comments suggest that self-identifying as a mulher negra is seen as an undesirable and unwise choice. On the other hand, she describes the color category morena as a socially preferred and culturally sanctioned form of self-identification. As she notes, morena is “not as bad as” negra since most Brazilians regard it as a “beautiful color.” Ultimately, Adriana’s comments highlight the unequal discursive weight of Brazilian color and racial terms. She notes that the word black has a “horrible connotation” and that the terms mulher negra and homem negro both sound “heavy” (see Sheriff ). Much like Regina’s narrative, Adriana’s comments point to the limited appeal of racially based forms of (self-) identification in a context where color-based and seemingly color-blind discourses are dominant.

Becoming a Mulher Negra: From Identity to Identification Afro-Brazilian women’s personal narratives serve as autobiographical accounts of subjectivity.6 As personal reflections on experience, these narratives provide rare insights into processes of subject formation. Much like autobiography, personal narratives serve as an important heuristic device since they elucidate “the subject’s immersion within the social and political” (Ahmed , ). While autobiography has been described as a “writing of the subject” (Ahmed ), I would propose viewing personal narratives as a “telling of the subject” which allows us to comprehend the relationship between psychic and social processes. A processual view of race and gender is also crucial to understanding Afro-Brazilian women’s life experiences and processes of subject formation. The Brazilian notion of tornar-se negro/negra (becoming black) underscores the importance of a processual perspective by demonstrating that becoming black is an active process (Ribeiro b; N. Santos ). Along similar lines, the notion of being a negro/negra assumido/assumida also suggests that self-identification as black involves a subjective process of accepting blackness, rather than fleeing from it through practices of racial disidentification (Moura ).

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Informed by her research on black women in England, Sara Ahmed has argued for a shift from identity to identification, underscoring the processual dimensions of subject formation. She notes: “We no longer can assume that the subject simply ‘has’ an identity, in the form of a properly demarcated place of belonging. Rather, what is required is an analysis of the processes and structures of identification—both psychic and social—whereby identities come to be seen as such places of belonging. By shifting the analysis in this way, both race and gender can be theorized not as fixed and stable ‘essences’ but as construction-in-process where meanings are negotiated and re-negotiated in the form of antagonistic relations of power” (Ahmed , , original emphasis). A conceptual shift from identity to identification challenges the notion that the subject has a pre-ascribed identity and instead focuses on how the subject comes to identify with certain “places of belonging.” This approach also discards a view of race and gender as fixed essences by conceptualizing them as being constructed in and through processes of identification (Hall c). The narratives presented in this chapter provide ethnographic support for Ahmed’s () conceptualization of identity as a “constructionin-process.”7 The act of assuming a black identity was important for each of the women profiled in this chapter. While Regina, Gislene, and Adriana have all had unique life experiences, each of them came to terms with the significance of race in their lives by choosing to consciously self-identify as mulheres negras. Whether through therapy, activism, education, or contact with foreigners, the process of valorizing and embracing a black identity occurred for each woman in a different way. Moreover, although each woman’s journey has been different, they share a common experience of coming to terms with blackness on a personal, subjective level. Finally, the process of becoming a black woman, described in each narrative, involved the adoption of subject positions that contested hegemonic constructions of race and gender. The process of subject formation described by each woman was closely tied to a search for an identity that would provide a place of belonging. Their narratives suggest that this place of belonging constitutes a subjective and intersubjective space where blackness is valued and embraced. Regina, Gislene, and Adriana all described a need for “spaces” and “reference points” with which they could identify. None of them were encouraged to valorize blackness in their family or home environments. Instead, the denigration of blackness and black womanhood in the Brazilian social environment caused them to seek out spaces where their experiences and identities as black women could be affirmed. It is also worth noting that dominant images of beauty, especially with respect to hair, played a central role in all three women’s experiences and self-images.

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The narratives presented in this chapter indicate that self-identifying as a mulher negra is often hindered by the absence of a place of belonging. In their narratives, Regina, Gislene, and Adriana all mention the dearth of subjective and intersubjective spaces where blackness is valorized. While Regina discovered her place of belonging largely through a combination of individual efforts and psychotherapy, Gislene’s process involved psychotherapy as well as activism. Gislene’s relationships with other black women, both informally and through activism, provided her with a reference point for understanding the gendered and racialized implications of her experiences. Adriana found her place of belonging through interaction with people who had a heightened awareness of race and racism. Her friendships with foreigners provided access to a shared transnational space that allowed her to perceive and address her invisibility as a black woman in Brazil. Both Regina’s and Gislene’s narratives suggest that psychotherapy may play a beneficial role in Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation. While I am reluctant to make generalizations about the benefits of psychotherapy based on two women’s experiences, I believe it is important to note the potential significance of psychotherapy for women of African descent in Brazil. Given the pervasive silence about race and racism in Brazilian society, both in the public sphere and in Afro-Brazilian families, psychotherapy may offer an important means of coming to terms with issues of racial identity, beauty, self-image, and self-esteem, issues that often go undiscussed.8 However, as my earlier discussion of psychotherapy suggested, it is important to note that access to psychotherapy in Brazil has been limited to those with the means to pay for private consultation sessions. This financial restriction means that the majority of Afro-Brazilian women would likely be unable to access psychological services. The narratives presented in this chapter demonstrate the ways in which self-identification as a mulher negra involves a process of self-definition that requires women to stand “ ‘inside the categories’ of racial othering” (Goldberg , ). Self-identification as a mulher negra can be seen as an act of resistance precisely because it involves the inversion and rearticulation of dominant racial significations. By becoming negras assumidas, Afro-Brazilian women contest the unmentionability and devalorization of blackness and bring issues of race to the fore of social discourse. Foregrounding race through the adoption of a black identity also contests hegemonic constructions of Brazilian color categories as privileged forms of (self-)identification. The process of becoming black described in Regina’s, Gislene’s, and Adriana’s personal narratives reflects larger processes of racialization in Brazilian society. In their individual processes of subject formation, all three women have benefited from macro-level discursive struggles over the

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meaning of blackness, both in Brazil and in transnational contexts (Winant ). Since the late s, the political and cultural initiatives of black movement organizations have opened new discursive space for the articulation and valorization of black racial identities in Brazil (see Hanchard b; Sheriff ). Regina’s and Gislene’s narratives both mention changes in Brazilian racial discourses since childhood. Describing the lack of role models during their formative years, both women noted that the Brazilian social environment had become more amenable to the valorization of blackness in recent decades. In many ways, the efforts of black activists have provided what Gislene describes as “an impulse to change the culture.” By doing so, black activists have provided a basis for the creation of places of belonging. These subjective and intersubjective spaces have enabled an increasing number of Afro-Brazilians to assume subject positions in counterhegemonic racial discourses and affirm the beauty and value of negritude.

5 “What Citizenship Is This?” Narratives of Marginality and Struggle Brazil is a democracy of voters, not yet a democracy of citizens. —Leslie Bethell, “Politics in Brazil”

I insist on working on the issue of culture in order to show the outside society . . . because our community is marginalized. They think that here in Vera Cruz there are only marginal people, that there are only criminals. So with culture, with dance, capoeira,1 now with the elderly, we are showing that here there are not only marginal elements. —Valdete da Silva Cordeiro, personal interview

Maria Ilma Ricardo’s and Valdete da Silva Cordeiro’s life experiences and social activism exemplify the multiple levels on which poor black women struggle for full citizenship in Brazil. When I interviewed both women in the city of Belo Horizonte in , they were in their fifties and had dedicated much of their lives to improving the status of poor women and children. At the time of our interview, Maria Ilma had worked in domestic service for over four decades and had been active in the local women’s movement, the black movement, and the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, or PT) for several years. Much like Maria Ilma, Valdete was involved in multiple forms of social activism. In addition to serving as a leader in her home community, the favela Alto Vera Cruz, Valdete was also active in the local women’s movement, the black movement, and the Partido Communista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brazil, or PC do B). Both women’s life experiences provide unique vantage points for understanding processes of social and political disenfranchisement in contemporary Brazil. This chapter examines their personal and political reflections as a basis for exploring Afro-Brazilian women’s struggles for social equality and understanding the multilayered nature of citizenship in Brazil (see

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Yuval-Davis ). I view their personal narratives as significant examples of social critique and “theory in the flesh” (Moraga ; Moya ). My analysis explores the ways in which their life experiences and activism provide strategies for poor, black women to gain empowerment and claim full citizenship in work and family relationships as well as within the larger society.

Cultural Citizenship and New Citizenship Maria Ilma’s and Valdete’s narratives highlight the difference between formal political citizenship and the cultural aspects of citizenship in Brazil.2 Recent conceptualizations of cultural citizenship and new citizenship provide insight into many of the issues addressed in both women’s narratives (Benmayor, Torruellas, and Juarbe ; Dagnino , ).3 Scholars of gender and cultural citizenship have argued for the importance of understanding vernacular expressions of lived experience in particular historical and structural contexts. As Rina Benmayor, Rosa Torruellas, and Ana Juarbe have noted, “cultural claims for equality need to be appreciated from the perspective of people themselves as social agents” (, ). This view of the cultural dimensions of citizenship also emphasizes the importance of recognizing that “people themselves define their issues in accordance with their own analysis of needs” and, “in doing so, people are exercising their own sense of membership and rights” (Benmayor, Torruellas, and Juarbe , ). Evelina Dagnino’s exploration of the Brazilian transition to democracy since the return to civilian rule in  provides additional insights into the cultural dimensions of citizenship. Dagnino’s (, ) work posits a view of democratization that addresses cultural change within Brazilian society as a whole, not just within the political arena. This broadened view of democratization addresses the “cultural practices embodied in social relations of exclusion and inequality” (Dagnino , ). Furthermore, Dagnino notes, “In a society in which inequality is so internalized as to constitute the cultural forms through which people relate to each other in everyday life, the notion of equal rights which characterizes the idea of citizenship has to confront the authoritarian culture which permeates all social relations” (, ) Dagnino has also posited a conceptualization of new citizenship that goes beyond state-centric or legally based notions of rights. Rather than being limited to legal provisions, this conception of rights includes the “invention and creation of new rights that emerge from specific struggles and their concrete practices (Dagnino , ). A second feature of the new citizenship involves the constitution of active social subjects through their

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participation in claiming and redefining rights. The new citizenship can also be differentiated from liberal conceptions of citizenship, which focus on gaining access and membership in an already existing political system, by its emphasis on citizens’ involvement in defining the type of society in which they want to be members. Finally, the new citizenship is conceptualized as a “project for a new sociability: not only an incorporation into the political system in a strict sense, but a more egalitarian format for social relations at all levels, including new rules for living together in society” (Dagnino , , emphasis in original). The development of a new sociability de-emphasizes the role of the state and the political-judicial system by placing emphasis on the practice of citizenship within civil society. This chapter examines how Maria Ilma’s and Valdete’s life experiences and social activism challenge practices of social authoritarianism in contemporary Brazil. Dagnino’s () conceptualization of social authoritarianism is especially useful for understanding the ways in which Brazilian social and cultural practices serve to reproduce black women’s subordination. As I argued in chapter , Brazilian notions of social location or place (lugar) have played a central role in maintaining racial and gender domination in the country. As women who have experienced social, political, and economic marginalization due to their gender, race, and class status, Maria Ilma’s and Valdete’s experiences and reflections provide insight into everyday practices and strategies for claiming citizenship from marginal subject positions. As a domestic worker and as a favelada (female shantytown resident), respectively, Maria Ilma and Valdete both belong to social groups that are commonly regarded as marginal members of Brazilian society. Moreover, Brazilian notions of place have traditionally consigned domestics and faveladas to a de facto status of non-citizens.

Maria Ilma I met Maria Ilma Ricardo, a fifty-four-year-old domestic worker and social activist, several months into my field research during  in Belo Horizonte. Early in my fieldwork, my friend’s father suggested that I contact Maria Ilma. He was familiar with her social activism with other domestic workers and her involvement with the PT. Based on his description, Maria Ilma seemed to be a fascinating person, and I hoped to one day interview her. As a lifelong domestic worker and the leader of the local domestic workers’ organization, Maria Ilma has actively challenged Afro-Brazilian women’s economic, political, and social marginalization. In addition to her advocacy of domestic workers’ rights, Maria Ilma also attempted to enter the political arena by running for a seat on the Belo Horizonte City Council in , as a candidate for the PT. Although her political bid was unsuccessful, it provided an important challenge to long-standing practices of political exclusion by

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showing that a black domestic worker could enter an arena that has traditionally been dominated by elite white males. Maria Ilma’s personal and political struggles shed light on broader issues of citizenship in Brazil. In describing her work with and on behalf of other domestic workers, she highlights the need to forge a new social and political identity for domestic workers. Commenting on her involvement with the domestic workers’ organization in Belo Horizonte, she noted, “We only seek the emancipation of the domestic worker, their professionalization, their valorization—so much so that our work slogan was always ‘personal and professional valorization.’ I think that this, in the life of any human being, of any worker, this is fundamental: you first valorize the person. After, the work comes in second place, as a complement.” During our interview, Maria Ilma went on to describe the involvement of domestic workers and other marginalized social groups in writing the  Brazilian Constitution, stating: “When it was , we participated in the constitutional process, all of Brazil. . . . It was organized. . . . It was us who wrote it. We gathered all of Brazil. We made our project—so much so that when I say today that we, the domestic workers, that we have the happiness and satisfaction to say that the new Magna Carta—although it is not very respected, unfortunately, in Brazil—we as domestic workers, black women and illiterate, faveladas, helped to write [it]. . . . And at the same time we have a lot of sadness from knowing that today we are not respected in terms of our rights, as human persons, or as people who work, as workers, unfortunately.” Maria Ilma’s reflections shed light on the significance of political mobilization during Brazil’s transition from a military regime to a representative democracy in the s and s. The Constitutional Convention of  provided a landmark opportunity for Brazilian social activists to influence the political process. Members of marginal social groups, most notably women, blacks, and the poor, who had long been excluded from political power made demands on the government through their involvement in writing the constitution (Verucci ). Maria Ilma’s description of the groups involved in the constitutional process is noteworthy. Her mention of the participation of illiterate persons in the writing of the constitution underscores the complex dynamics shaping the struggles for full citizenship undertaken by members of marginalized communities. In this case, people who could not read or write asserted their rights to citizenship and national belonging by influencing the construction of an official state document. Recalling the events of , Maria Ilma proudly describes how organized domestic workers confronted the Brazilian state and contributed to defining new norms for citizenship in the national Constitution. However, she draws a telling distinction between formal citizenship rights, as stated in the

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Constitution, and everyday practices of social inequality and exclusion. She notes that, despite their contributions to the Constitution, domestic workers continue to be disrespected and to have their rights violated. Perhaps more importantly, she notes that these violations occur against domestic workers on multiple levels, as human beings and as workers. By linking the “personal and professional valorization” of domestic workers with larger struggles for citizenship, Maria Ilma’s narrative highlights the importance of exploring the informal and everyday dimensions of citizenship in Brazil. In her narrative, Maria Ilma describes the status of domesticas and mulheres negras in similar terms. Moreover, while she does not provide an explicit racial description of domesticas, several of her comments indicate that black women and domestics share the same or at least similar status. Maria Ilma’s description of the shared status of domestics and black women is borne out by research that points to the high percentage of black Brazilian women who work in domestic service (Bairros ; Bento ; Carneiro and Santos ; Reichmann ). Maria Ilma’s narrative also highlights the links, between racial, gender, and class domination, that perpetuate the social and political marginalization of black women in Brazil. She observes: “We have a lot of black women of value that still have not been discovered. They are there in anonymity. No one does anything. . . . I say this even for myself; I say, “Mea culpa, mea culpa,” because I, as the leader of a union, I have an obligation, also, to work, to do a specific work with these black women, because we have many women of value there.” Maria Ilma stresses the value of black women when reflecting on their subordinated status within Brazilian society. Much like her commentary on domestic workers, this section of her narrative suggests that black women possess an intrinsic value as human beings that is routinely overlooked and made invisible by larger structures of domination. This assertion challenges Brazilian practices of racial, gender, and class oppression that sanction and perpetuate the socioeconomic and political marginalization and invisibility of black women. Maria Ilma’s narrative contrasts the type of anonymity and devaluation that she sees shaping black women’s lives with a more active personal and political subjectivity. Moreover, her life trajectory and political activism provide important insights into individual and collective strategies for claiming full citizenship. Her narrative demonstrates the importance of exploring domestic workers’ experiences as a lens for viewing the multiple levels on which citizenship operates in Brazil. At several points in her narrative, Maria Ilma elaborates on the devalorization of domestic workers and highlights the unequal relationships of exchange that characterize interaction between domestics and their employers. She notes:

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The domestic still continues to be at the disposition of her employer twenty-four hours a day. Now, those who sleep at work suffer the most with this. Then, the employer knocks on the bedroom door and calls her at whatever hour. Then the person has to come, heat up dinner and stay until eleven o’clock at night serving dinner. Now, if the domestic were alert, she would not do this; because I don’t do this, no. I don’t do this at all. God gave me the night to rest. Sunday is for me to rest. So, I am not going to work, no, because divine law assures me of this. And . . . even if I don’t sleep, I rest. So I think that the domestic has to gain consciousness. That is why when we talk about personal valorization . . . you have to value yourself. Because, if not, you end up entering in this paraphernalia and it damages you. . . . So, I think that the domestic has to have consciousness, including consciousness of organization. We could be in a much better situation if the domestic was organized, but the domestic, unfortunately, exchanges a lot of her value for used shoes, for used clothing, for food, for presents.

In the preceding excerpt, Maria Ilma calls attention to several key issues: first, the lack of autonomy granted to domestic workers; second, her own strategies for establishing and asserting autonomy in her work relationships; third, the importance of domestic workers gaining consciousness of their subordinated status; and, fourth, how unequal relations of exchange entrap domestic workers. The scenario described by Maria Ilma is not uncommon for live-in domestics in Brazil. In many cases, live-in domestics are required to be on-call twenty-four hours a day. In contrast to this type of oppressive living situation, Maria Ilma describes her own strategies for carving out personal space as a domestic worker. She defends her position to establish boundaries in her work relationships by stating that rest, particularly on Sundays, is guaranteed by divine law. Maria Ilma’s comments also point to the importance of raising the consciousness of domestic workers regarding their rights. Her description of domestic workers accepting used shoes, used clothing, food, and presents from their employers suggests that their rights are routinely traded for much-needed material goods. She notes: I think this takes a lot of value away from the domestic. I do not allow my employer to pay me less in exchange for old clothing, used clothing. . . . If he is a doctor—in exchange for him taking my [blood] pressure and looking at these things. No, this has nothing to do with it. I think that in your work you have to have consciousness of this work relationship. Within a house, over there, I am a worker. I am not part of the family, even though it is often said: “Fulana is part of my family.” I say, “No, I am not part of your family, no. Your family is all blond, with blue eyes. I am black. . . . I am not part of your family, no.

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I am here to work. Now, I am your friend. You are my friend. My family, no.” Because when I get old, my family is going to take care of me. . . . So, this business about being part of the family . . . The domestic has to gain consciousness that the employer’s house never is, never was, and is never going to be our house.

