Defining Blackness in the Era of Affirmative Action in Brazil

• In Event: What After Colorblind Racism? Theorizing Race and Ethnicity in the Modern World

Abstract

Affirmative action is an impactful national policy that has been changing the way Brazilians identify racially for more than two decades. This article explores the challenges faced by the members of heteroidentification commissions in Brazil, whose main tasks are to evaluate if candidates are Black and are therefore eligible to apply for race-based quotas in public institutions, and to prevent racial fraud. The purpose of this study is to highlight the geohistories of Brazil that complicate the meanings of race and color, particularly when discussing Blackness. For that reason, this investigation explores how regionally specific racial regimes actively influence the way people perceive race and color. Based on sixteen semi-structured interviews with the members of these heteroidentification commissions, the research finds that regional differences are instrumentalized by candidates to apply Blackness as a credential for entry. Focusing the discussion on the South, a predominantly white region, the article highlights how a strict enclosure of whiteness can result in different racial identifications in comparison with different parts of the country. In conclusion, the ramifications of affirmative action policies in Brazil are not only providing access to social mobility and educating the population on race relations; it is also creating new practices toward a standardized national race identification.

Author

• Camila Santos Pereira, Northeastern University