Pensamento social e político do movimento de mulheres negras: o lugar de ialodês, orixás e empregadas domésticas em projetos de justiça social

Abstract

In order to contribute to the expansion of studies that simultaneously consider gender and race in Brazil, I seek to identify key elements of the social analysis developed by members of the Black Women´s Movement in Brazil. To that end, I seek to: 1) identify the mains social representations prompted by the Black Women s Movement and to understand how they are articulated, interrogating the ways in which they reinforce, challenge or seek to replace dominant representations in canonical Brazilian social thought and social science scholarship; 2) investigate the elements that devise a descriptive level of reflection by analyzing discursive constructions that characterize oppression as social phenomenon, and by mapping analytical categories and argumentative axes; 3) identify key components of a normative level of reflection, analyzing discursive patterns that conform the emancipatory purpose of this social movement - that is, I identify the organization of discursive components that point to a social justice horizon. For this, I resort to a range of discursive genres embraced by activists - such as pamphlets, scholarly writings and interviews - as primary sources. Guided by the contributions of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I turn to the study of textual elements and their interlinkage with historical, social and political context in which the speeches are pronounced. In addition, while taking into consideration political actors formulations, I take advantages of CDA s interfaces with theories of social movements, particularly their interpretations of meanings production by social movements. The thesis contributes to the literature on the Brazilian Black Women´s Movement and to the field of black women´s studies in Brazil by proposing a systematization of activists discourses and by contributing to the documentation of an intellectual production that has found scarce recognition among scholars. Findings situate a social critique of inequalities based on race, class and gender analysis, contrasting to differencebased approaches and to approaches that neglect social class. Moreover, the research points to existing patterns of social representation, collective identity and memory, and their interlinkages with a social justice horizon outlined by the Black Women´s Movement in Brazil.