Maria Ilma’s reflections resonate with Mary Garcia Castro’s () research on domestic workers in Bogotá, Colombia. Castro argues that social institutions committed to maintaining the institution of domestic service, particularly lay-religious centers, promote an ethic of servitude among domestic workers. This ethic of servitude is part of a larger ideological framework that is shared by domestics and their employers and that shapes the social relations that characterize domestic service.4 Like Maria Ilma, Castro highlights the “ties of dependency” that develop between domestics and their employers (, ). She notes that the provision of a room, clothes, food, and other necessities by employers serves as an in-kind wage, rather than a salary, that keeps live-in domestics from becoming aware of their class situation. Castro’s work offers an informative and thought-provoking Marxist analysis of domestic service. Much like Maria Ilma, she notes that workers no longer allow themselves to be designated “part of the family” as their class consciousness increases. Castro’s analysis also suggests that domestic workers adopt an identity “as a social being endowed with the potential to transform the labor relations as they are immediately experienced” when they identify as a member of the working class (, ). Castro concludes her analysis on a highly suggestive note by asserting, “What is bought and sold in domestic service is not simply the labor power of an empleada (domestic worker) or her productive work and energy; it is her identity as a person” (Castro , ). While striking parallels can be made between Maria Ilma’s narrative and Castro’s research, Maria Ilma’s reflections push us beyond Castro’s class analysis by indicating that Afro-Brazilian women’s struggles for cultural citizenship are embedded in the social and economic relations of domestic service. Drawing from Castro’s assertion that domestic workers sell their identity as people in the process of selling their labor, I would argue that Maria Ilma’s reflections suggest that domestic workers also sell their identity as citizens when they sell their labor. The authoritarian character of Brazilian social relations is perhaps best exemplified in the relationship between domestic workers and their employers. As a living social and cultural vestige from the slave era, domestic service reenacts and reproduces colonial practices of racial, gender, and class domination in Brazil. The status of domestic workers vis-à-vis their employers also underscores how Afro-Brazilian

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women’s struggles for full citizenship play out in the private sphere of their employers’ homes. This suggests that, for Afro-Brazilian women who work in domestic service, claims to cultural citizenship involve an unavoidable overlap between the public and private spheres. Maria Ilma’s personal and political reflections highlight the need to transform Brazilian social relations in fundamental ways in order to fully realize the promise of democracy in the country. The following excerpt from her narrative criticizes the disjuncture between formal political rights and the lack of social and cultural rights for Brazil’s popular classes. As she notes, I become indignant when everyone says, “Ah, citizenship, citizenship.” What citizenship is this? What citizen is this that lives under the viaduct, that faces an extremely long line there to have a doctor’s visit and gets there [to find out] that they don’t have a result and they don’t have medicine? What citizenship is this where there are rapists, where there is impunity in everything? What citizenship is this that we are proclaiming there, that we are shouting exists? What democracy is this where the rich is devouring (engolindo) the poor, the father is killing the child, the child is killing the mother, the mother is killing the child? This is what being a citizen is? This is democracy? What democracy, what citizenship is this? I think that a lot of things are still lacking. We have a lot to learn; we have a lot to work on. I think that our load (fardo) is very heavy. If we don’t unite, we won’t be able to carry it. I think that what is missing, principally, is unity. Because the Brazilian does not know what power (força) he has. But, we have a lot of power. Didn’t we have power to take [President] Collor out of there? Why can’t the people have power to do other things? . . . Citizenship! I think it’s pretty for you to say . . . , “Being a citizen and whatever else.” Everything for citizenship—but, for the love of God, what a lie!

This powerful social commentary by Maria Ilma highlights contemporary realities of social exclusion and inequality in Brazil. While noting the frequent use of the concept of citizenship in Brazilian society, Maria Ilma contrasts everyday practices of discrimination with more formal declarations of citizenship and democracy in the country.5 Her observations provide concrete evidence of assertions that have been made by scholars regarding the lack of full citizenship rights for large sectors of the Brazilian population (see Bethell  and Dagnino , ). Maria Ilma’s comments also resonate with Leslie Bethell’s critique of the limits of democracy in Brazil, as he notes, “Can democracy be healthy, can it properly function, can it even survive in the long run, when, as in Brazil, a third of the population (some would put it much higher) live in conditions of extreme poverty, ignorance, and ill health and are treated at best as second-class citizens?” (, ).

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While acknowledging the widespread social injustices found in Brazilian society, Maria Ilma also highlights the potential for social change found in collective mobilization. As she notes in the preceding excerpt, Brazilian citizens must unite in order to carry out the tasks of democratizating the country and extending full citizenship rights to everyone. In her view, the ability to undertake this challenge depends upon the Brazilian people realizing the power that they possess. Using the  impeachment of President Collor as an example of the power of collective action, she argues that this same power should be used to accomplish other goals. Maria Ilma’s discussion of the importance of collective action resonates with Evelina Dagnino’s () conceptualization of new citizenship. In her research with favela residents in the city of Campinas, São Paulo, Dagnino found that collective mobilization led to the invention of new rights that reflected the needs and experiences of community members. As she notes, “the notion of citizenship is no longer confined to the access to previously defined rights, but it is a historical construction whose specificity arises from struggle itself. Such a citizenship from below is not a strategy of the dominant classes for the gradual political incorporation of social integration. It requires the constituting of active social subjects, defining what they consider to be their rights, and struggling for their recognition” (, ).

Valdete One of my most poignant memories of Valdete da Silva Cordeiro is from an official commemoration of the International Day against Racism in March . Valdete and I were both invited speakers at the Belo Horizonte City Council Chambers, and we sat next to one another at the head table for panelists. When her name was called to be seated at the head table, Valdete approached the front of the auditorium with a confident stride. Her arms were held above her head and her fists were clinched in a triumphant posture. The audience applauded loudly as Valdete approached the front, and it was clear that she was a well-known and well-regarded member of the community. While I had met Valdete in her home community of Alto Vera Cruz two days before this event, seeing her within this context shed new light on her role as a community leader. By approaching the front table of the city council chambers as an invited speaker, Valdete represented a community that has long been shut out of the halls of power. As a favela (shantytown) community, Alto Vera Cruz has traditionally been assigned a marginal role within the life of the city of Belo Horizonte, spatially, economically, and politically (see fig. .). As a community member and leader, Valdete’s presence at the city council chambers signaled growing hope that the formerly voiceless would begin to be heard by the powers that be.

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FIGUR E 5.1 The streets of Alto Vera Cruz. Photo by author.

At the time of our interview in , Valdete was a fifty-six-year-old community organizer. Her life experiences provide insight into the personal and political motivations behind her activism, both within her home community, the favela of Alto Vera Cruz, and beyond. Born in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, Valdete moved to the city of Belo Horizonte at the age of six. Valdete’s parents died when she was a young child, and she was raised by her white, middle-class godmother. As she observed: “So, I did not know my father; I did not know my mother; I did not know family; I did not know anyone. I knew the family that raised me (me criou) . . . and, as incredible as it may seem, they never had children and always raised the children of others. But they raised me in such a way; they did not give me . . . They did not teach me to read; they did not provide studies for me; they did not give me a profession; they did not give me anything. I was raised! They raised me (criaram), you know?” Valdete’s reflections on her childhood are best interpreted within the context of Brazilian racial and social dynamics. While the Portuguese verb criar can literally be translated as “to raise” in English, it also signifies a relationship of relative dependency in which Afro-Brazilian children are raised by Euro-Brazilian families. The multiple meanings associated with the verb criar and related terms, such as cria and criado/criada, are illustrated by the fact that the term criada is translated as “a woman-servant or maid-servant” in English. The term cria is also defined as “a young Negro, born and reared (criado) in the Big House” (Freyre , ).

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FIGUR E 5.2 Valdete da Silva Cordeiro. Photo by

author.

In many cases, children who are crias are raised with very little access to educational or occupational opportunities; in fact, many crias occupy a semi-enslaved status within the white households in which they are raised. Crias are often required to carry out a large number of household duties in exchange for the room, board, and other necessities that the families who raise them provide. France Winddance Twine has described the contemporary status of crias in the following terms: “The practice of criação (adoption) funnels Afro-Brazilian children, particularly girls, into a life of unpaid

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servitude. Using Afro-Brazilian children as laborers at a young age also assumes that black children are ideally suited for menial labor rather than education. . . . Upper-middle-class whites whose families are currently raising Afro-Brazilian girls do not typically send these girls to primary school. They are trained only for domestic service. While their black ‘children’ are required to work in the home, without receiving wages, their white children are sent to school and are not expected to engage in domestic chores” (, ). Valdete’s godparents sent her to a Catholic boarding school that was run by nuns when she was eleven years old. In her personal narrative she notes that, due to a lack of affection in her home, she felt more comfortable at the boarding school. As she reflects, “I lacked affection. I lacked love. . . . I had everything; I had food; I had everything, but something was missing. . . . They were a different [kind of] family. They were white people. And I was the only negra in the house. Sometimes I heard them say, ‘This negra! So on and so forth!’ I did not know what was going on, but sometimes I felt it, you know?” In the same section of her narrative, Valdete connects the lack of affection that she experienced as a child with her community work, noting, “It seems to me that this work that I have in the community was what took away a little of the . . . lack of affection that I felt.” As an orphaned child, Valdete struggled to come to terms with crucial aspects of her identity. During her childhood she knew neither her birth family’s last name, nor her date of birth. Reflecting on this, she stated: “The couple that raised me—my godmother only knew the year that I was born. The year. Because she remembered that there was a party this year. And I was born during this year, which was . But she did not know the day; she did not know the month when I was born. So, I did not have an identity; I did not have a last name.” After attending numerous birthday parties for other children, Valdete decided to choose a date on which to celebrate her own birthday. She notes, “As I was growing, I must have been more or less six years old, I said, ‘I have to have a birthday! I am going to choose a date for my birthday.’ So, I chose September . And I had a birthday party. I did it myself.” Valdete also created a last name for herself when she registered her identity as a teenager. Valdete was required to leave the boarding school when she was sixteen years old. Until that time, most of her friends were members of the middle class. However, she began to notice a distinction between herself and her friends once she left the boarding school. Many of her female friends were beginning to enter professional occupations, such as teaching, medicine, and dentistry. Valdete, on the other hand, was functionally illiterate and thus had limited occupational prospects. This caused her to distance herself from her friends and to begin associating with domestic workers. Valdete’s

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friendship with domestics and decision to begin work in domestic service led to accusations, by the family that raised her, that she was being drawn into prostitution. Such accusations were based on biased views that equated domestic work with prostitution. Like many Afro-Brazilian women, Valdete entered domestic service because she lacked other occupational opportunities. However, as a girl, she aspired to two different careers, teaching and social work. In her narrative, she explained, “I think it is beautiful (lindo) to be a social worker. But today, with the way my life is, with the community work that I have, I am the things that I wanted to be. I am also one more: I am also a psychologist.” By , Valdete had been a resident of Alto Vera Cruz for thirty-one years and had been involved with community work and feminist activism for over two decades. Her first introduction to community organizing resulted from her interaction with members of the Partido Communista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brazil, PC do B) in the late s. A member of the PC do B frequently visited Alto Vera Cruz and spoke to Valdete on numerous occasions about women’s rights. Valdete eventually formed a group with several other black women in the community to raise the residents’ awareness of social issues. Initially, the group used theater as a means of political conscientização (consciousness-raising). The group’s theatrical work lasted for several years and touched on relevant social issues, such as the relationship between inflation and poor families’ inability to buy beans for meals. Describing Alto Vera Cruz before community residents became politicized, Valdete noted: “When I moved here, our neighborhood did not have anything. It did not have water; it did not have light. . . . And with our struggle, today this is a marvelous neighborhood. And we hope that it will continue to get better.” In addition to her leadership and activism in the community at large, Valdete has also devoted a great deal of her time and energy to working with senior women who reside in Alto Vera Cruz. I had several opportunities to visit the grupo da terceira idade (senior citizen women’s group) that Valdete founded and led during my fieldwork in , as well as during a trip to Belo Horizonte in . The grupo da terceira idade has played a vital role in the lives of women who attend the group. The group provides a means of valorizing the experiences of poor, elderly Brazilian women who reside in Alto Vera Cruz, many of whom are black or of mixed racial ancestry. In many ways, these women are outcasts in Brazilian society. Their age, socioeconomic status, gender, and racial identity are all regarded as deficits by the Brazilian social structure. As the leader of the grupo da terceira idade, Valdete has continually pushed the limits of what type of behavior is expected of and considered to be acceptable for the group’s members by the larger society, the women’s

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families, and the women themselves. When I visited the group in , it had been in existence for five years. By this time, the group had grown to include thirty-five members who engaged in exercise and literacy classes several times a week. The group formed a chorale in mid  that sang at events in Alto Vera Cruz and throughout the city of Belo Horizonte. The group’s positive impact on its members was vividly displayed when I visited Alto Vera Cruz during August . When I arrived at the Cultural Center in Alto Vera Cruz, I found dozens of women excitedly getting dressed in preparation for a performance at the center that would later appear on a local television news program. The women’s brightly colored outfits and makeup contrasted sharply with typical depictions of poor Brazilian women. While I realized that the group played an important role in the members’ lives prior to this visit, my observations underscored how women had been motivated to change and take charge of their lives through their participation in the group. Much of Valdete’s effectiveness as a leader can be attributed to her ability to draw on her personal experiences, challenges, and triumphs as sources of inspiration and instruction for others. As was mentioned earlier, my initial contact with Valdete was in the context of her community activism. My observations of her activities within Alto Vera Cruz and my knowledge of her positive reputation outside of the community highlighted her confidence and effective leadership. However, when I had an opportunity to interview her, I was struck by the difficulties she faced as a child as well

FIGUR E 5.3 Grupo da terceira idade during an exercise class. Photo by author.

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as by her resolve to claim autonomy within her domestic relationship with her husband. Valdete’s interaction with members of the grupo da terceira idade often focused on encouraging individual women to develop auto-estima (selfesteem) and claim rights in the domestic sphere. As senior women, most members of the group had myriad familial responsibilities and obligations that often kept them in their homes, cooking, cleaning, and tending to their husbands, children, and grandchildren. Even when women were away from their homes, they often worried about domestic duties that they needed to complete. Prior to entering the group, most women rarely, if ever, prioritized their own desires and needs. During our interview, Valdete commented on how women’s domestic responsibilities affected their participation in the group.6 She observed, “They were never able to [participate]: [They would say,] ‘I don’t have time. I can’t.’ So, it was a big struggle to form this group. There were women who didn’t even enjoy being here. They were always running around. When it was time to relax, we would say, ‘Now, lay back and relax, close your eyes, think about good things. Think about flowers, water.’ . . . They were not able to. They would get up [and say,] ‘Goodness, I was there thinking that I have clothes to wash; my tank is full of clothes.’ ” Valdete often responded to the women’s concerns about completing their domestic responsibilities by telling them that there was no set day or hour to wash clothes. She encouraged members of the group to complete domestic work in their homes when they were able to, instead of seeing the work as something that had to be done according to a strict schedule. She noted that “they were not able to leave that work behind, as if they thought, ‘I have to wash clothes today.’ . . . We tried to pass on to them: ‘You have to forget that you have to wash clothes. The clothes are yours; you are in your house; you wash them when you want to; you are not working. . . . When we work in a family’s house [domestic work], we have that schedule, that obligation; but I am in my house!’ So now they are more or less learning.” A second area that Valdete identified as being a hindrance to women’s participation in the group was their husbands’ views of their activities. When the group first began, a number of married women worried that their husbands would object to them participating in outings and activities with the group. Valdete used her experiences with her husband to encourage other women to develop active social lives. In her narrative, Valdete contrasted her husband’s acceptance of her work outside of the home with his resistance to her going out for social reasons. On repeated occasions she challenged his resistance to her having a social life. As Valdete notes, “I said, ‘I am going to win one day. . . . I will have my rights!’ So, that is to say that I was already conscious of having rights.” As part of her resistance, Valdete continued to

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go out socially. However, her husband often followed her to see where she was going. She often noticed him hidden behind a tree or seated in the back of a bus. After following her on several occasions, Valdete’s husband finally seemed to accept the fact that her activities did not pose a danger to him or their relationship. Over time, members of the grupo da terceira idade also began to socialize more. Several days prior to our interview, Valdete attended a late-night party with several members of the group. As she was leaving her house, her husband remarked that :

PM

was a time when older women should be

returning home, not going out. He also expressed doubts that other women from the group would actually attend the party and stated that such activities were not appropriate for older women. Valdete responded to her husband by saying, “Old is what you are becoming. Tchau! (goodbye).” She left the house laughing and did not return until two o’clock the following morning. Many of the members of the grupo da terceira idade have undergone positive personal transformations as a result of their participation in the group. During our interview, Valdete noted that involvement with physical exercise and recreational activities during the group’s meeting had a significant impact on many group members. A number of women stopped using tranquilizers and showed a marked improvement in their mental health as a result of their participation. Several women also began to have more interest and confidence in their personal appearance after joining the group. Valdete observed, “This is gratifying because the elderly, here in Brazil, do not have value. It is as if the elderly were a lost object, you know? . . . So, I think that what is lacking in the elderly is activity, something that they can do to valorize their lives, to show that they are people.” By promoting the development of self-esteem among poor, elderly faveladas, Valdete has contributed to the psychological well-being and personal empowerment of women in her community. Her work with the grupo da terceira idade also highlights the political dimensions of self-esteem for members of marginalized social groups. Given the fact that favela residents have historically been treated as outcasts by Brazilian society, Valdete’s efforts are a direct challenge to long-standing practices of social discrimination that perpetuate a sense of marginalization, unbelonging, and devaluation amongst the poor, particularly poor elderly women.7

Conclusion: Claiming Autonomy and Full Citizenship In many ways, Valdete’s attempts to encourage members of the grupo da terceira idade to assert their autonomy in the domestic sphere resonate with Maria Ilma’s discussion of domestic workers carving out space for themselves in their work relationships. In both cases, each woman drew

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on personal experiences of resistance to subordination and used them as examples of strategies that similarly positioned women could use in their everyday lives. These strategies centered on claiming full personhood and citizenship rights in domains that are not usually considered in traditional formulations of citizenship. As was previously mentioned, Maria Ilma’s critique of the absence of full citizenship in Brazil centers on the ways in which large segments of the population continued to have their rights and, indeed, very humanity violated, despite the country’s transition from military rule to representative democracy. However, she also calls attention to possibilities for social change and the claiming of citizenship. Central to her view is the need for marginalized sectors of the Brazilian population to unify in order to collectively contest their subordination and disenfranchisement. Her reflections on the status of domestic workers also emphasize their role in empowering themselves by claiming autonomy in their work relationships. Her comments highlight the fact that full citizenship will only be achieved when those who are marginalized begin to resist their status. Valdete’s narrative highlights strategies for claiming full citizenship by women who are marginalized on the basis of gender, race, class, and age. Her experiences with members of the grupo da terceira idade center on helping them to develop new ways of seeing themselves and the world around them. These new ways of seeing have also led to new ways of being for many of the women. Changes in the group members’ self-perceptions are reflected in their participation in the grupo da terceira idade and the chorale as well as in their efforts to claim autonomy in their domestic relationships and with respect to their household responsibilities. Describing some of the main issues that she has raised with women in the group, Valdete noted: “This is what I try to pass on to the women. . . . Because the man, he has his life; yes, whether or not he wants it, he has it. He can stand on the corner and chat with his friends. He stays there. He gets distracted there. He has games, [such as] playing cards to distract him. And the woman? She has nothing! Cooking, washing, ironing, and sitting and watching television; this is not living.”

