De pé como homem...: a construção da masculinidade na Frente Negra Brasileira e no Teatro Experimental do Negro

Abstract

This thesis is inserted in the fields of study of men and masculinities and racial relations, having as a guideline between the two fields, the notions of masculinity of black men. We seek to understand how these masculinities were constituted discursively in the periodicals A Voz da Raça, from Frente Negra Brasileira, and in Quilombo, from Teatro Experimental do Negro. Both black social movements were important in the early 20th century, the first in São Paulo and the second in Rio de Janeiro. In this sense, we composed the following research question: How were the notions of masculinity elaborated in A Voz da Raça and Quilombo? Our hypothesis is that masculinity would be used as a strategy that enhances the anti-racist discourse and, ultimately, humanizes black men by using a discursive repertoire with the intention of moving them away from the animalizing meanings attributed to them, placing them as leaders and role models to be followed by black women and men, and admired by white men and women. However, this discursive synergy would not present itself in the same way in journals. Apparently, there would be certain gradations where the masculinity mobilized in A Voz da Raça would adopt traits understood as more virile, linked to military, patriotic and moral rectitude values, while in Quilombo there would be greater alignment with elements of refinement, intellectual excellence and political leadership. Our general objective, therefore, is to examine the relevance and meanings given to masculinity and virility in the periodicals worked on and in their use for certain purposes.