Racial democracy crisis and the emergence of critical race and feminist theories in Brazilian criminology (original) (raw)
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2002 Journal of Gender Studies 11(3): 243-251., 2002
In Brazil, the creation of all-female police stations to encourage the denunciation and prosecution of violent crimes against women represents one of several examples of state-institutionalised feminism. This paper recounts the history of the implementation of these innovative institutions, and examines difculties encountered in this experience, with particular focus on the differences between the predominantly white, middle-class feminists that originated the idea and the predominantly black, working-class policewomen charged with carrying it out. Anti-essentialist theory is useful for understanding the awed logic that produced inappropriate expectations of policewomen. However, the paper concludes that this perspective offers little direction for furthering the nascent reform of law enforcement, and offers a feminist version of an imagined communities model in its place. Feminist scholarship in the 1990s signi cantly increased scholars' attentiveness to how lines of af liation and identi cation drawn by gender are cross-cut and quali ed by such social distinctions as class, race, and occupation. In the spirit of such work, I organise this account of my research on Brazil's unique women's police according to the competing loyalties pulling at the unique group of policewomen I studied. The rst half of this essay demonstrates how policewomen's commitments and identities were shaped by their occupational and class backgrounds. In the second half of the paper I discuss how awed assumptions about policewomen's identities have undermined the effectiveness of Brazil's women's police, while also submitting that the same awed assumptions have provided a potential starting point for more enduring social reform and transformation. Since 1990, when I began this investigation, I have looked to feminist thought to guide my interpretations of Brazil's gendered policing experiment with mixed and often contradictory results. At that time, feminist anthropological work on gender (like that in many other elds) was primarily concerned with anti-essentialist goals. This meant that, rather than treating all women's experiences as arising out of some common feminine 'essence,' or assuming that women comprised some unitary female 'sex-class' (Moore, 1988, p. 198), scholars sought to contextualise the variability of women's experiences. Similarly, they described the immense cross-cultural differences and the ways in
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Conceived as a contribution to debates about the role of state institutions in perpetuating racial inequality in modern Brazil, this article explores the relative importance ofsocial and racial characteristics in determining defendants' treatment in Rio de Janeiro's criminal courts between 1930 and 1964. Focusing on rarely noted aspects ofdefendants' class and citizenship status, and emphasizing the importance ofjudicial procedure, it argues that social discrimination was open in Rio de Janeiro's courts, but that race alone was a relatively poor predictor ofdefendants' fates. At the same time, it suggests that racial and social characteristics ought not to be seen as separate and competing categories, both because "social" language had important racial meanings and because "social" discrimination had significant racial implications. Institutionalized social prejudice may thus go far in explaining the stubborn persistence of racial inequity in an age 'lvhen "racial democracy" became a national hope and mantra. Brazilian race relations have intrigued, entranced, and impassioned both nationalist intellectuals and foreign observers for more than half a century. Few subjects are more central to Brazil's national identity, and few have undergone such radical paradigmatic shifts. In the early 1930s, with the publication of Gilberto Freyre's masterful and synthetic (if not entirely original) vision of Brazilian culture, the belief that Brazil had forged from miscegenation and tolerance a society uniquely free of racial prejudice began to take root in both national discourse and international fantasy, gradually replacing the pessimistic "scientific racism" that *1 wish to thank members of the University of Chicago Latin American History workshop (especially Dain Borges and Claudio Lomnitz), participants in the Five-College Social History workshop, and the anonymous LARR referees for their valuable critiques of earlier versions of this article. 1am grateful also to the Fulbright Comission, Harvard University, and the Social Science Research Council for support provided over various years of research. Thanks, too, to Jonathan Brown, Peter Ward, and all of the members of the LARR editorial team for their kindness throughout. Finally, my gratitude to Emilio Kouri, for his insightful readings, and for his loving support.
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Brazilian favelas are known as spaces of criminal enterprise, of poor to non-existent infrastructure and extreme violence. They are places of informal industry conducted by unregistered workers, living in unofficial settlements, beyond the boundaries of sanctioned society. But favelas are also spaces of class solidarity, close-knit convivial communities and hardworking people existing within an area where the state does not have a monopoly on violence. Unprotected by conventional social contract, residents of favelas are regularly victims of state violence, with officers routinely conducting raids, torture and extrajudicial killings. Much of the literature about Brazilian urban violence focuses on gangs, drug lords and territory, with discussion of police brutality logically focusing on the police. Little work exists to highlight the everyday plight of those existing within the sphere of influence of both groups, but this book brings such lived experience to the fore. Cavalcanti's account of police violence is not that of the Hollywood drama of favela life in the film City of God, nor the examination of police taking the law into their own hands found in Elite Squad, but focuses on the real-life frustrations and experiences of those encountering violence as part of daily existence. Cavalcanti also situates this experience in its post-colonial context, highlighting the relevance of previously formed hierarchies of power and legacies of slavery for contemporary critical analysis. Cavalcanti provides critical analysis of the existing literature, but a substantial part of the book relates to her own ethnographic work, which centres on residents of two favela communities in Recife, North Brazil, and the communities' relationships with violence and policing. She writes openly about her approach to fieldwork with a reflective awareness of her own positionality and includes this as an integral part of her analysis. As with all ethnographic interviewing, building rapport with the community is vital and Cavalcanti reflects on how this process may have been aided by her pregnancy. She observes how people connected with her via what she perceived to be a bond based on the creation of family. The suggestion is that the notion of a shared future or humanity meant that the communities did not see her as a threatening or alien presence in their space, and were open and honest with their opinions. Cavalcanti's use of jeitinho-the Brazilian notion of being able to find a way, via formal or informal connections, to achieve one's aim-to access the communities, is unapologetic and its subjective nature is shown to be a positive factor.
Reimagining Black Difference and Politics in Brazil examines Black Brazilian political struggle and the predicaments it faces in a time characterized by the increasing institutionalization of ethno-racial policies and black participation in policy orchestration. Greater public debate and policy attention to racial inequality suggests the attenuation of racial democracy and positive miscegenation as hegemonic ideologies of the Brazilian nation-state. However, the colorblind and post-racial logics of mixture and racial democracy, especially the denial and/or minimization of racism as a problem, maintain a strong grip on public thinking, social action, and institutional practices. Through a focus on the epistemic dimensions of black struggles and the anti-racist pluri-cultural efforts that have been put into action by activists, scholars, and organizations over the past decade, Alexandre Emboaba Da Costa analyzes the ways in which these politics negotiate as well as seek to go beyond the delimited understandings of racial difference, belonging, and citizenship that shape the contemporary politics of inclusion. Table of Contents: Introduction: Black Cultural Politics and Decoloniality without Guarantees 1 (PDF available for download) 1 Post-racial Ideology, Emergent Multiculturalisms, and the Contemporary Conjuncture of Racial Politics in Brazil 23 2 The Difference Orùnmilá Makes: Ancestralidade and the Past as Project 45 3 Afoxé Omó Orùnmilá: History, Culture, and Politics in Movement 67 4 Hip-Hop and the Contemporary Politics of Ancestralidade 89 5 The Struggle to Decolonize Knowledge and Pedagogy 113 6 Contested Inclusions: Education Reforms and the Hyperconsciousness/Negation of Race 135 7 Educator Experiences with Anti-racist Pluriculturalismo 157 Conclusion: The Challenges of the Decolonial in Practice 181 Notes 187 Bibliography 205 Index 221