6 The Black Women’s Movement Politicizing and Reconstructing Collective Identities I am not subjected; I am a subject. I don’t want to be an object anymore. I am tired of having to yell all the time that I am a subject when there is a truckload of rubbish pushing me to be an object. I don’t want to be subjected; I want a trade relationship in this capitalist society. I am a direct heir of the society of slavery, and that also enslaves me in a more modern way. —Míriam Alves, quoted in Charles Rowell, “Míriam Alves: An Interview”

The preceding statements by Afro-Brazilian poet Miriam Alves underscore the relationship among social identities, self-representations, and mate-

rial inequalities. As a writer, Alves uses words and images in her struggle against gender and racial oppression. By refusing to occupy an objectified and subservient position within Brazilian society, Alves contests dominant discourses on gender and race and seeks to articulate new and liberatory forms of self-representation. Much like Alves, black Brazilian women from different social classes and political orientations have taken up the banner of self-representation through activism in the black women’s movement. Black women’s collective mobilization in recent decades has called attention to the intersection of race and gender in structuring social relationships and constructing individual and collective identities in Brazil. This chapter examines how the black women’s movement has sought to redefine and expand citizenship rights in four key ways:1 first, by constructing a collective social identity for black women that contests their social, economic, and political marginalization; second, by constructing a collective political identity through the process of making group claims and becoming recognized as active agents in Brazilian society; third, through efforts to claim space within the Brazilian public

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sphere; and, finally, through the process of becoming citizens by affirming the “right to have rights” (Dagnino ).

Enegrecendo o Feminismo—Blackening Feminism The military regime that ruled Brazil from  to  began a process of abertura, or “political liberalization,” in , gradually opening the political arena to civil society. The process of abertura generated increased space for the establishment of oppositional social movements, including the women’s movement and black movement. Brazilian social movements became active in re-creating civil society by expanding the terrain of politics and advocating anti-authoritarian definitions of citizenship. Members of Brazil’s black movement and women’s movement were instrumental in calling for reconceptualizations of democracy and citizenship that gave central regard to issues of race and gender. Such reconceptualizations were significant given the political exclusion of most women and blacks both prior to and during the military regime. The emergence of “new” social movements in Brazil during the s and s occurred within a wider context of authoritarian rule, political repression, and worsening economic conditions. Many of the social movements that emerged during this time were active in re-creating civil society by advocating anti-authoritarian political practices and advancing more democratic notions of citizenship. Brazilian social movements also expanded the terrain of politics by calling for discussion of the links between daily life issues and institutionalized power relations. Local, regional, and national women’s groups became significant political actors during the transition to democracy. Activists in the women’s movement sought to address gender-specific issues, including employment, education, and reproductive health, as well as larger political and social conditions (Alvarez ). Like many of the other social movements that emerged during the abertura, the women’s movement was centrally concerned with redefining Brazilian political ideology and praxis in more democratic terms. The emergence of the women’s movement has been attributed to the employment discrimination and economic hardship experienced by white middle-class women under the military regime (Alvarez ). The development of an international feminist movement combined with the gender discrimination found in leftist political organizations also contributed to the development of the Brazilian women’s movement. The presentation of the Manifesto das Mulheres Negras (Manifesto of Black Women) during the Congresso das Mulheres Brasileiras (Congress of Brazilian Women) in July  marked the first formal recognition of racial

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divisions within the Brazilian women’s movement. As the United Nations Year of the Woman and the beginning of the United Nations Decade of Women,  was an important moment of political mobilization for Brazilian feminists. However, as the Manifesto of Black Women suggested, any presumed unity between women of different races was open for debate. The manifesto stated: “Black Brazilian women have received a cruel heritage: to be the objects of pleasure of the colonizers. The fruit of this cowardly crossing of blood is what is now acclaimed and proclaimed as ‘the only national product that deserves to be exported: the Brazilian mulatta.’ But if the quality of the product is said to be so high, the treatment that she receives is extremely degrading, dirty and disrespectful” (qtd. in Nascimento , ). By calling attention to the specificities of black women’s life experiences, representations and social identities, the manifesto underscored how practices of racial domination have shaped gender relations in Brazil. By unmasking the gendered aspects of racial domination and the racial aspects of gender domination, the manifesto also highlighted black women’s victimization by long-standing practices of sexual exploitation. A concern for the differential status of white and black women began to be more clearly articulated by black women who were active in the feminist movement during the late s. In a written critique of the  National Encounter of Women, black feminist Lélia Gonzalez () lamented white feminists’ failure to address the racism found in the women’s movement. She noted that women with seemingly progressive and leftist political orientations denied the salience of race and its impact in black women’s lives. She observed: “Our participation caused contradictory reactions. . . . [W]hen we began to speak about racism and its practices in terms of the black woman there was no longer unanimity. Accusations were made that our comments were emotional, by some . . . but representatives from the poorest regions understood us perfectly (most of them were mestiças). All of the uproar caused by our position pointed to two main issues for us: political lag (principally of groups that consider themselves to be more progressive); and the necessity of denying racism in order to hide another issue: the exploitation of black women by white women” (Gonzalez , , ). Gonzalez’s comments highlight the role that race has played in shaping relationships between white and black women. Her observations suggest that raising the issue of racism within the women’s movement was seen as a necessity by black women and seen as an unnecessarily divisive issue by white women. Finally, she notes that white women were reluctant to address the problem of racism because of their own complicity in racial domination. Marked differences in the social experiences of black and white women led to divisions within the Brazilian women’s movement during the late

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s and continuing into the s. While a number of black women had turned to feminism seeking solace from the sexism that they encountered in black organizations, they quickly found that race was a source of fissure that prevented white and black women from making common cause around a presumably shared sisterhood. Reflecting on racial divisions within the Brazilian women’s movement, black feminists Sueli Carneiro and Thereza Santos noted: “As a result of these conflicts, black and white women faced each other in the space of the feminist movement in a conflictual and untrusting manner that resulted from the different historical, political and ideological references that determined their different points of views on common problems” (, ). The legacies of racial and gender domination that resulted from slavery and their reconfiguration in post-abolition Brazilian society have led to markedly different social experiences and social locations for most black and white women. As a result of these different social experiences and social locations, problems and issues that are presumed to be common to all Brazilian women, such as sexuality, reproductive health, and paid labor, have held different significance for black and white women. Recognition of these differences caused black feminists to challenge generalized notions of women’s oppression that failed to account for the qualitative difference that patriarchal ideology “had and still has in the construction of the black woman’s feminine identity” (Carneiro and Santos , ). Work by black feminists such as Lélia Gonzalez () and Luiza Bairros () also linked the apparent liberation of white women in recent decades to the continued socioeconomic subordination of black women. Gonzalez and Bairros argued that black women’s domestic service in the homes of white families allowed white women to enter the paid labor force in increasing numbers. Gonzalez also criticized the feminist movement for being oblivious to the sexual exploitation experienced by black women, particularly those who work in domestic service. She noted: “The exploitation of black women as sexual objects is something that is much greater than the Brazilian feminist movements think or say. These movements are generally led by white middle-class women. For example, “senhoras” still exist who seek to hire pretty young black women to work in their homes as domestics. But the main goal is to have their sons be initiated sexually with them. This is just one more example of economic-sexual superexploitation . . . in addition to perpetuating myths about the special sensuality of black women” (Gonzalez , , ). In their struggle to gain a greater voice within the feminist movement, a number of black feminists argued that making black women’s concerns a sub-theme under the larger rubric of “women’s issues” would be insufficient. Given their calculation that approximately  percent of the national

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population was black and that, as a result, nearly  percent of the female population was also black, Carneiro and Santos urged that the “variable of color should be introduced as an indispensable component in the effective configuration of the Brazilian feminist movement” (, ). However, noting white feminists’ reluctance to address the issue of race, Carneiro and Santos argued that such an omission “means that, as black women, we must privilege the racial question over the sexual [question]. This is also because the oppression of black women in Brazilian society does not originate in biological differences, but in racial ones” (Carneiro and Santos , ). Black women who have been active in black organizations have often been reluctant to become involved with the feminist movement. During a  interview, Marta, an activist in the Belo Horizonte chapter of the Movimento Negro Unificado (United Black Movement, or MNU), offered the following assessment of the feminist movement: “The white middle-class feminist movement never . . . even today it is hard for them to understand that we live a different reality from them. . . . A white feminist can go into the streets to protest on the th of March, while a black domestic is at her house working. . . . So, our reality is different.” Recognizing the differences in black and white women’s life experiences and social locations is key to understanding why some black women have chosen to primarily struggle against racism or to be affiliated with black movement organizations, rather than women’s organizations. As Marta explained: “I do not assumo (claim/ identify with) the term feminist. . . . I assumo the following: I am negra. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a woman who struggles for a better society. I am a worker. And within this condition, it is clear that I am a woman before anything else. . . . I am a mulher negra (black woman). I am organized within the black movement. But I think that it is possible to exchange with these other sectors, but never in a subordinated position. I will not allow this in any way.” When I asked Marta to expound upon her views of feminism, she responded by stating: “Perhaps I am a negra feminista (black feminist), but I am a negra before anything else. My starting point . . . being a mulher negra (black woman) is fundamental for me.” Instead of referring to herself as a feminista negra, as many black feminists do, Marta self-identifies as a negra feminista. This choice of terminology suggests that Marta’s identity as a negra is one that is primary and permanent, while being a feminista is conditioned by her identity as a black woman.

Gender Politics in the Black Movement While it is important to examine the challenges faced by black women in the Brazilian women’s movement, it is also crucial to explore how the issue of gender has been addressed in Brazil’s movimento negro, or “black

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movement.” Since black women’s experiences and identities have been profoundly shaped by both racial and gender politics, they have had the unique challenge of calling attention to the intersection of race and gender in the women’s movement and the black movement. Much like the women’s movement, the black movement gained momentum during Brazil’s transition to democracy. Between  and , the process of political liberalization generated increased space for racial contestation and mobilization by black activists. Brazil’s emergent antiracist movement also found inspiration in African struggles for decolonization and the civil rights and black power movements in the United States. An increasing number of black movement organizations were formed in major cities throughout Brazil beginning in the mid-s. By , there were  black movement groups in Rio de Janeiro and  black movement groups in São Paulo. The founding of the Movimento Negro Unificado and a host of other black organizations during the late s signaled the emergence of new forms of antiracist resistance. The nascent black movement played a crucial role in challenging the lack of both political democracy and racial democracy in Brazil. Prior to the establishment of the MNU, black organizations such as the Society for Brazil-Africa Exchange (SINBA) and the Institute for the Study of Black Cultures (IPCN) were founded in Rio de Janeiro during the mid-s. However, unlike black organizations that had previously been formed on the local level, the founders of the MNU sought to develop a movement that would be national in scope. From its inception, the MNU was designed to be an umbrella organization for other black movement entities. However, by the late s the MNU had become one organization among many, rather than an overarching entity. Despite the fact that black women have historically comprised a large percentage of the active membership of many black movement organizations, particularly in major cities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Belo Horizonte, black men have traditionally dominated the leadership of most organizations. Sexism within the black movement became a major issue for many black women during the late s and early s. A sense of displacement was felt by a number of women who were active in the black movement during the s. While their concerns about race largely went unheeded by the feminist movement, their concerns about gender were often marginalized by the black movement. Many of the problems encountered by black women in black movement organizations during the s continued to persist during the s. Reflecting on gender politics in the black movement, MNU activist Marta noted: “It is clear that the black movement, like any other organization, is not immune to the effects of machismo and sexism. It is not immune. So,

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this always appears in the relationships. It appears in some way. . . . We were never immune to machismo. So, it is the woman who struggles, who pushes the group forward. But she ends up being invisible in the history of the group. Who ends up speaking for the group? A man. It is always a man. . . . The impact of this type of machismo is so deeply rooted.” During my field research in Belo Horizonte, I observed a preponderance of women in the local black movement. More women than men tended to be involved in the ongoing work of black movement entities, as well as in organizing and putting on public events. However, although black women appeared to be respected as leaders in the local black movement, one man in particular was highly regarded and accorded a privileged status as the “intellectual leader” of the movement. While the MNU has not been alone in its struggle to address sexism, gender politics within the organization provide important insights into the increasing politicization of gender within the black movement.2 Although black women were active in establishing the MNU during the late s, sexism often shaped interaction between men and women within the organization. In the late s, Luiza Bairros, a prominent MNU leader in the state of Bahia and national MNU coordinator in the early s, noted the tremendous difference between the discourse of the black movement, which was often based on the exaltation of black women, and the sexist practices of men in the movement (see Ribeiro a). Many women were confined to the role of workers and were given limited access to leadership in the organization. Bairros attributed women’s subordination within the MNU to the fact that their male colleagues saw them as competitors and regarded the organization as a space in which their authority should go unchallenged (see Ribeiro a). Elza, a leader of the MNU chapter in Belo Horizonte, commented on the difficulties faced by black women who attempted to discuss population control and forced sterilization in the black movement during the s. She noted that a number of black activists saw the forced sterilization of black women as proof of a genocidal conspiracy to decrease the size of the black population. Concern over forced sterilization also took on different significance for men and women within the MNU. Beliefs that sterilization was part of a racist conspiracy caused many men in the organization to encourage black women to have children as a way to guarantee the survival of the black community. While a number of male activists proposed alternatives to sterilization that would increase women’s childbearing responsibilities, women in the MNU sought alternatives that would allow them to maximize their reproductive autonomy. Elza also noted that, despite calls to challenge sterilization as a form of genocide, many men continued to see sterilization as a gender-specific issue that primarily affected black women, rather than

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a community issue. As a result, many women in the MNU were left alone in the struggle against forced sterilization.

Emergence of the Black Women’s Movement Black women’s increasing marginalization within the women’s movement and black movement provided an impetus for separate organizing. During the early s, separate groups focusing on the concerns of black women were formed within both women’s organizations and black organizations. Black women’s attempts to address the intersection of race and gender also led to increasing tensions within both movements. As Fátima Oliveira, an activist in the women’s movement, black movement, and black women’s movement at both the local and national level, observed: The feminist movement had a lot of difficulty understanding this thing called “a questão da mulher negra” (the question of the black woman), and the black movement also had a hard time. So, I participated since the beginning in these conflicts in the black movement as well as in the feminist movement, since this debate began. . . . This is because I was in both movements and black women had difficulties with both movements. If you were a black woman, as long as you were only a feminist you did not have a problem. There were always a lot of black women in the feminist movement. But people were just black women and just feminists, and they did not have a mapping of the racial question, so it did not cause a problem. But when you began to deal with the racial question more, to begin to understand it, to say that the feminist movement was not concerned with it, . . . you began to be a troublemaker, a person who was seen in a bad light in both movements.

Silvia, an activist in the women’s movement, black movement, and black women’s movement in Belo Horizonte, made similar observations regarding the challenges of addressing the relationship between race and gender in the women’s movement and black movement. She noted: “White women have had a hard time understanding this. Because when we discuss ways to organize black women, we see that; when we are in the black movement men say, ‘What is this? We are all black. We all suffer the same. It is all the same thing.’ Then when we get to the feminist movement, the women say, ‘No, we are all women. It is all the same thing.’ But we see that we have our specificities. . . . We have to manage to discuss these specificities in all instances.” Although black women were active in efforts to politicize the intersection of gender and race since the mid-s, the increasing difficulty of addressing issues of intersectionality within the Brazilian women’s movement and

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black movement led to the formation of separate black women’s groups during the early and mid-s. One of the first autonomous black women’s organizations, Nzinga/Coletivo de Mulheres Negras (Nzinga/Collective of Black Women), was founded in Rio de Janeiro in . The membership of Nzinga included pioneering black feminist Lélia Gonzalez, who participated in the organization in addition to her militancy within the MNU. The Coletivo de Mulheres Negras de São Paulo (Black Women’s Collective of São Paulo) was formed in early  in response to black women’s exclusion from the newly formed Conselho Estadual da Condição Feminina (State Council on the Feminine Condition, CECF). When the council was created by Governor Franco Montorro in , it served as the first state-level council devoted to women’s rights in Brazil. While the creation of CECF ostensibly reflected Montorro’s commitment to including civil society in processes of state governance, his choice of thirty white women to serve on the council was criticized by black women (Alvarez ; Roland ). Black women’s mobilization against CECF resulted in two black women being nominated to the council and the formation of the CECF Black Women’s Commission. The black women who organized for representation on the council decided to continue organizing and subsequently founded the Collective of Black Women of São Paulo. The Collective of Black Women of São Paulo was primarily composed of women who were active in black movement organizations. The group’s efforts to achieve representation on the State Council on the Feminine Condition sought to redress the political invisibility of black women. These efforts are noteworthy since they resulted in black women opening a dialogue with the state before the larger black movement or black male activists did (Roland ). The collective also galvanized efforts to create political dialogue among black women by organizing the First State Encounter of Black Women in . The First State Encounter had more than  attendees, including black women from the state of São Paulo as well as black women from other states and black men. During the mid and late s, black women’s collectives and groups were formed throughout Brazil. Organizations such as the Coletivo de Mulheres Negras da Baixada Santista/Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra, Grupo de Mulheres Negras Mãe Andresa, Centro de Mulheres de Favela e Periferia, Grupo de Mulheres Negras de Espirito Santo, Maria Mulher, Colectivo de Mulheres Negras de Belo Horizonte/Nzinga, Geledés, and Comissão de Mulheres Negras de Campinas were formed between  and  in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Maranhão, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul (Roland ). Several black women’s organizations were also formed during the s. The Coletivo de Mulheres Negras do Distrito Federal, Coletivo de Mulheres Negras de Salvador, Criola, Eleeko-Instituto da

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Mulher Negra, Associação de Mulheres Negras Oborin Dudu, and Fala Preta! Organização de Mulheres Negras were established in the Federal District of Brasília as well as in the states of Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo between  and  (Roland ). Local black women’s organizations have ranged in size from small, informal groups to professionalized nongovernmental organizations that receive international funding. Black women’s organizations have developed areas of focus based on the needs of local populations and the expertise of their membership. Common areas of concern in many organizations have included reproductive health and sexual, racial, and domestic violence. Activists have targeted these issues in an effort to identify how they impact black women. The issue of female sterilization has been of particular concern to activists in the black women’s movement given Brazil’s high rate of female sterilization and a general consensus among activists that black women are targeted for forced sterilization. Many black women’s organizations are also involved in efforts to valorize and promote Afro-Brazilian culture and identity. A commitment to cultural revitalization is reflected in organizational names, such as Nzinga and Geledés, that reference African culture and history. The names of organizations, such as Criola and Fala Preta, also demonstrate attempts to resignify dominant racial discourses that have used the terms criola (Brazilian-born slave/black woman) and preta in a derogatory manner. Several organizations have also focused on promoting the self-esteem of black women through workshops, self-help groups, and community outreach. Workshops on hair braiding and African dance are often used as part of these efforts. By the mid s, the black women’s movement was increasingly recognized as an autonomous political force. During a  interview, Edna Roland, then director of the health program at Geledés: Instituto da Mulher Negra (Black Woman’s Institute), a black feminist nongovernmental organization in São Paulo, commented on the organization’s relationship to the women’s movement and black movement. She noted: We, Geledés as a whole, the organization as a whole, emerged from our perception and from our consciousness of the necessity for an autonomous organization for black women. Because as long as we remained, whether within the black movement or even in mixed organizations—of men and women—or within the feminist movement (women’s organizations), we were not able to get the attention [needed] for black women. Black women were always the last item on the agenda, whether for black men or for white women. So, we consider ourselves to be an organization that is part of the black movement and part of the feminist movement, but we need to have

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our own organization in order to have political force, in order to be heard, in order to be a partner—a political partner within the black movement and the feminist movement.

