XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Political Generations and Racializing Affects: Whiteness in a Decade of Political Upheaval in Brazil (2013-2023)

• In Event: Brazilian Studies of Whiteness – Part 1: Whiteness and Brazilian Social Thought, Class, Families, and Affect

Abstract

This paper brings together the theoretical frameworks of political generations and racializing affect to explore the nuances of whiteness and racial privilege in contemporary Brazil (2013-2023). Drawing upon the political generation approach, it first delineates the transformative experiences of a cohort born between 1990-1995, and that came of age in the 2010s, a period marked by the Manifestations of June 2013, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016, intense political polarization, reactionary antagonisms, the surge of neoconservatism, and a redefinition of social values. In this context, whiteness has increasingly employed explicitly racialized discourses and practices in order to preserve and amplify white privilege (Pinho, 2021). This assertion of whiteness and attempt to reassert racial distinctions have contributed to further corroding Brazil's national narrative of racial democracy, in a paradoxical convergence with the critical stance of black movements that have long sought to uncover this myth. Central to this exploration is the concept of racializing affect: a set of affective dispositions that reinforces racial hierarchies (Berg and Ramos-Zayas, 2015). I examine how that political generation experienced specific affective dispositions that both supported and challenged whiteness as a racial privilege. I further discuss how these affective shifts, intertwined with broader economic and political contexts, redefined perceptions and enactments of whiteness. The paper seeks to provide an understanding of how political generation and racializing dynamics offer fresh perspectives for studying whiteness in Contemporary Brazil.

Author

• Kaio Lacet, University of California, Santa Cruz