BIOPOLITICS, RACIAL VIOLENCE AND STRUCTURAL RACISM IN BRAZIL

Abstract

In recent years, research on racial relations, race and racism in Brazil has pointed to violence as one of the fundamental aspects, which are explained, among others, by the so-called structural racism. Although the concept is not new, it has been gaining prominence in studies on racism in Brazil. Considering the analytical axis of structural racism, the work aims to problematize racial violence in Brazil, following the Foucauldian perspective of biopolitics. Among the manifestations of racial violence, the one committed by the police stands out, especially the fatality rate of the black population. From a biopolitics perspective, it is possible to analyze the forms of government of the population, presenting the way in which life enters the political calculation to govern and manage policies that concern those who have a qualified life and those whose lives are marked by precariousness. In this way, biopolitics is a form of analysis simultaneously involved in the production of life and death. Therefore, for certain precarious human groups, society does not produce bereavement, which makes these groups vulnerable to necropolitics. The analysis of governmentality present in government tactics used to manage a population helps to further investigate racial violence in Brazil, reflecting on the violence data that affect the black population.