Further commenting on the effectiveness of black women’s separate organizing, Roland noted: “The importance that has been given to our problems today is much greater than it was, for example, six years ago, six or seven years ago, when Geledés was created. Today, it is no longer possible for a large encounter to take place, for a large conference to take place—whether about blacks or about women—that does not give the question of the black woman a large political space that is given a separate place of importance. This is something that Geledés along with other groups of black women in Brazil achieved.”

Black Women’s Mobilization at the National Level The First National Encounter of the Black Woman in  marked the emergence of black women’s collective organizing on the national level. The First National Encounter was organized in response to the lack of discussion about race and the experiences of black women during the Ninth Feminist Encounter in . The National Encounter of Black Women also coincided with the centennial of abolition and the promulgation of the  Brazilian Constitution. Both events underscored the year’s significance as a time to rethink Brazilian history and the nation’s future with respect to democracy, equality, and citizenship. The First National Encounter of Black Women provided a vehicle for black women’s efforts to influence Brazilian political culture during the democratic transition. The encounter was held in Valença, Rio de Janeiro, and was attended by  black women from seventeen states. The bulletin from the encounter articulated black women’s collective desire to shape Brazil’s future, stating: All of us, black women, must understand that we are fundamental in this process of transformation, demanding (reivindicando) a just and equal society where all forms of discrimination are eradicated. . . . We would like to clarify that it is not our intention to cause a division in the social movements, as some sectors accuse. Our objective is that we, black women begin to create our own references, that we stop seeing the world through the lens of men, black or white, or that of white women. The significance of the expression “create our own references” is that we want to be side-by-side with our female and male companions in the struggle for social transformation. We want to become spokespersons for our own ideas and needs. In

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sum, we want a position of equality in this struggle. (qtd. in Ribeiro a, )

These impassioned statements highlight black women’s collective attempts to reconceptualize Brazilian society in more just and egalitarian terms. They also demonstrate the importance of using black women’s unique vantage points as a basis for creating new social and political agendas that would reflect their specific concerns. In their attempts to become their own spokespersons and representatives, activists in the black women’s movement also began to forge a new collective social and political actor, the mulher negra. Prior to the emergence of the black women’s movement, the concerns of black women had historically been subsumed under the struggle for women, blacks, or the working class. The divisive attitudes that were attributed to black women who raised the issue of racism within the women’s movement and the issue of sexism within the black movement demonstrate the extent to which their concerns were disregarded. In their efforts to create a separate political space, activists in the black women’s movement were also contesting their subordinate status within the female population and the black population as well as within the larger society. Activists in the black women’s movement continued to organize and develop a collective agenda at the national level during the early s. The Second National Encounter of Black Women was held in Salvador, Bahia, in , and  women from seventeen states attended. During , the First National Seminar of Black Women took place in Atabaia, São Paulo. Forty-eight women from nine different states attended the seminar. The primary goal of the meeting was to evaluate the organizational process up to that point and to define new perspectives and goals for the black women’s movement.

Developing an Agenda for Reproductive Rights During August , activists in the black women’s movement convened at the national level in preparation for the  U.N. World Population Conference in Cairo. The National Seminar on Black Women’s Reproductive Rights and Policies brought together representatives from the black women’s movement, the black movement, the women’s movement, research centers, and the public health sector. The national seminar provided a rare opportunity for social movement activists and health professionals to define strategies for addressing the reproductive rights of black women. The seminar was organized by Geledés, with financial support from the International Women’s Health Coalition and the MacArthur Foundation.

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The National Seminar on Black Women’s Reproductive Rights and Policies resulted in the publication of the Declaração de Itapecerica da Serra das Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (Itapecerica da Serra Declaration of Brazilian Black Women). The declaration outlined key issues affecting the reproductive health of black women and was presented to the Brazilian government and at the  World Population Conference. This pioneering political document addressed the impact of population policies on poor and nonwhite communities and criticized the Brazilian state’s involvement in the realm of population policy through its involvement in formulating and implementing population control policies as well as through its failure to prevent the action of organizations seeking to limit population growth in the country. While noting that state policy on reproductive health tended to vacillate between coercion and neglect, the declaration proposed that the Brazilian state begin to treat reproduction as a private issue and provide the conditions necessary for reproductive freedom. The document also noted the growth of AIDS cases among black women and cited it as proof of the “lack of control that black women have over their sexuality and reproductive capacity” (National Seminar , ). In addition to addressing issues that affected the Brazilian population in general, including employment, sanitation, education, and housing, the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration also discussed factors that had a particular impact on black women’s reproductive health. The statement focused special attention on the need to develop public health policies for the prevention and treatment of illnesses, such as hypertension, sickle cell anemia, and fibroid tumors, that disproportionately impact black women.3 The declaration also highlighted the importance of including racial data in birth, death, and health statistics in order to develop a profile of morbidity and mortality for the black population. By calling for racially specific health policies and statistical information, the declaration underscored the impact of race-evasive discourses in the area of public health.4 Black women involved in health activism have argued that the Brazilian medical community has traditionally paid minimal, if any, attention to the ethnic-racial dimensions of disease prevention and treatment. The lack of statistical data on the black population, in the national census and other official documents, has long perpetuated this practice. Dominant discourses on racial democracy have also fostered neglect and disregard for the ethnicracial dimensions of health and wellness by Brazilian public officials. As a result, the prevention and treatment of illnesses that affect blacks in disproportionate numbers have rarely been addressed in racially specific ways.5 The  National Seminar on the Reproductive Rights of Black Women and the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration underscored the importance of developing collective strategies to address the specificities of black women’s

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experiences and oppression. Autonomous organizing by black women facilitated the articulation of policy recommendations focused at the intersection of gender and race. Black women’s intervention in the area of reproductive health also highlighted the relationship between race, class, and gender in shaping reproductive autonomy. As the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration observed, “The drop in fertility happened in total disrespect to women’s reproductive rights, women were induced to surgical sterilization without other contraceptive options being made available. Sterilization has been erroneously considered a contraceptive method, safe and without negative effects, which should be demystified. International and national institutions stimulating this practice should also be denounced. The impact of mass sterilization of black women in Brazil can already be felt in the percentage decrease of the black population in this decade, in relation to the previous one” (National Seminar , ). The National Seminar on the Reproductive Rights of Black Women provided an important moment of collective mobilization for black women in preparation for the  World Population Conference. During the s, activists in the black women’s movement became involved in other significant forms of transnational organizing. A number of black women participated in the First and Second Encounters of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean Women in  and . These encounters were sponsored by the Network of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean Women and sought to foster dialogue among black women in the region. Black Brazilian women also played a visible role in preparations for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in . Activists in the black women’s movement participated in state forums and had a large showing during the National Conference of Brazilian Women that was held in July . Black women’s involvement in the World Conference preparatory process resulted in the issue of race being incorporated in the Declaration of Brazilian Women for the  World Conference on Women as well as in the official document of the Brazilian government. Moreover, as black feminist Edna Roland has noted, in Beijing, the Brazilian government “honored the position defended by black women and their white allies associated with NGOs, by sustaining the recognition of racial discrimination as a serious problem that affects a large number of women in the world” (Roland , ).

The  National Meeting of Black Women After several years of relative demobilization at the national level, the  National Meeting of Black Women provided an opportunity for activists in the black women’s movement to reassess and redefine the movement’s

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objectives. The national meeting was organized by the Forum das Mulheres Negras in Belo Horizonte in cooperation with activists from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The Forum of Black Women in Belo Horizonte was composed of a small group of black women who were active in black organizations, women’s organizations, black women’s organizations, and political parties. The forum began meeting in April  and the group’s weekly meetings typically consisted of five to ten women and usually lasted for two to three hours. Soon after the forum’s establishment, members of the group became involved in efforts to organize the national meeting of black women. As I mentioned in the introduction, conducting fieldwork in Belo Horizonte in  allowed me to observe the preparations for the national meeting as well as to participate in the meeting as a nonvoting, invited delegate. The original theme proposed for the national meeting was “O que nos une, o que nos separa” (What unites us, what separates us). Despite black women’s relative success in challenging racism in the women’s movement and sexism in the black movement, efforts at autonomous organizing have faced the difficulty of developing forms of organization that foster both unity and diversity. While in many ways black women are linked by common experiences and struggles, they are also divided by differences in class, educational background, sexual orientation, religious practice, and political affiliation. Regional differences and socioeconomic disparities between the more industrialized and affluent states of the south-southeast and the less

FIGUR E 6.1 Audience at the  National Meeting of Black Women. Photo by

author.

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industrialized states of the north-northeast have also increased the difficulty of organizing black women at the national level. The main objectives of the  National Meeting of Black Women were to discuss forms of organizing black women, identify common struggles and objectives, and discuss the relationship between the black women’s movement in Brazil and the Network of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Women. While they do so in different ways, each of these objectives addressed the importance of both fostering unity and acknowledging diversity among black women. In an attempt to defuse possible conflict between women from different organizations and regions of the country, the organizers of the national meeting requested that delegates at the meeting speak on behalf of themselves, rather than speaking as representatives of groups or organizations. The organizers also sought to prevent conflict over the issue of representation by allotting each state a number of delegates proportional to its size. This method was intended to allow adequate representation for all regions of the country. The National Meeting of Black Women was held in Belo Horizonte in September . Sixty-nine women from ten states were present at the meeting. While the meeting was largely focused on reenergizing and remobilizing activists in the black women’s movement, restrictions on the number of delegates and limited financial resources prevented the national meeting from reaching a wider audience. One of the most important outcomes of the national meeting was the decision to forgo the development of a nationallevel organizing body for the black women’s movement. During the meeting, delegates were given an opportunity to present their views on forms of organization within the black women’s movement. There was a great deal of support for strengthening state forums of black women as a way to encourage collective exchange and mobilization. However, most delegates opposed the establishment of a national body within the movement. Ultimately, centralization of the black women’s movement was opposed by a vote of forty-two to eight. Although the majority of the delegates at the  National Meeting of Black Women voted against centralization of the black women’s movement at the national level, the question of how the movement would be organized in the future was left unresolved. While the absence of a centralized bureaucratic structure, such as a national commission, has allowed the black women’s movement to avoid the complications of a hierarchical distribution of power and influence, it has been difficult for the activists to sustain momentum on the national level and maintain contact between organizations in different parts of the country. Aside from national meetings and seminars, most activists in the black women’s movement are involved in initiatives on the local or state level. As a consequence, efforts to develop

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FIGUR E 6.2 Delegate speaking during the  National Meeting of Black Women. Photo by author.

and implement initiatives at the national level have been thwarted by the absence of national-level forms of organization.6 The views of two leading activists in the black women’s movement, Fátima Oliveira and Edna Roland, exemplify divergent perspectives that shaped movement discourse during the mid to late s. During an interview in August , Fátima Oliveira expressed her view of the importance of maintaining a loose form of organization at the national level. She noted: All of the difficulties that we are now living through in the black women’s movement, I already lived through in the feminist movement here

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FIGUR E 6.3 Invited speakers at the  National Meeting of Black Women. Photo

by author.

in Brazil. And the difference is of about a decade. What is happening now in the black women’s movement happened about a decade ago in the feminist movement. The feminist movement, since its reorganization in the s until now, it is older, more experienced, than the black women’s movement. . . . We had moments in the feminist movement in Brazil; there were people who defended a federation of feminists, that there had to be a dona (head/owner) of the feminist movement in Brazil. . . . This caused fights at different moments, at different feminist encounters. . . . Because you had a faction of the feminist movement who argued that all feminists had to be tied to just one entity, with a single leadership, with everyone going to the same place. And life demonstrated that things are not that way. The feminist movement is a plural movement; it has a single objective which is to struggle against women’s oppression. Now, how to struggle, how to do this, to my understanding this depends . . .

She went on to state: The black women’s movement, I think it is going to arrive at this stage. It is going to arrive at the stage where the feminist movement is today, without having a national leadership, because there’s no need. This is a continental country. [We have to] learn to work with diversity, with plurality. We have to have common moments in order to define

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bandeiras de luta (banners of struggle). So, in order for the future of the black women’s movement in Brazil to be democratic, in order for it to be consequential, we will have to do what the feminist movement is doing today. . . . Because it is impossible . . . I do not think that there is a structured organizational form where we all fit. We, black women . . . we have differences of class, of ideology. So, there does not exist a form of organization, from this rigid point of view like people think, of having a chefa (boss), a dona (head/owner), a president, where we all fit. And we are all part of the antiracist movement, so we are going to have to find a solution for ourselves.

Oliveira’s observations highlight the difficulty of developing collective forms of organization that simultaneously promote diversity, plurality, and equality. Her critique of national-level organization centers on the importance of developing forms of organization that can accommodate the diversity of experience and opinion found amongst black Brazilian women. In contrast to the tendency to promote a single woman as the boss or owner of the black women’s movement, Oliveira argues for the importance of maintaining egalitarian and democratic forms of organization within the movement. Edna Roland’s views on the need for national-level organization within the black women’s movement were published in a written document provided to the delegates at the National Meeting of Black Women in  as well as in essay form (Roland ). In her published essay, Roland stated that the outcome of the  national meeting offered an “undefined position, which considers all forms of organization to be legitimate: networks, articulations, CONEN, etc.” (, ). In her view, the movement’s failure to determine collective forms of organization has been due to “differences in conception” regarding the issue of autonomy (, ). She noted: “With relation to differences in conception, there is an obvious contradiction between the sectors that consider that the black women’s movement should organize itself autonomously, defining its own political agenda based on its political necessities, and the sectors that consider that the black women’s movement is specific, but part of the black movement, and should subordinate its agenda to this movement, which is considered to be more general. . . .There also seems to arise, within the movement, an interest in subordinating it to the dictates of the feminist movement” (Roland , , emphasis in original). Roland also attributed differing views on the autonomy of the black women’s movement to the different origins and political orientations of activists in the movement. She argued that black women’s activism in the black movement, women’s movement, labor movement, religious sectors,

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and political parties leads to different “conceptions and interpretations of reality, with different levels of emphasis on the hierarchies of race, gender and class” (Roland , ).

Examining the Views of Non-Activists Making Time for Activism While the emergence of an autonomous black women’s movement highlights Afro-Brazilian women’s recent efforts at collective organizing, it is important to note that the vast majority of black women are not involved in the movement. Sixteen of the thirty-five women that I interviewed can be categorized as activists in the black movement, women’s movement, and/or black women’s movement. Nineteen of the women were self-defined non-activists and were not associated with any of these movements during my field research. When questioned about their views of the black movement and the black women’s movement, women who were non-activists responded in a variety of ways. Their responses ranged from statements that they had little or no knowledge of the black movement or the black women’s movement to critical commentaries on the messages and strategies employed by activists. One of the most favorable commentaries on activism came from Regina, the thirty-nine-year-old tax inspector and non-activist who was profiled in chapters  and . While Regina said that it would be hard for her to commit time to activism, she stated that she could see the potential benefits of sharing her experiences with other black women. She noted: “It is not that I am opposed to the black movement, but I am a little selfish. In order to participate in a movement, there are meetings; there are times when you have to meet with other people. And you have to create space in your life. You have to be available for these encounters, and I have not made myself available for this yet.” Regina further said that the lack of widespread activism in Brazil could be seen as a cultural issue, rather than as an individual one, stating: “In general, people are not accustomed to participating, to reivindicar (demanding), to struggling for their rights in a collective and organized way. This is not common at all. Even where there are more popular movements, people are still not accustomed [to participating]. In terms of this, I am in the middle of the majority of people. If someone speaks, I will applaud. But as long as I do not have to leave my house on Tuesday at :, or whenever. . . . The cause has to motivate me a lot to run after it.” While Regina’s description of activism focuses on her personal difficulty in committing time and energy to social movement participation, it also points to the tremendous amount of personal sacrifice required by

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activists. The small number of black women activists, in Belo Horizonte and throughout Brazil, has resulted in a large number of demands being placed on women who are active in social movements, in addition to their family and job responsibilities. During my interview with Ana, a forty-yearold member of the MNU in Belo Horizonte, she noted that her increased family responsibilities after her husband’s death caused her to curtail her involvement with the organization. Activism in multiple movements—the women’s movement, black movement, black women’s movement, and political parties—also took a visible toll on a number of activists during my field research. One particularly active member of the Forum of Black Women suffered from physical exhaustion as a result of her efforts to organize the  National Meeting of Black Women.

Critiques of Activism Unlike Regina, the majority of non-activists with whom I spoke did not attribute their lack of political involvement to personal issues, such as a lack of time or scheduling conflicts. Instead, the overwhelming majority of non-activists were critical of the practices of black movement organizations. While conducting my interviews, I was often surprised when women who were involved in antiracist work would describe themselves as não militantes, or “non-activists.” I interviewed four women who were self-identified nonactivists, but who were also actively involved in antiracist efforts through community organizing, working with Afro-Brazilian children, and participation in Afro-Brazilian cultural practices, such as capoeira. Non-activists’ views of activism challenge many of the assumptions that undergird both activists’ and scholars’ views of antiracist mobilization in Brazil.7 In many ways, non-activists’ critiques of the black movement and black women’s movement highlight the shortcomings of both movements as they have been conceptualized and constituted. Their critiques also suggest that a number of black women in Belo Horizonte have made a conscious decision to be non-activists because they do not agree with the philosophies and/or strategies associated with activism in the black movement or black women’s movement.8 Several non-activists expressed concern about how blackness has been defined by activists in the black movement. Adriana, a thirty-one-year-old graduate student and non-activist who was profiled in chapter , felt that activists should begin to focus more on the importance of education as a way to combat discrimination and encourage social mobility, rather than promoting culturally and aesthetically based views of blackness. In her opinion, wearing African clothing and “natural” hairstyles was simply not enough. I also spoke to two non-activists, Maria and Tereza, who said that they had a perception of black organizations as being fechadas (closed) and

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fundamentalist in orientation (see Burdick b). Since Tereza was involved with antiracist work as the director of an Afro-Brazilian nongovernmental organization in Belo Horizonte, her critical view of the black movement was rather unexpected. Tereza’s critique of the black movement underscored the need to address issues of difference and individuality within the movement. As she noted: “I am a little opposed to certain forms of militancy; they can be very closed. . . . [They say,] ‘You are black; you have to wear your hair this or that way; you have to be raça; you have to use all types of African clothing because you are black.’ Wait a minute! I am violating that person. And I think that this happens a lot within the movement. . . . I think that the discussion is still at this point, and I think that it needs to be much broader than this. . . . I think that there is an alienating fundamentalism in this discussion. They are becoming alienating fundamentalists and almost Shiites: It is like this; if not, you are outside.” Tereza also faulted some activists for speaking on behalf of the black community, rather than having an ongoing relationship or dialogue with community members. Her criticism centered on many activists’ failure to develop trabalho de base (grassroots work). Tereza described trabalho de base as being an organic connection based on political work that seeks to educate and empower the povo negro (black community). Tereza also defined her position as the director of a nongovernmental organization that worked with Afro-Brazilian children as trabalho de base, rather than as militancia (militance or activism). While Tereza distinguished between trabalho de base and militancia in reference to the black movement at large, this distinction is also relevant to the black women’s movement. Focusing on the differences between trabalho de base and militancia provides important insights into ways that activists in the black women’s movement can reach non-activists. Although a number of black women’s organizations have developed trabalho de base in local communities throughout Brazil, there is also a strong tendency for women to be involved in activism without having close ties to local communities. In Belo Horizonte, most members of the Forum of Black Women were activists whose political work took place within one or more of the following types of organizations: black organizations, women’s organizations, black women’s organizations, or political parties. Only one of the twelve members of the forum was involved with race- or gender-focused organizing at the grassroots level. During my field research, the largely insular nature of the black women’s movement seemed to prevent the recruitment of new activists and stymie the movement’s growth. My observations of the black women’s movement in Belo Horizonte also indicated that most of the women who attended events sponsored by the movement were already involved with activism. Many activists tended to attend political meetings and movement events, rather

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than become involved with local communities. The lack of contact between activists and non-activists was highlighted by the fact that many of the nonactivists with whom I spoke were unfamiliar with the black women’s movement and the Forum of Black Women. Many non-activists were also unaware that the National Meeting of Black Women was scheduled to take place in their city. One of the ongoing challenges facing the black women’s movement is how to reach women who have minimal knowledge of or interest in activism. My frequent conversations and interactions with non-activists in Belo Horizonte provided important insights into some of the reasons why women who self-identify as mulheres negras and who have a heightened awareness of racism and sexism are not involved in the black movement or black women’s movement. These women’s experiences and reflections suggest that examining non-activists’ views of the black movement and black women’s movement is crucial to understanding how these movements can develop a larger membership and reach a wider audience.

