Do corpo colonizado ao corpo humanizado: trajetórias e percepções acerca do cuidado perinatal e agência feminina negra

Abstract

The transatlantic trafficking of human beings, and later the enslavement of people from Africa, were responsible for establishing a system of hierarchization, in which people with black skin would be inferior to people with white skin. Among the enslaved, we highlight the figure of the black woman. The black female body, in addition to carrying the stigmas of the inferiority of the race, had their wombs used as a tool for the continuity of the exploitation system. Even after abolition in the Brasil, colonial logic guaranteed the perpetuation of these women 's dehumanization, humiliation and submission. Reflecting on the stigmas and representations of the black female body, made us understand the eugenic structures and policies on which the perinatal care of black women were built, which are still marked by countless inequities. Assuming that blacks were also able to question, organize and generate changes in the type of health care provided to women, I focused on the category “black female agency” and established a dialogue from the perspective of Intersectionality .The empirical source of the research were six interviews based on the method stories of life, with black women who through their individual agency or their insertion in collective change processes, strengthen and promote transformations in perinatal care in the state of Rio de Janeiro as well as at the federal level in some cases. Through their narratives I tried to identify how transformations in the health system occur in a macro or micro social sphere, with emphasis on the care of black women. The analysis showed that the violence caused by sexism and crossed by other forms of oppression marks the history of many interlocutors. Thus, to question a system that was presented to them as unique and immutable, articulations and elaboration of agency strategies were necessary. This constant negotiation in power relations, proved to be a modus operandi of most black women, leading us to the reflection that the social restitution of our humanity requires an intersectional and non-hierarchical look at the identities that crosses the black body and that will dictate the course of relations between this woman and the world. The awakening of the black female agency begins with their mental liberation, but it will also be crossed and influenced by the ability to recognize and value their ancestry, as well as the improvement of shared knowledge; emancipation based on the structuring of their emotional intelligence and intellectual competence; in addition to the denial of the “universal subject” for the recognition of their right to occupy the “place of humanity”, being physical or social. Such elaborations will allow black women to recognize themselves as political subjects, establishing negotiations that react to the logic that oppresses them, while generating political and social transformations, that promote a true social, economic, cultural and racial democracy.