BIOPOLITICS, RACE AND THE BRAZILIAN NEW STATE

WHITENESS AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36592/opiniaofilosofica.v12.1037

Keywords:

eugenics, race, national identity, Brazilian New State, biopolitics

Abstract

In order to understand racial issues, especially mestizaje, as a biopolitical device in the perspective of Foucauldian studies to think and forge the Brazilian population and its identity, this article reconstitutes in a genealogical perspective the processes that effected the link between eugenics and biopolitics. It develops from the discussion about race as the main characteristic in relation to the construction of national identity, and problematizes mestizaje – first denied and then seen as a way to whiten Brazil population – and the ways it was perceived by foreign and Brazilian intellectuals, so that the species body of the Brazilian population could be thought between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; in the latter, specifically through the emphasis on eugenic thought.

Author Biographies

José Luís Ferraro, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul

Doutor em Educação e professor dos Programas de Pós-Graduação em Educação e Educação em Ciências e Matemática da PUCRS. 

Davi Carboni, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul

Master in Education and Bachelor's Degree in History from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Augusto Jobim do Amaral, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul

Doutor em História do Pensamento (Coimbra, Portugal) e Doutor em Ciências Criminais pela Pontifícia Universidade do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). Professor do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Criminais e em Filosofia da PUCRS.

Published

2021-10-15

How to Cite

Ferraro, J. L., Carboni, D., & Jobim do Amaral, A. . (2021). BIOPOLITICS, RACE AND THE BRAZILIAN NEW STATE: WHITENESS AND NATIONAL IDENTITY. Revista Opinião Filosófica, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.36592/opiniaofilosofica.v12.1037