Class Cleavages and Activism During my field research, class differences among Afro-Brazilian women also emerged as a salient factor that prevented the expansion of the black women’s movement and limited the movement’s effectiveness in addressing the concerns of impoverished Afro-Brazilian women. During my initial meeting with Valdete da Silva Cordeiro, who was profiled in chapter , I asked her about the black movement’s presence in her neighborhood, the favela of Alto Vera Cruz. She promptly responded by saying that the black movement did not have a presence there. Valdete also looked at some of her acquaintances who were present during our meeting to confirm her statement. They all shook their heads in agreement with her statement. This encounter occurred early in my field research and caused me to wonder whether activists in the black movement made a concerted effort to reach out to favela communities. Moreover, while Valdete’s comments focused on the black movement in general, they also suggest the extent to which activists in the black women’s movement have not been able to reach favela communities in Belo Horizonte. My interview with Maria Ilma Ricardo, who was also profiled in chapter , further highlighted the ways in which class differences among AfroBrazilian women have created distance between activists in the black women’s movement and non-activists. I interviewed Maria Ilma the day after the National Meeting of Black Women ended in September . During the interview, Maria Ilma stated her belief that poor black women, particularly domestic workers, were not represented at the meeting—either physically or in terms of their interests.

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Maria Ilma’s comments were supported by my observations of the  National Meeting of Black Women as well as during several other political meetings sponsored by the black movement and black women’s movement. During these meetings, it was commonplace for an audience member to criticize the speakers for failing to address the concerns of domestic workers. The absence of domestic workers, as both speakers and participants, at these meetings further underscored their marginalized status in relation to these movements. While class dynamics within Afro-Brazilian communities are a complicated subject that has rarely been addressed in academic research, class cleavages seem to have a profound impact on the ways in which activists in the black women’s movement, as well as the black movement, prioritize issues and develop strategies for combating gender and racial inequalities (see Burdick b). Many of the activists that I came into contact with in Belo Horizonte, as well as in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, were either lowermiddle-class or comfortably middle-class black women. Many of them had post-secondary educations and were employed in the non-manual, professional sector. Given the occupational profile of most Afro-Brazilian women, as described in chapter , the educational and occupational backgrounds of many activists in the black women’s movement distinguish them from the majority of Afro-Brazilian women. Disparities in life experiences and class status among Afro-Brazilian women are likely further compounded by unspoken and unconscious class privilege, which may create blindness to the experiences and struggles of less-privileged women. My conversations with non-activists and observations of the black women’s movement highlight the importance of activists addressing class divisions among black women in order for the movement to successfully represent the interests of all black women. As recent research suggests, the living conditions and day-to-day struggles of many poor women of African descent prevent them from becoming involved with antiracist or feminist activism (Goldstein ). Activists in the black women’s movement will likely have to find new and creative strategies to develop grassroots work that is shaped by the needs and values of poor women. It would probably also be fruitful for activists in the black women’s movement to collaborate with community activists, such as Valdete, who have already developed successful initiatives in favelas and impoverished rural communities.

Constructing a Collective Political Identity for the Mulher Negra Debates over autonomy and national forms of organization within the black women’s movement provide important insights into activists’ struggles to articulate a collective political identity for black women. As has already been

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noted, socioeconomic, political, religious, and regional differences among black women have increased the difficulty of representing them in monolithic terms. Key questions associated with articulating a collective political identity for black women include how they should be represented and which issues should be prioritized in the struggle against racial, gender, and class domination. Despite the challenges associated with collective organizing, the black women’s movement highlights the relationship between historically constituted group identities, shared standpoints, and collective political action (Collins ). In an analysis of group identity among black women in the United States, Patricia Hill Collins has observed: “On the macro level, schools, labor markets, the media, government, and other social institutions reproduce a social position or category of ‘Black woman’ that is assigned to all individuals who fit criteria for membership. One does not choose to be a ‘Black woman.’ Rather, one ‘finds oneself’ classified in this category, regardless of differences in how one got there” (, –). In Brazil, the historically constituted group identity of mulheres negras operates along similar lines. Dominant social institutions and discourses have constructed a collective social identity for black women, an identity that exists despite differences of class, region, and educational level. Similarities in black women’s social identities and life experiences across classes and regions further underscore the existence of mulheres negras as a social group in Brazil. Activists in the black women’s movement have both called attention to and sought to transform the group identity of black women. However, as the views of non-activists suggest, the relationship among identity, experience, and activism is not an automatic one. Instead, many of my informants’ experiences indicate that Afro-Brazilian women’s possibilities for collective self-definition and self-determination are enhanced when group-based experiences are used to “create the conditions for a shared standpoint that in turn can stimulate collective political action” (Collins , ). Challenging dominant discourses on mestiço essentialism and racial democracy has been central to activists’ attempts to reconstruct black women’s identities. As previous chapters have shown, Brazilian constructions of race and gender have functioned in mutually reinforcing ways, at the level of discourse, structure, identity, and experience. Brazilian notions of mestiço essentialism have long objectified Afro-Brazilian women and relegated them to the status of second-class citizens. By calling attention to black women’s social, political, and economic subordination, activists in the black women’s movement have challenged the ideological hegemony of mestiço essentialism and racial democracy from a gendered perspective. While black Brazilian women have encountered difficulties in their attempts at collective organizing, their efforts have produced changes at the

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level of public discourse as well as in the lives of individual women. Silvia, a member of the Forum of Black Women in Belo Horizonte, made the following observation about the importance of black women’s activism: I think that we are muito guerreiras (very much warriors). I think that we have advanced a lot by recognizing our identity, our specificity. We proved ourselves; we fought; we struggled. I think that we have advanced a great deal. I think that black women have a lot to celebrate, with all of these years of victory. Even with all of the disorganization in our form of organizing, it is real. It exists and it is there to bring a different direction to this country. . . . Even with this precarious form that social movements tend to have and the small amount of infrastructure that we have . . . we have contributed to creating a more humanitarian and just society, without discrimination and that respects differences.

Conclusion: Deepening Democracy and Broadening Citizenship Black women’s collective organizing has played a fundamental role in challenging racism and sexism as well as in reconceptualizing the significance of democracy and citizenship in Brazil. Given the larger political context of Brazil’s recent transition to democracy, the efforts of black women activists demonstrate collective attempts to claim rights and political space within a re-emergent civil society. This process of claiming rights highlights the long-standing social and political disenfranchisement of black women. In many ways, black women’s emergence as political actors since the s has sought to challenge their lack of citizenship rights before, during, and after Brazil’s most recent period of military rule. The emergence of black feminism and an autonomous black women’s movement highlights black women’s efforts to redefine citizenship in ways that challenge dominant discourses and practices related to race and gender. Black women’s activism during Brazil’s transition to democracy also demonstrates the resonances and dissonances between the cultural and political dimensions of citizenship in the country. In many ways, the claims to full citizenship made by black women provide crucial insights into the ways in which struggles for cultural citizenship may continue long after formal citizenship rights are granted. In recent decades activists in the black women’s movement have attempted to highlight the specificities of black women’s experiences and challenge their oppression within Brazilian society. By calling attention to the existence of black women as a social and political force, the movement has made a major contribution to the demystification of racism and sexism

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and to the reconstruction of black women’s identities. Although the number of activists in the black women’s movement remains small in comparison to the total black female population, movement activists have played a strategic role in bridging the struggles against racism and sexism and bringing them to the fore of political discourse in Brazil. Moreover, despite internal divisions within the movement, it stands as an important example of the potential that collective action and mobilization focused at the intersection of race and gender hold in Brazil. By refusing to remain in their socially ascribed place, black women activists have contributed to defining new standards for citizenship and democracy in Brazil. Their efforts have involved the claiming of new rights and the constitution of black women as active citizens and social subjects. Moreover, by claiming their rights to full citizenship, black Brazilian women have engaged in the struggle to create “a multiracial and multicultural society, where difference is taken and lived as equality and not as inferiority” (Carneiro , ).

Epilogue Re-envisioning Racial Essentialism and Identity Politics

Ethnographic exploration of Afro-Brazilian women’s processes of subject formation and forms of political practice highlights the disjuncture between

recent scholarly conceptualizations of essentialism and my informants’ everyday experiences and practices. The preceding chapters challenge antiessentialist views of race and identity politics in at least two significant ways: first, by underscoring the psychological and political importance of valorizing self-identification as a mulher negra in a national context where whiteness and racial hybridity are privileged and blackness is denigrated and, secondly, by highlighting the social and political significance of black women’s collective mobilization around issues of identity and self-representation.

Reconstructing Blackness Recent developments in Brazilian racial discourses provide an interesting and important contrast to critiques of racial essentialism that have been made by U.S. and British academics (Appiah , ; Appiah and Gutmann ; Gilroy ; Hall a; Ifekwunigwe ). The increasing importance of racialized black subjectivities in Brazil runs counter to antiessentialist views of race that have been proposed in recent scholarship. In contrast to the scholarly trend toward non-essentialist views of blackness, in Brazil the process of constructing black identities has often been premised on the rejection of ostensibly more fluid color-based discourses in favor of bipolar conceptualizations of race (Skidmore a). Examining recent

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developments in Brazil in light of current theoretical trends is both elucidating and challenging. While the move toward racial anti-essentialism has gained a greater hearing among theorists, it seems to be far removed from the strategies employed by Afro-Brazilians who consciously self-identify as negro/negra. The gap between the anti-essentialist views of race proposed in recent scholarship and the realities of racism and racial identity formation in Brazil highlights the importance of testing the relevance of theory to “real world” situations through ethnography. Of equal, and perhaps greater, importance, Afro-Brazilian women’s on-the-ground experiences and practices highlight the importance of using ethnography as the basis for theoretical reflection and theory building. Situating the construction of black identities within the context of Brazilian discourses on race and national identity points to the cultural and historical specificity of racism and antiracism. Strategies of identity formation that are employed by Afro-Brazilian women who self-identify as negra also suggest that the assertion of black identities can be radical when it contests hegemonic discourses on race that are founded on an ostensibly antiracist posture. In constructing and asserting resistant black subjectivities, negras assumidas challenge the ostensibly antiracist claims of mestiço essentialism and reconstruct dominant views of race by reinvesting blackness with positive significance. By exploring black women’s identities on both individual and collective levels, this study has sought to attend to the needs and interests of both individuals and groups. While collective discourses can be formed out of shared experiences, individuals are also influenced by discourses which circulate within a society more generally. As a result, a specific discourse “gains in social power as growing numbers of people take it up and position themselves within it; in other words, as visions become shared” (Mama , –). Shared visions of identity, experience, and struggle have been central to the development of Brazil’s black movement and black women’s movement. These shared visions have also enabled non-activists to assimilate and internalize the messages of resistance and self-affirmation that have been developed and circulated by both movements. My informants’ experiences suggest that the efforts of activists in the black movement have been central to the development of counter-discourses on race that have facilitated contemporary processes of racial identity formation in Brazil. Recent discursive struggles over the meaning of race in Brazil have created new possibilities for the construction and affirmation of black subjectivities. As my informants’ narratives demonstrate, non-activists as well as activists have benefited from the development of these counterdiscourses on race; and increasing numbers of Afro-Brazilians have begun to employ them in their individual processes of identity formation. Exploring

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the discursive importance of activism opens new space to consider the impact of the black movement on non-activists and within Brazilian society more generally. Moreover, while the black movement has been criticized for failing to achieve major social or political transformation (Hanchard b), its impact on the discursive level and in the everyday lives of Afro-Brazilians has largely been overlooked. The process of reconstructing blackness in contemporary Brazil suggests that different forms of antiracism are needed to combat the diverse and historically specific forms of racism that exist. In the Brazilian context, use of essentialist discourses and practices offers a means of challenging hegemonic nationalist discourses which are premised on racial anti-essentialism. Exploring black women’s processes of identity formation in Brazil further suggests that neither racial essentialism nor racial anti-essentialism is an inherently revolutionary strategy for combating racism. Instead, the efficacy of utilizing essentialist and anti-essentialist strategies in antiracist struggles depends on the particular sociohistorical context in which they are developed and employed. Moreover, as John Burdick has argued, “the fate of antiracist struggle in the next century will hinge, at least in part, upon paying close attention and learning more about the everyday experiential correlates of both ethnic essentialism and human universalism” (a, ). Brazilian society’s struggle with the politics of race and color offers useful and cautionary insights as scholars and activists rethink antiracism in this new millennium. The ideological hegemony of racial democracy during the twentieth century indicates that hybrid forms of racial essentialism are not inherently progressive. As the Brazilian case suggests, mestiço essentialism creates qualitatively different forms of racialism which must be challenged in fundamentally different ways. Finally, comparative analysis of different forms of racial essentialism highlights the existence of multiple racisms and the need to develop multiple strategies to combat their impact and work toward their demise.

Re-envisioning Identity Politics When I began my research on the black women’s movement in the early s, there was a great deal of scholarly discussion about “new” social movements and identity politics in Latin America, the United States, and Europe.1 However, by the late s identity politics had been largely dismissed by many Western scholars, particularly postmodernists, based on a general consensus that identity-based social movements tended to be essentialist. Scholarly critiques of identity politics also began to generate increasing skepticism regarding the efficacy of mobilization efforts focused on questions of identity (see Alcoff ). As feminist scholar Chandra

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Mohanty has observed, “The critique of essentialist identity politics and the hegemony of postmodernist skepticism about identity has led to a narrowing of feminist politics and theory whereby either exclusionary and self-serving understandings of identity rule the day or identity (racial, class, sexual, national, etc.) is seen as unstable and thus merely ‘strategic.’ Thus, identity is seen as either naïve or irrelevant, rather than as a source of knowledge and a basis for progressive mobilization” (, ). The scholarly shift away from identity politics posed a number of theoretical and epistemological questions for me as I carried out field research and wrote this book. One of the ongoing questions in my research and analysis has been how to reconcile recent theoretical trends with the continued political importance of the black women’s movement. Central to this quandary has been how to document and analyze activists’ views and practices while, at the same time, maintaining a critical eye toward how the movement represents black women as a collectivity. In many ways, black women’s collective mobilization around issues of race and gender in Brazil challenges recent scholarly critiques of identity politics. In particular, the black women’s movement underscores the continued need for scholarly attention to how issues of identity and self-representation shape processes of political mobilization and collective struggle. Black women’s collective mobilization around issues of identity also highlights the continued salience of identity as a central axis of political practice. As a social group, black Brazilian women have largely had their identities defined and represented by dominant social forces and institutions. The process of coming to collective voice has held particular importance for them given their social and political invisibility within Brazilian society. The act of constructing a collective social and political identity which contests dominant discourses on race and gender has enabled activists in the black women’s movement to begin to claim rights from their specific subject positions and vantage points. Black women’s collective mobilization also highlights the fact that group-based racial identities exist and are often used as a basis for discrimination in Brazil. By calling attention to commonalities in the social identities and social locations of black women, activists in the black women’s movement have begun to dismantle nationalist claims that, as a racial democracy, group-based racial discrimination is not practiced in Brazil. Activists in the black women’s movement have demonstrated that, contrary to the tenets of mestiço essentialism and racial democracy, black women experience oppression and marginalization as a group due to their positioning at the intersection of racial, gender, and class-based forms of domination. Activists have also called attention to the gendered aspects of racial domination and the racialized aspects of gender domination. In so doing, they have provided a

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long-needed critique of the ways in which racist and sexist discourses and practices work together to reproduce and maintain structures of inequality in Brazil. While recognizing that the goal of (re)constructing a collective social and political identity has been central to the aims of many activists in the black women’s movement, my analysis seeks to underscore the constructed nature of this process. In my view, recognizing the centrality of identity within and for the black women’s movement does not foreclose the possibility of exploring the movement as a politically sophisticated example of contemporary identity politics. The discourses and strategies that have been developed by activists in the black women’s movement indicate that constructivism and essentialism are not mutually exclusive in the realm of political practice. A number of my activist informants displayed a keen awareness of the constructed nature of black women’s collective activism. Edna, a member of the Forum of Black Women in Belo Horizonte, noted in a  interview, “We are in a process. It is a process of constructing the identity of the mulher negra. It is a process of fortalecimento (strengthening). . . . But, I think that this process of construction, of maturing and constructing an identity, and of struggle is important. It is very important.” Edna’s statements indicate that activists do not merely unite around a shared identity as black women; instead, they are involved in the process of constructing a shared identity as black women.2 In recent decades activists in the black women’s movement have begun to construct a shared identity as mulheres negras that contests the social and political invisibility of black women within Brazilian society. This process of collective identity construction is particularly important given most black women’s subordinate positioning within Brazilian hierarchies of gender, race, and class. As I argued in chapter , Brazilian notions of place have played a central role in shaping black women’s social identities and social location. By offering gender- and race-conscious perspectives on Brazilian social realities, activists in the black women’s movement have begun to offer a significant challenge to long-standing practices of social, economic, and political domination. The efforts of black women activists have also been central to both deconstructing and challenging dominant views of the social identities and social locations of black women. Examining the efforts of activists in the black women’s movement within the larger context of Brazilian discourses on gender, race, and nation is essential to understanding the social and political importance of the movement. In their assertion of a collective political identity for black women, activists in the movement have engaged in discursive processes which might appear to be merely essentialist to the outside observer. However, I would argue that activists’ deployment of the signifier mulher negra points to a

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more complicated set of practices and processes. As recent scholarship has noted, identities are constructed through practices of differentiation which often center on “discursive processes of essentialization and homogenization” (Stephen , ). In addition, the deployment of essentialist identity categories by members of particular social groups can become especially important when such groups are involved in direct negotiations with the state. This observation holds true for the black women’s movement in terms of activists’ attempts to call attention to the differential impact of governmental policies on black women (e.g., reproductive health). It is also worth noting the political significance of deploying a collective identity as black women given the extent to which blackness is marginalized in Brazil. In many ways, black Brazilian women’s deployment of an ostensibly essentialist racial identity goes against the grain of recent scholarly critiques of essentialism. My analysis of black women’s individual and collective processes of subject formation suggests that careful regard must be given to the relationship between experience and practices of identification. As the narratives in chapter  demonstrate, Afro-Brazilian women’s self-identification as mulheres negras often involves a process of accepting and embracing blackness on a deeply personal, psychological level. Such processes of identification highlight the ways in which black women’s identities are reconstructed as women negotiate, resist, and transform dominant discourses on race and gender. Possible forms of identification are never endless, however. Instead, they are shaped by factors such as appearance, ancestry, and social location, which in turn are shaped by black women’s group-based experiences and positioning within structures of power.

