O olhar do Serviço Nacional de Informações - SNI sobre o movimento negro no Brasil (1964-1985)

Abstract

The dissertation examines the intersections between the Black Movement and the military dictatorship. It discusses how the National Information Service (SNI) monitored this social movement and its leaders, analyzing the narratives of surveillance agencies documented in SNI-produced records. It shows how and why the military adopted the concept of racial democracy as a state ideology, which strengthened Brazil's international prestige and influenced the political treatment of the black movement's actions abroad. Consequently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs played a crucial role in denying allegations of racism in Brazil in order to affirm the country as a racial democracy before international organizations. The analysis of surveillance mechanisms is complemented by reflections on racial relations in Brazil during the military dictatorship. Government discourses that sought to silence both racial tensions and the actions of Afro-Brazilian activists against racism are addressed. The temporal framework is set in the context of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), emphasizing the construction of its repressive apparatus and the analysis of the political opening process that "deconstructed" the repressive and surveillance apparatuses at the end of the military government in Brazil. This period saw the reactivation of social movements, especially the black movement. In addition to the historiography of the military regime, its repressive agencies, and the Black Movement, we draw on social science studies, particularly sociology and anthropology, pioneers in the study of race relations in Brazil.