Dispositif of Raciality
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A01=Sueli Carneiro
activism
apparatus
Author_Sueli Carneiro
biopower
black bodies
black liberation
care of self
Category=QDTS
Category=QDTS1
collective struggle
critical race studies
dispositif
dispositif of raciality
emancipation politics
epistemicide
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
especially in Brazil?
forthcoming
Foucault
how can we understand the necessity for collective struggle against racism
Mills
racisim
racism in Brazil
radical politics
subordination of black people
what is it to be racialised
white bodies
white complicity
Product details
- ISBN 9781509564590
- Publication Date: 04 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
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.
Sueli Carneiro is founder and director of the Geldes Instituto da Mulher Negra, Brazil