NOTES

PROLOGUE

. Paul Gilroy’s (, a, b) work had a particularly important impact on African diaspora studies during this period. . Scholarship addressing issues of positionality and the power dynamics involved in feminist research includes Oakley ; Patai ; Stanley and Wise ; Wolf ; Zavella . Work on native anthropology has also played a crucial role in shaping debates on the positionality of researchers. Relevant work includes Aguilar ; Gwaltney ; D. Jones ; Limón ; Nakhleh ; and Narayan . Edited volumes by McClaurin () and Twine and Warren () offer muchneeded discussions of how race, gender, and national origin shape fieldwork experiences. Recent work on the field experiences of African diaspora anthropologists includes Ebron ; E. Gordon ; Martin Shaw ; Simmons ; Slocum . See Hunter () for a recent discussion of race in sociological research. . Twine () argues that discussion of racial and gender dynamics during ethnographic field research continues to be scarce in the field of anthropology. . I use the term subject(s) here to refer to my research informants as well as the subjects on which my research focused. . As Warren’s () work suggests, a researcher’s positioning with respect to race, gender, class, and national origin may obscure, as well as illuminate, social dynamics during fieldwork. . Kirin Narayan’s observations regarding the insider and outsider status of anthropologists are relevant to the experiences of diasporic anthropologists. Narayan observes, “Instead of a paradigm emphasizing a dichotomy between outsider/ insider or observer/observed . . . at this historical moment we might more profitably view each anthropologist in terms of shifting identifications amid a field of interpenetrating communities and power relations” (, ). . The Portuguese term pelourinho means “slave whipping post.” Slave auctions were held in this area of Salvador during the slave era. . My view of the African diaspora is in line with Michael Hanchard’s observation that members of diasporic communities “are not deterministically linked via common ancestry but by the similarities of their enslavement, transport, subordination and continuous oppression” (, ). It can be further argued that even similarities

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among diasporic populations, such as enslavement and racial oppression, have occurred in historically and culturally specific ways that often separate and divide diasporic communities, rather than uniting them. . This observation draws on Louis Althusser’s () formulation of interpellation as the operation by which ideology constitutes individuals as subjects. In this case, Brazilian racial and gender ideologies misrecognized Elena and me as prostitutes. . Twine’s () essay notes the lack of discussion of the role of race in field research within the discipline of anthropology. . Most research on race in Brazil has been conducted by white males, particularly North Americans and Europeans, both U.S- and Brazilian-based. Much of this research has been implicitly and explicitly shaped by the perspectives of race and racism that have been developed by individual scholars in their home countries. I would further argue that scholars’ positionalities with respect to race, gender, and national origin have also played a central role in their views of race in Brazil. See Warren () for a similar argument.

INT RODUCTION

. All translations are mine. . This is Maria Ilma’s real name. Throughout the book I use the real names of highly visible activists. Many of these activists have shared their views with the public in the form of interviews and/or published articles. I use first-name-only pseudonyms for activists who are not well known, as well as for non-activists. I have done this in an attempt to protect their privacy. . A detailed discussion of Maria Ilma’s personal and political reflections is provided in chapter . . See Azerêdo () for a useful discussion of the absence of race in most women’s studies scholarship in Brazil. . Research on Afro-Brazilian women’s experiences during the early and mid twentieth century is virtually non-existent. . Recent publications, by black feminist activists and scholars, which target public policy issues include Carneiro (, ), Oliveira (), and Roland (). The Itapecerica da Serra Declaration of the Brazilian Black Women was produced as a result of the  National Seminar on the Reproductive Policies and Rights of Black Women. . Lélia Gonzalez () observed that the omission of racial data from the  Brazilian census was attributed to “technical difficulties.” However, she argued that this omission was made with the intention of hiding information with respect to the population of “color” in Brazil as well as the misery in which this population found itself. She further noted that the omission of racial data in official statistics perpetuated the belief that great racial harmony and equality existed in Brazil. . Rebecca Reichmann has noted that, during the s, Brazilian scholars continued to face “the barriers of scarce resources and official indifference, which are manifest in the government’s inability to disseminate timely statistical data on race and to disaggregate socioeconomic indicators by race (or gender). Even when data are collected, they often become available only years later, and then researchers

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have difficulty gaining access to the information unless they are willing and able to pay for ‘special’ tabulations” (, ). . Brazilian sociologist Nelson do Valle Silva has critiqued the use of a preto/pardo distinction in the collection of official statistics. Silva notes, “Rather than being a mere simplification, in some contexts the analysis of blacks and pardos together appears to be a sensible approach to the study of racial discrimination in Brazil” (, ). . Researchers have often combined the preto/preta and pardo/parda categories in order to develop a statistical profile of the Afro-Brazilian population. . Degler () argued that the seemingly privileged status of mulattos in Brazil was the key factor distinguishing Brazilian and U.S. race relations. . A wealth of literature on race in Brazil has been published in Portuguese and English since the late s. Telles () attributes the upsurge in research on race in Brazil, particularly by Brazilian scholars, to the greater acceptance of race as a legitimate field of study in the social sciences during the s. According to Telles, this change “signaled an important transformation in Brazilian academia, where research on race went from being considered a marginal area of research from the s until the mid-s to becoming one of its fastest-growing topics of scholarly interest. . . . Most notably, leading economists, political scientists, and policy analysts became interested in the topic for the first time, and a growing number of young Brazilian social scientists developed their research agendas around race” (, ). . See Owensby () for a recent discussion of the complexities of Brazilian racial dynamics. Vargas’s () work provides a useful contrast to Owensby’s analysis. . My view of racialization is informed by Omi and Winant’s use of the term “to signify the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice or group” (, ). Like Omi and Winant, I view racialization as a process; however, my analysis focuses on the ongoing construction of racial meanings, rather than solely on exploring their initial extension to social phenomena. Michael Hanchard’s (b) work examines practices of racial self-identification among Afro-Brazilian activists in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. . Recent work on the increasing articulation of negro/negra identities in Brazil, includes Sansone (), Sheriff (), and Telles (). . Relevant studies include, for example, Andrews ; d’Adesky ; Guimarães ; Hanchard b; Hasenbalg , ; Munanga ; Sheriff ; N. Silva ; Skidmore ; Vargas ; Warren . . During conversations with black activists in December , I was repeatedly told that racism was worse in Brazil than in the United States. Activists who expressed this perspective frequently described Brazilian racism as being mascarado (masked) or velado (veiled). On the other hand, U.S. racism was described as being more open and thus easier to combat. The perspectives of black activists provide an instructive counterpoint to everyday discourses on racial democracy in Brazil. . Turra and Venturi () develop the notion of racismo cordial (cordial racism) based on a survey of racial attitudes undertaken by the Folha de São Paulo and its polling agency, Datafolha, in . For a recent discussion of the notion of cordial racism in relation to Brazilian history and national identity, see Owensby ().

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. Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis’s view of racisms is particularly relevant here. Anthias and Yuval-Davis describe racisms as “modes of exclusion, inferiorization, subordination and exploitation that present specific and different characters in different social and historical contexts. . . . There is not a unitary system of signification that can be labeled racist nor is there a unitary perpetrator or victim. This position requires addressing the ways in which the categories of difference and exclusion on the basis of class, gender, and ethnicity incorporate processes of racialization and are intertwined in producing racist discourses and outcomes” (, , ). . Martins, Medeiros, and Nascimento () trace the history of affirmative action policies in Brazil and note that organizations such as the Afro-Brazilian Democratic Committee called for anti-discrimination policy measures in the mid-s. . Literature supporting the implementation of race-based affirmative action policies in Brazil includes Guimarães (), Siss (), and Carneiro (). . Telles () also notes the importance of the black movement’s ties to transnational antiracist networks during the preparatory process. . Martins, Medeiros, and Nascimento () express a decidedly more pessimistic view of the Brazilian government’s commitment to affirmative action than does Telles (). . For research on slavery in Minas Gerais, see, for example, Bergad (), Luna and Klein (), and Paiva (). . Nilma Lino Gomes’s (, ) studies are notable exceptions. See also Francisco’s () work on black activism in Minas Gerais. . The secretariat was dismantled in late . . My analysis distinguishes between black women’s social identities and their selfdefined subjectivities. I use the concept of social identity to describe the ways in which dominant discourses interpellate them. On the other hand, the concept of subjectivity is used to describe their individual processes of subject formation. The distinction between these two concepts is most salient in chapters  and . . Work by Burdick (a) and Sheriff () explores the experiences and views of non-activist Afro-Brazilian men and women. . The distinction between activist and non-activist perspectives is most salient in chapter . . Chapter  provides an in-depth discussion of mestiço essentialism. . My analysis draws upon Gramscian and neo-Gramscian approaches to examine individual methods of resistance and contestation. Stuart Hall’s () work has been particularly instrumental in relating Antonio Gramsci’s conceptualization of hegemony to the study of race. . While racial resistance on the collective level has received scholarly attention in recent years, racial resistance on the individual level has gone largely unexplored. . Relevant work on black identities in Brazil includes Burdick (a), Sheriff (), and Sansone (). . Studies focusing on both race and gender in Brazil include, for example, Goldstein ; Lovell , .

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. This approach follows the work of feminist theorists who have called attention to the mutual imbrication of race and gender in the construction of social identities and in structuring power relations. Relevant work includes Collins ; Crenshaw , ; hooks ; Moore ; Stoler . . For a discussion of race and class in Brazil, see Skidmore b. Wade  also provides a useful analysis of race and class in South America. . The emergence of third wave feminism in the United States during the s and s challenged the unitary gender paradigms that were developed by white middle-class feminists during the s and s. Disenchantment with the conceptualizations of universal female oppression that were being developed by white middle-class feminists caused women of color to use their own experiences of alienation and discrimination to develop alternative conceptualizations of gender and feminism. . My discussion of the black women’s movement in chapter  examines the ways in which similar conceptualizations of race, gender, and class have been developed by black Brazilian women since the early s . My analysis is indebted to the political and scholarly contributions of black Brazilian feminists. Black women activists in Brazil can be seen as intellectuals based on Patricia Hill Collins’s () use of the term in reference to black women in the United States. The designation of “intellectual” is also applicable to non-activist black women who display critical consciousness regarding racial and gender domination. . The United States has long been used as both an explicit and implicit basis of comparison in research on race and racism in Brazil. For early comparative research on the United States and Brazil, see, for example, Degler , Skidmore . More recent comparative scholarship on race and racism in Brazil and the United States, as well as countries such as South Africa, includes Andrews ; Guimarães and Huntley ; Hamilton et al. ; Marx ; Winant . . While Paul Gilroy’s (a, b) work has been foundational to recent discussions of racialization and diaspora consciousness in “Black Atlantic” communities, his analysis has been primarily concerned with Anglophone black communities. The cultural specificities of race and racism in the Latin American context limit the relevance of Gilroy’s work in the region. As I discuss in chapter , Gilroy’s critiques of racial essentialism, particularly in his  work, can become problematic when applied to Latin American racial ideologies which privilege racial hybridity. . African-descendant communities in Peru, Uruguay, and Colombia have increasingly challenged racism in recent decades. . Black cultural products, most notably hip-hop cultural forms, have enjoyed increased circulation globally, including within African diasporic communities, in recent decades. See Gordon and Anderson () and Sansone () for discussion of the local implications of the increasing circulation of black cultural products. . Kevin Yelvington () has noted a shift in recent research on Afro-Latin communities toward conceptualizing blackness as cultural identity politics, rather than as a kind of ontology.

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. My view of the role of U.S. African American communities in processes of globalization differs from the conceptualization of “black globalization” found in Livio Sansone’s () work. Sansone argues that black cultural producers in the United States are engaged in an imperialistic project of globalizing blackness in other areas of the world. . The chapters in Terborg-Penn, Harley, and Rushing () offer pioneering analyses of women in the African diaspora. Jaqueline Brown’s () work also provides an insightful discussion of the gendering of diasporic space in Liverpool, England.

CH A PTER 1

. A good deal of recent scholarship on race has problematized essentialist notions of race that perpetuate beliefs that there is an essence or core that defines racial identity. Essentialist notions of race have been critiqued for promoting notions of authenticity and homogeneity, particularly with respect to gender and sexuality, within racial groups and setting limits on who can be defined and accepted as a member of a given racial group (e.g., African American, Chicana/Chicano). However, while critiques of racial essentialism have aided scholars in developing more complex and nuanced perspectives on race and processes of racialization, they have often been developed in response to U.S. conceptualizations of race that privilege racial purity. . The term progressive antiracism is used to describe the efforts of antiracist activists. Official antiracism refers to the discourses and practices of the Brazilian elites and Brazilian state. . As Skidmore’s () work notes, Oliveira Vianna’s contribution to the  census was not based on data from that time period since the  census did not include a breakdown by race or color. Instead, Vianna’s positive assessment of the whitening process was based on an impressionistic comparison of previous census data. . Oliveira Vianna described Brazilians of mixed racial ancestry as an “inchoate, pullulating mob of inferior mixed-bloods” (Needell a, ). He further argued that they needed to be controlled by social and legal repression within the norms of Aryan morality. . In the preface to the second English-language edition of The Masters and the Slaves, Freyre describes Boas’s influence on his work in the following terms: “It was my studies in anthropology under the direction of Professor Boas that first revealed to me the Negro and the mulatto for what they are—with the effects of environment or cultural experience separated from racial characteristics. I learned to regard as fundamental the difference between race and culture, to discriminate between the effects of purely genetic relationships and those resulting from social influences, the cultural heritage and the milieu” (, xxvii). . Freyre’s publications were also influential abroad. The Masters and the Slaves was translated into English several times and was last published in . Freyre’s impact can be seen in the work of Brazilian scholars such as Thales de Azevedo () and Caio Prado Jr. (). Freyre’s views also influenced the work of North American scholars, including Carl Degler () and Donald Pierson (). . Isfahani-Hammond () provides an insightful discussion of the sexual and gender implications of Freyre’s work. Her analysis calls attention to Freyre’s claim that “plantation sexuality is key to national character” (, ).

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. Braga-Pinto’s () work highlights the homoerotic and bisexual implications of Freyre’s celebration of the alleged racial and sexual flexibility of Portuguese male colonists. . This view has also been criticized as being a form of ethnic lynching (Jackson ) or genocide (Nascimento ). . This description encapsulates the tensions and paradoxes of hybrid essentialism in Brazil. While Brazil is depicted as a mestiço nation that has overcome the problem of race, the valorization of whiteness and attempts to erase the genetic, social, and cultural contributions of indigenous and African populations continue to persist. . Freyre noted that moreno can refer to “any shade from full-blooded Negro to whiteskinned brunet” (, ). . For scholarly discussions of morenidade and moreno as a racial and color category, see Harris et al. , ; Telles , ; Sansone ; Silva . . Research on interracial marriage by Moreira and Sobrinho () found that whitening, as both a discourse and practice, leads to the rejection of black women by black men in Brazil. . See, for example, Appiah () and Gilroy (). . The French painter Jean Batista Debret noted in his book Viagem pitoresca e histórica ao Brasil that the Portuguese government used eleven different ethnic-racial designations to identify the colonial population. Of the eleven designations used by the Portuguese crown, three described mestiços, while the remaining eight were used to describe “pure-blooded” Portuguese, black, and indigenous populations. The color and race classification scheme developed by the Portuguese crown corresponded to a colonial social hierarchy in which color and race were inseparable from social status (i.e., enslaved, free, landowning). . Nelson do Valle Silva has argued that “the most notable fact about the calculation of race in Brazil is certainly not the multiplicity of racial terms, but the indeterminacy, subjectivity and contextual dependence of their application” (, ). . Guimarães has also criticized scholarly preference for the use of color, rather than race, in studies of Brazil. According to Guimarães, “When scholars incorporate in their discourse color as the criteria for constituting ‘objective’ groups, they refuse to perceive Brazilian racism. Their conclusion is superficial and formalistic. Without history and clear rules of descent, there would be no races, just spontaneous groups of color” (a, –). . Guimarães’s argument contradicts the view that slavery and race relations have been more benign in Iberian countries than in Anglo-Saxon countries. . Cardoso was elected president in November  and reelected in November . . This is largely due to the fact that the city of Salvador da Bahia and the state of Bahia, both located in the northeast, are considered to be the most African/black areas of Brazil. . In a provocative discussion of “mimetic mestiçagem,” Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond notes that Freyre’s mestiço “is the ‘Afro-European’ colonizer and channeling that figure’s legacy, the Africanized master whose coercive control is effaced by his incorporation of subalternity” (, ).

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. Both notions allow lighter/whiter-skinned Brazilians to make strategic and selective references to their African ancestry. Hoetink’s () notion of the somatic norm image is also relevant to this discussion. . See Gaitskell and Unterhalter () for a discussion of the role of motherhood in Afrikaner Nationalism and in the African National Congress. . Souza () explores the religious dimensions of black women’s relationship to Brazilian national identity. For foundational analyses of gender and national identity in diverse contexts, see, for example, Grewal and Kaplan ; Kaplan, Alarcón, and Moallem ; Yuval-Davis ; Yuval-Davis and Anthias . . Angela Gilliam has described the Freyrian version of Brazilian national discourse as “the-Great-Sperm-Theory-of-National-Formation” (, ). . Freyre argued that miscibility, or racial intermixture, was used as a colonizing strategy by the Portuguese. “Miscibility rather than mobility was the process by which the Portuguese made up for their deficiency in human mass or volume in the large-scale colonization of extensive areas” (Freyre , ). . Brackette Williams has argued that intrinsic racism (group identity) is turned into extrinsic racism (national unity, nation as own kind). According to Williams, “It is the latter form of racism [extrinsic racism] in which nationalist proponents are prone to proclaim a glorious destiny for its national group which by this point is defined as a race. Where the relations of force permit, it is this glorious destiny that is to be institutionalized and naturalized (imagined as a ‘new race’) and nationalization (re-presented as the nation/the people) of Self” (, ). . The Portuguese term for biological and cultural mixture is mestiçagem. The Spanish term is mestizaje. I use the term mestiçagem when referencing Brazil in particular. The term mestizaje is used in reference to the larger Latin American region. . Caio Prado Jr., an advocate of the Freyrian model of race in Brazil, lauded miscegenation as the nation’s “most notable and profound characteristic” and “the real solution provided by Portuguese colonization to the native problem” (, ). . See Warren () for a discussion of the Indian movement in Brazil. . A number of scholars have also documented the difficulties of developing and valorizing black identities on the subjective level; see, for example, Burdick a; Gomes ; Hanchard b; Moura ; N. Santos ; Sheriff . . My discussion of the black movement is intended to provide an overview of key events and developments during the twentieth century. For detailed analyses of the development and objectives of black movement organizations, see K. Butler ; Fontaine , a; Gonzalez ; Hanchard b; Mitchell ; and Nascimento and Nascimento . . Darién Davis’s () work notes that the political and cultural revolution which took place in Brazil during the s defined attempts to identify with or express blackness as “un-Brazilian.” . The quilombo dos Palmares, or Palmares, existed in the Brazilian northeast during the seventeenth century. It was the largest and longest-lasting runaway slave community in the Americas. Palmares continues to serve as a source of inspiration for antiracist activists in Brazil. . Most of the campaign activities were centered in Rio de Janeiro since the organizing entities were based there. Noteworthy efforts also took place in the cities of Salvador, Belem, São Luis, Recife, and Belo Horizonte.

