Dispositif of Raciality

The Construction of the Other as Non-Being
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5095-6459-0
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 354 Seiten

Reihe: Critical South

This book by the leading political thinker and philosopher Sueli Carneiro examines how race operates in Brazilian society and why myths of racial democracy have so much staying power in the country despite the many ideological and cultural shifts. To understand this, Carneiro develops Foucault's concepts of biopower and dispositif and links them with Charles Mills' writings on the racial contract, creating the concept of 'dispositif of raciality'. Carneiro argues that the dispositif of raciality operates through, on the one hand, 'epistemicide', the process through which Black people are invalidated as knowing subjects, and, on the other, through a complicity among white people in relation to the social subordination and elimination of Black people.

As with all dispositives, however, the dispositif of raciality possesses its own resistance, and Carneiro also addresses Black resistance, understood through the voices and testimonies of insurgents against subordination and epistemicide. Their words reveal that it is from the strength of self-esteem, the recognition of their own autonomy and the triumph of memory and collective action that the sap of resistance is extracted. It is only through collective struggle, where the care of self and of others becomes emancipatory, that the dispositif of raciality can be confronted.

Hailed as one of the most important works of political philosophy written in Brazil, this book sheds new light on the mechanisms through racial regimes reproduce themselves amd how these patterns might be broken. It will be of great value to students and scholars of Brazil, Latin America and Black Studies and it will appeal to anyone interested in questions of race, racism and the legacies of colonialism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carneiro, Sueli

Weitere Mitwirkende

Millar, Lanie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Postkoloniale Literatur
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword – Christen Smith
Translator's note

Prologue: Emancipation For All
Introduction: Being and Other

Part I: Power, Knowledge, and Subjectification
Chapter 1.1: On the Apparatus
Chapter 1.2: Biopower: Blackness Under the Sign of Death
Chapter 1.3: Epistemicide
Chapter 1.4: Prohibitions

Part II: Resistances
Part II Prologue
Chapter 2.1: Edson Cardoso
Chapter 2.2: Sônia Maria Pereira Nascimento
Chapter 2.3: Fátima Oliveira
Chapter 2.4 Arnaldo Xavier, the poet (in memoriam)

Part III: Education and Care of the Self

Part III Prologue
Chapter 3.1 Education: Negation and Affirmation
Chapter 3.2: Education and Care for the Self
Flowchart: Functional Articulations among Knowledge, Resistance and Race

Postface – Yara Frateschi
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sueli Carneiro is founder and director of the Geldes Instituto da Mulher Negra, Brazil