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. Melissa Nobles’s () study suggests that the  campaign had a negligible impact on color/race identification preferences in the census. In fact, the percentage of Brazilians who chose preto (black) decreased from . percent in  to . percent in . . According to the  census, the color composition of the Brazilian population was . percent white, . percent brown, . percent black, and . percent yellow. The color composition in the  census was  percent white,  percent brown,  percent black, . percent yellow, and . percent indigenous. . Since the early s, activists in the black movement have focused on the development of public health programs targeting illnesses, such as sickle cell anemia, diabetes, and fibroid tumors, which have a disproportionate impact on the black population. As I noted in the introduction, affirmative action policies, particularly for university admissions, have also received a great deal of discussion, and a number of policies have been implemented since .

CH A PTER 2

. My analysis of the social significance of this adage is indebted to Lélia Gonzalez’s (, ) and Angela Gilliam’s () pioneering analyses of black women’s status in Brazil. . See Hurtado () for a provocative discussion of the racial dimensions of patriarchy and gender subordination. . See Simpson () for an insightful analysis of the role of race in the Brazilian media. . For discussions of the role of wet nurses in colonial Brazil, see Giacomini () and Lauderdale Graham (). . While recognizing the constraints imposed on nonwhite women by the slave system, it is important to recognize that all African and Afro-Brazilian women were not slaves. Nonetheless, a number of free black women were also employed as domestic servants and wet nurses. . This statement is intended to suggest that black men had a different relationship to patriarchy and male privilege than white men. Due to their racial, civil, and social status, black males were largely at a disadvantage within colonial society. . Along similar lines, Richard Parker has argued that The Masters and the Slaves was directed to a very specific audience, “the well-to-do white males who made up the Brazilian intellectual elite of Freyre’s day, and who identified themselves in terms of their European roots” (, ). . See Gilliam and Gilliam () for insightful analyses of personal experiences related to mulata subjectivity. . See Pravaz () for an ethnographically based discussion of mulata subjectivity. . The National Internal Brute Product measures the amount of money generated in Brazil for a given period of time. . “A flor da pele.” Jornal do Brasil,  August . . Giacomini () found that employment in mulata shows is the only occupation where morena and mulata women are given preference over white women.

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. Giacomini () notes that many professional mulatas distance themselves from the image of being prostitutes. Nonetheless, clear ties have been made between the cultural marketing of mulatas and sexual tourism in Brazil (Gilliam ). . Angela Gilliam has observed, “The mythical mulata does not want marriage or other symbols of respect; she is content to be considered not ‘wife-able’ and to be ‘consumed’ instead” (, ). . It is interesting to note that the English translation of colocação is “placement.” Nadia’s narrative suggests that Brazilian women are “placed” through the use of color terms. . Nadia’s comments point to the lack of substantive physical distinctions between the categories morena and mulata. Her view of the lack of clear-cut definitions of morena and mulata as color categories has also been noted in research by Giacomini (). . Simone did not elaborate on whether the business was owned by Korean nationals or Brazilians of Korean ancestry. . See Bento () for a discussion of notions of place and “being the face of business.” Damasceno () also provides an important discussion of boa aparencia. . See Damasceno () for a discussion of four Afro-Brazilian women’s career trajectories. Damasceno found that the opposing forces created by upward mobility simultaneously “whitened” and “darkened” her informants. . Empregadas domesticas are typically hired on a full-time basis. Faxineiras work on a part-time or occasional basis. . White scholars from Brazil and the United States have also made important contributions to understanding the socioeconomic status of Afro-Brazilian women. Relevant work includes Lovell  and Reichmann . . See Crenshaw’s (, ) work for a discussion of intersectionality in the U.S. context. . For analyses of the mammy image of African American women in the United States, see Collins ; Jewell ; Morton ; Mullings . . My view of intergenerational patterns of oppression and privilege resonates with Patricia Hill Collins’s () work. As Collins notes, race-class status is transmitted via families.

CH A PTER 3

. My view of anti-blackness is informed by Lewis Gordon’s () work. . For recent research on hair in Brazil, see, for example, Burdick a; Figueiredo ; Gilliam and Gilliam ; Gomes . . Catinga is a popular Brazilian term meaning “body odor.” In Negroes in Brazil, Donald Pierson refers to it as “the body odor, the so-called catinga, or budum, reputedly characteristic of the African” (, ). . “Sony oferece bonecas e fitas como indenização.” Pinheiro, Diario Popular,  September . . Ibid. . See Telles () for a recent discussion of the Tiririca case in terms of Brazilian anti-discrimination law.

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. No English equivalent exists for the term banalizaram. The closest English translation for the verb banalizar would be “to banalize.” . As Telles () notes, Tiririca claimed that he wrote the song about his wife after she refused to bathe for several days. . See Twine () for a discussion of animalizing representations of Afro-Brazilians. Figueira’s () research on Brazilian school books also examines the frequent use of animalizing images of Afro-Brazilians. These visual images tend to associate the color black with animals and animal-like creatures. Illustrations of Afro-Brazilians with crude and enlarged physical features are also common. Since schools are primary sites of socialization, including racial socialization, animalizing visual representations perpetuate practices of racial alterity by teaching children that blackness is unattractive, negative, and undesirable. . Maria is referring to the blonde-haired dancer Carla Perez. Although Perez appears to be “white,” her father is Afro-Brazilian and she is from the state of Bahia. During the time of my fieldwork in , Perez had become a national phenomenon due to her highly sexualized dance performances with the group É o Tchán. . The song “Nega do cabelo duro” (“Black Woman with Hard Hair”) is another noteworthy example of images of black women in Brazilian popular music. It was the first carnival song to feature a black woman as protoganist. The following translation of the lyrics is provided in Darién Davis’s (, ) work: Hard-haired black woman Which comb do you use to comb your hair? Which comb do you use to comb your hair? When you enter the circle Your body moves like a serpent . . . Your hair is now fashionable. Which comb do you use to comb your hair? Your permanent hair, Something from a mermaid, And the people ask Which comb do you use to comb your hair? If you use a hot iron It doesn’t go to pieces in the sand, You go swimming in Botafogo, Which comb do you use to comb your hair?

. Amelia Simpson’s () work suggests that Xuxa’s meteoric rise to stardom was facilitated by three key physical assets: her extremely white skin color, naturally blonde hair, and blue eyes. . Neither Camila Pitanga nor Isabel Fillardis has highly Africanized phenotypical features. Both women have light to medium brown complexions and naturally or chemically straightened or wavy hair. Camila Pitanga’s mother is white and her father is Antonio Pitanga, a famous Afro-Brazilian actor and politician. Despite her mestiça/mulata phenotype, Pitanga self-identifies as negra (see fig. .). . One of the main criticisms of Raça that I heard during my fieldwork focused on the ways in which the magazine commodified blackness. Black activists were often critical of the ways in which blackness was “sold” in the magazine and the extremely high price of fashion items featured in the magazine. See Sansone () for a similar discussion of the magazine.

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. I use the terms naturally and natural to refer to hair that is not chemically processed or straightened by other means. In using this terminology, I also recognize that it is impossible to have completely natural hair. All hair is produced or processed in some way, whether through being combed, brushed, shampooed, etc. I am grateful to Ingrid Banks for this insight. . Bombril means “scouring pad,” the equivalent of this term in U.S. English would be an S.O.S. or Brillo pad. . Angela Davis’s () essay offers a provocative commentary on the use of her image in contemporary fashion and advertising. . Burdick (a, ) discusses black activists’ views of hair straightening. . See Ingrid Banks () for an analysis of the politics of black women’s hair in the United States. . As Goldberg notes, “it is in the very making of otherness by discursive technologies that the modernized modes of racial distinction and distancing can be invested in and through the bodies of social subjects and, accordingly, that this investment can be extended into the body politic” (, ). . See Torres () for a discussion of the use of the family metaphor in discussions of race and nation in Puerto Rico.

CH A PT ER 4

. Burdick’s (a) work is a notable exception. . See Hobson () for a recent discussion of black women’s bodies in the U.S. context. . This observation also holds true for the United States. . Cidade de Minas is a pseudonym for Adriana’s hometown. . While Adriana’s comments portray her interaction with foreign tourists in a positive light, recent scholarship has highlighted the ways in which racism and sexism shape practices of sexual tourism in Brazil. See, for example, Gilliam ; Piscitelli . . This statement is not intended to dismiss my role as mediator in the presentation and analysis of these narratives. . For similar views, see work by Hall () and Mama (). . Grupo Amma: Psique e Negritude is a collective of four Afro-Brazilian female psychologists that was formed in São Paulo during the s. See Grupo Amma () for a discussion of the psychological implications of racial discrimination and selfesteem in Brazil. Essays in Werneck, Mendonça, and White () also examine black women’s experiences in the mental health arena.

CH A PTER 5

. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art. It was used as a form of physical resistance by enslaved Africans and Afro-Brazilians. . While the constitutional process and attempts to redefine political citizenship by Brazilian social movements have received considerable scholarly discussion in recent decades, the social and cultural aspects of citizenship and democracy have

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rarely been explored. For discussions of the Brazilian transition to democracy, see Alvarez () and A. Stepan (). . Struggles for cultural citizenship can include attempts to benefit from legal entitlements as well as informal and extra-legal forms of political and cultural agency. I am grateful to Rina Benmayor for sharing this insight. . For a discussion of the social relations of domestic service in Peru, see G. Young (). Romero’s () work on Latina domestic workers in the United States is also helpful in understanding the power dynamics inherent in domestic service. . Evelina Dagnino argues, “In recent years the use of the term ‘citizenship’ has spread increasingly throughout Brazilian society. . . . The term ‘citizenship’ also began to be reappropriated by neoliberal sectors and even by conservative traditional politicians, with obviously very different meanings and intentions” (, ). . Benmayor, Torruellas, and Juarbe also found that women’s familial responsibilities affected their ability to participate in the El Barrio Program. As they observe, “In order to get this education, the women had to struggle against structural constraints and change daily life practices. . . . [I]n their relationship with the family, they had to insist on the space for their education within the daily agenda; and in the personal realm, they had to reorganize their own priorities and time to be able to meet the demands on them as homemakers, mothers, and students” (, ). . See Goldstein (), Sheriff (), and Vargas () for recent discussions of the marginalized status of favela communities particularly with respect to race.

CH A PT ER 6

. My analysis of the black women’s movement is informed by conceptualizations of citizenship that focus on the struggles of subordinated communities. In their analysis of the “politics of citizenship,” Stuart Hall and David Held have argued for the importance of understanding the role that “social movements have played in expanding the claims to rights and entitlements to new areas” (, ). Along similar lines, cultural citizenship has been defined as “a process by which rights are claimed and expanded” (Rosaldo and Flores , ). Dagnino’s () conceptualization of new citizenship is also relevant to my discussion of the black women’s movement. . See Movimento Negro Unificado () for a discussion of racism and sexism in the black movement. . For recent discussions of black Brazilian women’s health, see Oliveira () and Werneck, Mendonça, and White (). . Discussions of the relationship among race, racism, and health during the s include a seminar on “Alcances e limites da predisposição biológica” (Advances and Limits of Biological Predisposition). The seminar was held at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), a leading think tank in São Paulo. Several presentations from the seminar were published in the July  edition of Cadernos de Pesquisa. . Oliveira () discusses changes in Brazilian state policy with regard to the racial dimensions of health and wellness during the s. . The Articulação de ONGs de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (Network of Black Brazilian Women’s Organizations) was formed in September . This network prepared

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an important report on the status of Afro-Brazilian women in preparation for the Third World Conference against Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, which was held in Durban, South Africa, in . See Network of Organizations of Black Brazilian Women (). . Burdick (b) provides an insightful discussion of non-activists’ views of the black movement in Brazil. . These recommendations are based on my observations of the gap between formal activism and grassroots work in Belo Horizonte. They are not necessarily relevant to black women’s organizations in other parts of the country. Black women’s organizations in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have a long history of engagement with local communities, particularly in the area of sexual education.

EPILOGUE

. While an exhaustive treatment of social movement literature is beyond the scope of this discussion, relevant titles in English include Escobar and Alvarez (), Foweraker (), Morris and Mueller (), Johnston and Klandermans (), McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (), and Melucci (). . This distinction resonates with scholarly conceptualizations of identification as something that is constructed, as opposed to fixed identities. Examples of this perspective include Hall (c) and Ahmed ().

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INDEX

abertura (political opening), ,  abolition, – activism: and class cleavages, –; and color classification, –; discursive importance of, –; narratives, –, ; non-activists, views of, – ; and sterilization, ; and subject formation, , , ; suppression of, –; and time commitments, –. See also black women’s movement advertisements: employment ads and “good appearance,” –; in Raça Brasil, –; United Colors of Benetton campaign, – aesthetic standards. See beauty ideals affirmative action, –, n African Americans, –,  Afro-Brazilian, as term, – afro-descendente subclassification,  agency and resistant subjectivities,  alem-raça (beyond race, or metarace),  alterity, racial: and “Look at Her Hair,” –; narratives, ; in personal relationships, ; and physical body and the body politic,  Althusser, Louis, n Alto Vera Cruz, Belo Horizonte, –, – Alves, Míriam,  amas de leite (wet nurses): Camara on, ; Freyre on, ; and slavery, –; and United Colors of Benetton ad campaign, – Anderson, Mark,  Andrews, George Reid, – animalizing representations, , , n Anthias, Floya, n anthropology: Boasian, –, , n; and colonialism, xx–xxi; diasporic anthropologists, xxi–xxii; and positionality, xiv–xv anti-black aesthetic standards, , –. See also beauty ideals

antiracism, official: Freyre and, –, ; progressive antiracism and, , n. See also racial democracy antiracist activism. See activism Articulação de ONGs de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (Network of Black Brazilian Women’s Organizations), n assumir (assumption of political identity), , . See also negra/negro assumida/ assumido (self-identified black) authoritarianism, social and political, . See also military dictatorship and authoritarian rule Azerêdo, Sandra, n “bad hair” (cabelo ruim), – Bahia, , n Bairros, Luiza, , –, ,  banalizaram, , n Banks, Ingrid, n Bannerji, Himani,  beauty ideals: anti-black aesthetic standards, –; and “good appearance,” ; and Raça Brasil (magazine), –; resistance, ; and subject formation, –; white, Eurocentric standard, , . See also bodies; hair Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: Alto Vera Cruz, –, –; City Council, ; domestic workers’ organization in, ; fieldwork in, xvi; overview of, – belonging, places of, –,  Benmayor, Rina, , n, n Bento, Maria Aparecida Silva,  Bethell, Leslie, ,  Biko, Steve,  black, as term, – black globalization, , n black mothers (mães pretas and mães negras), , – black movement (movimento negro): and antiracist mobilization, ; class cleavages in, –; and gender politics, –; and government admission of

219

220

INDEX

black movement (movimento negro) (continued) racism, ; and non-activists, –; and political and cultural change,  blackness: and activists vs. non-activists, ; anti-blackness, –; difference signified by, ; encouraged identification with, –; Raça Brasil (magazine) and, –, n; racial identity as acceptance of, ; reconstruction of, –; selective valorization of, . See also subjectivity and subject formation Black Women’s Commission, CECF,  black women’s movement: black movement and gender politics, –; and collective political identity, –; and domestic workers, ; emergence of, –; feminist movement and race issues, –, ; First National Encounter of the Black Woman (), –; and identity politics, –; National Meeting of Black Women (), –; National Seminar on Black Women’s Reproductive Rights and Policies (), –; non-activists, views of, –; and unity and diversity, – boa aparência (good appearance), – Boas, Franz, –, , n bodies: diasporic body politics, –; and difference, alterity, and citizenship, –; features as sexual vs. beautiful, ; “good appearance,” –; hiding, ; as incubators of miscegenation, – ; in “Look at Her Hair” (song), –; mulata dance shows and sexual tourism, –; and Raça Brasil (magazine), –; and racial outing, ; sexual commodification, ; sexual exploitation, –, –, –; as signifiers of difference, ; and subject formation, –. See also beauty ideals; hair; sexualized identities and images Bourdieu, Pierre, xix–xx Braga-Pinto, César, n branco (white classification) and “passing into white,”  Braxton, Toni,  Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), n Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB or Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro), – brincadeiras (jokes), –,  Brown, Jacqueline, , n bunda (buttocks), – Burdick, John, –, , , n cabelo black, – cabelo ruim (“bad hair”), – cabelos crespos. See hair Camara, Dom Helder,  capoeira (martial art), n

Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, , –, n Carneiro, Sueli, , ,  Casa Grande e Sensala (The Masters and the Slaves) (Freyre), , , , , nn–, n Castro, Célio,  Castro, Flávia Viveiros de,  Castro, Mary Garcia,  catinga (body odor), , , n CEAP (Centro de Articulação de Populações Marginalizados) (Center for the Articulation of Marginalized Populations),  CEBRAP (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning), n CECF (Conselho Estadual da Condição Feminina) (Council on the Feminine Condition),  census, Brazilian, , –, n, nn– Center for the Articulation of Marginalized Populations (Centro de Articulação de Populações Marginalizados or CEAP),  citizenship (cidadania): autonomy and claiming of, –; and constitutional process, –; cultural, –, , – , n, n; and domestic workers, –; and hair, politics of, –; importance in Brazil, ; narrative (Maria Ilma), , –, –; narrative (Valdete), , –; new, –, ; overview, –; widespread use of term, n civilization and whitening ideology,  class, , – Coletivo de Mulheres Negras de São Paulo (Black Women’s Collective of São Paulo),  collective action. See activism; black women’s movement Collins, Patricia Hill, –, , n, n Collor de Mello, Fernando, ,  colocação (placement), , n. See also social location colonialism and colonial Brazil: and anthropology, xxi; and Benetton ad campaign, ; black males and colonial society, n; and color classification, ; continuation of economic exploitation from, ; and free black women, n; miscibility as colonizing strategy, n; Portuguese color and race classification, n; and social location, –. See also slavery color blindness, , . See also racial democracy color classification and discourse, Brazilian: activism against, –; critiques of, –; and employment, –; government’s use of, –; Portuguese colonial, n; racial identities vs., –,

INDEX

–; racialization, coexistence with, ; racial significance of, –; scholarship, incorporation in, n; and social identities, – commodification, –, n. See also economic exploitation and subordination; sexual exploitation common sense, racial, – Communist Party of Brasil (Partido Communista do Brasil or PC do B), ,  Congresso das Mulheres Brasileiras (Congress of Brazilian Women), – consciousness, racial: and hair, –; and intercultural contact, ; research on, –; and subject formation,  consciousness of domestic workers,  Conselho Estadual da Condição Feminina (Council on the Feminine Condition or CECF),  Constitutional Convention (), – constructivism, –,  “contamination,” – Cordeiro da Silva, Valdete, , –,  cordial racism (racismo cordial), n coroas (wealthy, older white men),  Corrêa, Mariza,  criar (to raise),  crias, – criola (Brazilian-born slave/black woman),  cultural citizenship: defined, –, , n; and domestic service, –; struggles for, n cultural products, black, –, n, n cultural representation. See representation and images Cunha, Carlos Flores da,  Dagnino, Evelina, –, , n, n dama de companhia (companion) role,  Damasceno, Caetana Maria, , n da Matta, Roberto,  dance: mulata dance shows, –, n; pagode,  Davis, Angela, , , n Davis, Darién, n, n Debret, Jean Batista, n Declaraçao de Itapecerica da Serra das Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (Itapecerica da Serra Declaration of Brazilian Black Women), – “defects of fabrication,”  Degler, Carl, , n de Matos, Gregorio,  democratization, Brazilian: and black movement, ; and citizenship rights, , ; and new citizenship, –; and women’s movement,  diaspora: anthropologists, diasporic, xxi– xxii; author’s experiences with, xiii–xiv; and black cultural products, n;

221

body politics, diasporic, –; as frame for race and gender, –; linkage by similarities, n; researcher positionality and, xv; subject formation and contact with tourists,  dictatorship in Brazil. See military dictatorship and authoritarian rule difference, racialized: and Benetton ad campaign, ; and color classifications, –; hair and body as markers of, –, , , ; mestiço essentialism tied to,  domestic service and domesticas: activism for, –; and black women’s movement, ; employers, relationship with, –; empregadas domesticás and faxineiras, , n; equated with prostitution, ; and feminism, ; Marxist analysis of, ; and nationalist discourse, –; racial analysis of, ; and slavery, –; and social location, – domestic work at home,  economic exploitation and subordination: and domestic service, –, –; and feminism, ; “good appearance” and employment, –; and image control, –; and mães negras, –; and professional mulatas, –; and sexual commodification, ; structural dimensions, – education, , –, n embranquecimento. See whitening employment discrimination, –, – empregadas domesticás, , n. See also domestic service Encounter of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean Women, First (),  Encounter of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean Women, Second (),  English, knowledge of, – environmentalist social philosophy,  epithets, racial,  Essed, Philomena, , ,  essentialism. See mestiço essentialism; racial essentialism and antiessentialism Essenza, ,  ethic of servitude,  ethnography, xx–xxi, xxi–xxii, ,  eugenics, , ,  everyday racism, – “everyday wounds of color,” – extrinsic vs. intrinsic racism, n Fala Preta,  family environment: crias in, –; and domestic workers, –; intergenerational patterns, –, n; and racial identity, , , – faveladas in Alto Vera Cruz, – favelas (shantytowns), –

222

INDEX

faxineiras (cleaning persons), , n. See also domestic service femininity, , . See also beauty ideals Feminist Encounter, Ninth (),  feminist movement. See black women’s movement; women’s movement Figueiredo, Angela, , n Fillardis, Isabel, , , , n food, – foreigners, contact with, – Forum das Mulheres Negras, Belo Horizonte, xvii, , ,  Frankenburg, Ruth,  French, John, xx Freyre, Gilberto: adage quoted from, ; analysis of impact of, –; audience of, n; on Boas, n; Braga-Pinto on, n; Goldstein’s challenge of, ; international influence of, n; Isfahani-Hammond on, n; and Lusotropicalism, –; on miscibility as colonizing strategy, n; on moreno, , n; on the “shadow” of African ancestry,  friendships, –, – Geledés: Instituto da Mulher Negra (Black Women’s Institute), – gender: Afro-Brazilian “mothers of the nation,” –; and black movement, –; colonial constructions of, ; scholarly neglect of intersection of race and, – Giacomini, Sonia, –, n, n Gil, Gilberto,  Gilliam, Angela, , , n, n, n Gilliam, Onik’a, ,  Gilroy, Paul, n, n Giroux, Henry,  globalization, , n Goldberg, David Theo, , n Goldstein, Donna, –, ,  Gomes, Nilma Lino, , n Gonzalez, Lélia, , , , n, n “good appearance” (boa aparência), – Gordon, Edmund,  Gordon, Lewis,  Gramsci, Antonio, n Grupo Amma, n grupo da terceira idade (senior citizen women’s group), Alto Vera Cruz, – Guimarães, Antonio Sérgio, , –, , nn– hair: anti-black aesthetic standards, – ; braiding, ; cabelo black, –; cabelo ruim (“bad hair”), –; and difference, alterity, and citizenship, –; “Look at Her Hair” (song), –; narratives, –, –, –; “natural,” n; in Raça Brasil, –; and racial consciousness, –, ;

resistance and resignification, ; role in racial politics, ; straightening or relaxing, –, , –; texture as racial marker, – Hall, Stuart, , , , n, n Hanchard, Michael, xix–xx, , n, n Harley, Sharon, n Harrison, Faye, xx–xxi Hasenbalg, Carlos, – health, public, , n Hekman, Susan,  Held, David, n heterophobia, nationalist,  Hoetink, H., n humor, racist, – hybridity, racial: and antiracist activism, –; color categories and race, –; Freyre’s Luso-tropicalism and racial democracy, –; history in Brazil, –; mestiço essentialism and heterophobia, –; miscibility as colonizing strategy, n; overview, –; political performance of, –; resistance to, . See also mestiço essentialism; miscegenation (mestiçagem) identification and self-identification: and activist challenge to color classification, –; collective political identity and the black women’s movement, –; and “foot in the kitchen,” ; as morena vs. mulata, ; and mulata subjectivity, –; negro/negra assumido/assumida (self-identified black), , , ; and resistant subjectivities, ; shift from identity to identification, . See also consciousness, racial; social identities identity formation. See subjectivity and subject formation identity fragmentation,  identity politics, , –. See also social identities images. See representation and images immigration and whitening, – in-kind wages, – insider vs. outsider status, xiv–xix intergenerational patterns, –, n internalized racism and subject formation,  International Day against Racism (),  intersectional approach, – intrinsic vs. extrinsic racism, n invisibility, , , ,  ioió (young slave master),  Isfahani-Hammond, Alexandra, n, n Itapecerica da Serra Declaration of Brazilian Black Women (Declaraçao de Itapecerica da Serra das Mulheres Negras Brasileiras), –

INDEX

job discrimination. See economic exploitation and subordination; employment discrimination jokes (brincadeiras), –,  Juarbe, Ana, , n justice and body aesthetics, – labor, manual, –. See also domestic service and domesticas; economic exploitation and subordination; employment discrimination Lauderdale Graham, Sandra,  Lei Caó,  life histories as research method, – literature, mulata representation in,  Liverpool, England,  location. See social location “Look at Her Hair” (song), –, ,  Lovell, Peggy, – lugar (place), . See also social location Luso-tropicalism, – mães brancas (white mothers),  mães pretas and mães negras (black mothers or mammies), , – Mama, Amina,  mammies (mães pretas and mães negras), , – Manifesto das Mulheres Negras (Manifesto of Black Women), – manual labor, slavery and blackness associated with, – marrom bombom (brown bonbon), – Martínez-Echazábal, Lourdes, ,  Martins, Sergio da Silva, n, n Masters and the Slaves, The (Casa Grande e Sensala) (Freyre), , , , , nn– , n McLaurin, Irma, n Medeiros, Carlos Alberto, n, n men: black men and colonial society, n; black men and whitening ideology, n; colonists as “fathers of the nation,” ; coroas (wealthy, older white men), ; husbands’ view of senior women’s group, –; and racist society, –; white men and racial patriarchy, –; white men as quintessential subject,  Menell, Jo,  mental health: psychotherapy, –, –, ; and women’s group,  mestiçagem. See miscegenation mestiço essentialism: conceptualization of, –; Freyre on, ; resistance to, , ; selective valorization of blackness, ; tensions and paradoxes of, n mestijaze ideologies, Latin American, –, n “metaracial human type,”  militancia (activism) vs. trabalho de base (grassroots work), 

223

military dictatorship and authoritarian rule: and abertura (political opening), ; census and, ; and disenfranchisement, , ; psychotherapy and authoritarianism,  miscegenation (mestiçagem): activist opposition to discourse of, ; and egalitarian racial attitudes, ; “foot in the kitchen” concept, –; and heterophobia, ; mestizaje, –, n; mimetic mestiçagem, n; Prado on, n; and sexual commodification, ; and whitening, –, . See also hybridity, racial; mestiço essentialism MNU (Movimento Negro Unificado) (United Black Movement), , , – Mohanty, Chandra, – Mohanty, Satya,  Moreira, Diva, n morenidade (brownness) and moreno category: black identification vs., , ; Freyre on, , n; “marrom bombom,” –; mulata vs., , n. See also mulata (mixed-race woman) moreninho (little brown one),  “mothers of the nation,” , . See also mães pretas and mães negras (black mothers or mammies) Moura, Clovis, ,  movimento negro. See black movement Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU or United Black Movement), , , – mucama (domestic servant) role, . See also domestic service mulata (mixed-race woman): identity, lack of, ; morena vs., , n; mythical, n; narratives, –; professional, –, n, n; representations, ambiguous, –, –. See also morenidade (brownness) music: carnival songs and mulata representation, –, –; “Nega do cabelo duro” (“Black Woman with Hard Hair”), n; “Teu Cabelo Não Nega” (“Your Hair Gives You Away”), –; “Veja os cabelos dela” (“Look at Her Hair”), –, , ; “Who Invented the Mulata?”, – “Não deixe sua cor passar em branco, responda com bom c/senso” campaign,  não militantes (non-activists), , – Narayan, Kirin, n Nascimento, Elisa Larkin, n, n National Conference of Brazilian Women (),  National Encounter of Black Women, Second (),  National Encounter of the Black Woman, First (), – National Encounter of Women (), 

2 24

INDEX

National Household Survey (Pesquisa Nacional Amostra de Domicilios or PNAD), , , ,  national identity and nationalist discourse: and “foot in the kitchen,” –; and gender images, control of, –; homogeneity and heterophobia, –; and Latin American mestizaje, –; and mulata images, . See also racial democracy National Meeting of Black Women (Reunião Nacional das Mulheres Negras) (), xvi–xvii, , –, – National Seminar of Black Women, First (),  National Seminar on Black Women’s Reproductive Rights and Policies (), – nega (black woman), in “Look at Her Hair,”  “Nega do cabelo duro” (“Black Woman with Hard Hair”) (song), n negra identification, ,  negra/negro assumida/assumido (self-identified black), , ,  Network of Black Brazilian Women’s Organizations (Articulação de ONGs de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras), n new citizenship, –,  Nobles, Melissa, n nursing. See amas de leite (wet nurses) Nzinga/Coletivo de Mulheres Negras (Nzinga/Collective of Black Women), 

personal narratives, role in subjectformation processes,  Pesquisa Nacional Amostra de Domicilios (PNAD or National Household Survey), , , ,  Pierson, Donald, n Pitanga, Camila, , n place, social. See social location PMDB (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro) (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), – PNAD (Pesquisa Nacional Amostra de Domicilios) (National Household Survey), , , ,  policies, affirmative action, – political identity, collective, –,  “pollution,” – population control, – positionality of researchers, xiv–xix, –, n, n. See also social location Prado, Caio, Jr., , n preto (black classification), –,  Prince,  professional mulatas, – progressive vs. official antiracism, , n prostitution, –, , n psychotherapy and racial subjectivity, –, –,  PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores) (Worker’s Party), , – public health, , n

O Americano (journal),  official antiracism. See antiracism, official; racial democracy Oliveira, Fátima, –, n Oliveira Vianna, F. J., –, nn– Omi, Michael, n orphans, – outing, racial,  Outlaw, Lucius,  Owensby, Brian, n

Raça Brasil (magazine), –, n race: accepted as field of study, n; constructivist and realist perspectives on, –; essentialist and antiessentialist views of, –; gender, intersection with, –; silence about, ,  racial democracy: activist challenges to, –, ; and Benetton ad campaign, –; Freyre on, ; homogeneity, and claims, –; and images, control of, –; and mães pretas, ; and mulata images, ; narrative critique of, – ; and public health, ; scholarly views of, –. See also national identity and nationalist discourse racial essentialism and antiessentialism, –, n racial identity. See identification and selfidentification; subjectivity and subject formation racialism and mestizaje ideologies,  racialization, defined, n racism: cordial, n; as crime in media, ; everyday, –; government recognition of, –; internalized, ; intrinsic vs. extrinsic, n; and mestizaje ideologies, –; multiple racisms, concept of, , n; racial hegemony

pagode dances,  Palmares, , n pardo (mixed/brown classification), – parental influence. See family environment Parker, Richard, n Partido Communista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brasil, or PC do B), ,  Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB or Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), – Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party, or PT), , – passing into white (passar em branco),  PC do B (Partido Communista do Brasil) (Communist Party of Brasil), ,  Pelourinho, Salvador, Bahia, xv, n Perez, Carla, n

quilombo dos Palmares, , n

INDEX

and racial common sense, ; in U.S. vs. Brazil, n; and whiteness, construction of, ; in women’s movement, . See also antiracism, official racismo cordial (cordial racism), n realist perspective on race and identity, – Reichmann, Rebecca, , n representation and images: animalizing, , , n; control of, –; of mulata subjectivity, –; sexualized, , –, –, – reproduction: National Seminar on Black Women’s Reproductive Rights and Policies (), –; sterilization, –, ; and whitening, –. See also bodies; mães pretas and mães negras (black mothers or mammies) resistance: to anti-black aesthetic, –; and citizenship, ; racial self-identification as, ; from subaltern subject positions, ; subjectivities, resistant, –, . See also activism Reunião Nacional das Mulheres Negras (National Meeting of Black Women) (), xvi–xvii, , –, – Ribeiro, Matilde,  Ribeiro, Oswaldo, – Ricardo, Maria Ilma, , , –, – , – Roland, Edna, , , , – Rosaldo, Renato,  Rushing, Andrea Benton, n Salvador da Bahia, , n Sansone, Livio, n Santos, Thereza, , ,  Secretaria para Assuntos da Communidade Negra (Secretariat for Black Community Affairs),  Segato, Rita, – self-esteem, , , ,  self-exclusion in job market,  self-identification. See identification and self-identification senior citizen women’s group, Alto Vera Cruz (grupo da terceira idade), – sexual exploitation, , – sexualized identities and images: Afro-Brazilian women as nonsexual laborers, ; and bunda (buttocks), –; commodification of mulatas, –; “marrom bombom,” –; and mulata subjectivity, – sexual reproduction. See reproduction sexual tourism, –, n, n Sheriff, Robin E., , , , n Shukar, Tupac,  silence, discursive, ,  Silva, Benedita da,  Silva, Denise Ferreira da, – Silva, Joselina da, xiii Silva, Nelson do Valle, –, n, n

225

Silvestrini, Blanca,  Simpson, Amelia, n sinhá (young slave mistress),  Skidmore, Thomas, n slavery: abolition, –; and color classification, ; and free black women, n; manual labor associated with, –; national identity and ancestral ties to, ; racial identity and “not being a slave,” ; and social status, –. See also colonialism and colonial Brazil Sobrinho, Adalberto Batista, n social authoritarianism,  social construction. See constructivism social identities: and carnivalesque images, ; collective, ; reconstruction of, ; skin color as determinant of, –; subjectivity vs., n. See also social location socialization, racial, ,  social location: and boa aparência (good appearance), –; and citizenship, ; colocação (placement), , n; colonial, –; creation of space, , ; and domestic service, –; exclusion from forbidden social space, ; and lugar (place), ; mãe prêta or mãe negra (mammy), status of, –; mulata, marrom bombom, and negra, –; and mulata subjectivity, –; in nationalist discourse, –; structural dimensions of subordination, –; and subject formation, ; and United Colors of Benetton ad campaign, – social subjectivity, – socioeconomic status and class, , – . See also economic exploitation and subordination solidarity and subject formation,  songs. See music Sony, – Souza, Juliana Beatriz Almeida de, n State Encounter of Black Women, First (),  sterilization, –,  subjectivity and subject formation: and activism, , ; and body image, –, ; and color vs. race, –; definition of subjectivity, ; discursive silence and alternative discourses, , –; and family socialization, , , –; and foreigners, contact with, –; and friendships or personal relationships, –; narrative (Adriana), –; narrative (Dona Nilza), –; narrative (Gislene), –; narrative (Regina), –; processes and complexities, –, –; and psychotherapy, –, –, ; and racial anti-essentialism, ; resistant subjectivities, –, ; and social

226

INDEX

subjectivity and subject formation (continued) context, –, –, –; social identities vs., n; social subjectivity, – subservience and subject formation,  surrogate mothers. See mães pretas and mães negras (black mothers or mammies) survivalist sexual strategies,  Telles, Edward, n, n, n Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, n “Teu Cabelo Não Nega” (“Your Hair Gives You Away”) (song), – Tiririca, –, n tornar-se negro/negra (becoming black),  Torruellas, Rosa, , n tourism: sexual, –, n, n; subject formation and contact with tourists,  trabalho de base (grassroots work),  Turra, Cleusa, n Twine, France Winddance, nn–, n United Black Movement (Movimento Negro Unificado or MNU), , , – United Colors of Benetton advertising campaign, – unity and diversity in black women’s movement, – Vargas, João H. Costa, , n “Veja os cabelos dela” (“Look at Her Hair”) (song), –, ,  Venturi, Gustavo, n verbal forms of racial discrimination,  Veríssimo, José, – Wacquant, Loïc, xix–xx wages, in-kind, – Warren, Jonathan W., n Weedon, Chris, ,  wet nurse role. See amas de leite

white men: colonists as “fathers of the nation,” ; coroas, mulata seduction of, ; in nationalist discourse, ; and racial patriarchy, – whiteness: in Brazilian context, ; and color classification, ; construction, –; as raceless and normative,  whitening (embranquecimento) ideologies: and anti-blackness, ; and black men, n; census and whitening trend, –; history of, –; in Latin America, ; and Luso-tropicalism, ; and racial categories, ; and rejection of “pure” blacks, ; and reproduction, – white women: feminism and the exploitation of black women by, ; idealization of, –, ,  “Who Invented the Mulata?” (song), – Williams, Brackette, n Winant, Howard, , , , , n women’s movement: and democratization, ; and race issues, –, ; third wave of feminism in U.S., n. See also black women’s movement work discrimination. See economic exploitation and subordination; employment discrimination Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT), , – World Conference against Racism, Third (Durban, South Africa ), –, n World Conference on Women (),  World Population Conference (), ,  Xuxa, , n Yelvington, Kevin, n Young, Iris Marion, – “Your Hair Gives You Away” (“Teu Cabelo Não Nega”) (song), – Yuval-Davis, Nira, n Zumbi, 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kia Lilly Caldwell is an assistant professor in the department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.