Racial relations and life stories: focus on black industrial workers

Abstract The construction of black identities in Brazil is marked by several struggles that directly influence recent institutional advances in this subject and contribute to the deconstruction of the racial democracy myth. This paper analyzes how elements related to racial relations are presented in the life stories of black industrial workers. For such, we discuss elements constitutive of the construction of black identities in Brazil, as well as the idea of racial democracy. By using the inductive method, data collection based on life stories was performed and treated by structuralist discourse analysis, especially concerning social-historic elements present in their discourse. The main data present racial relations in Leila and Clovis’ stories, our research subjects, hers being a story of a political position regarding miscegenation and his the story of a racism victim. The main conclusions suggest that even with institutional advances of the black movement in Brazil, consciousness about self-blackness is the first step for black people to effectively occupy any place they want in society.

摘要 巴西黑人身份的构建始终伴随着诸多斗争，这些斗争直接推动了该议题的近期制度进展，并助力解构种族民主（racial democracy）迷思。本文分析了种族关系相关要素在黑人产业工人的人生叙事中的呈现方式。为此，本文探讨了巴西黑人身份构建的构成性要素，以及种族民主的理念。本研究采用归纳法（inductive method），基于人生叙事开展数据收集，并运用结构主义话语分析（structuralist discourse analysis）对数据进行处理，尤其聚焦于受访者叙事中蕴含的社会历史要素。本研究的核心数据取自两位访谈对象莱拉（Leila）与克洛维斯（Clovis）的人生叙事：莱拉的叙事围绕其针对种族混血的政治立场展开，而克洛维斯的叙事则讲述了自身作为种族主义受害者的经历。主要结论表明，即便巴西黑人运动已取得制度层面的进展，对自身黑人身份的认知仍是黑人群体有效占据社会中任意理想位置的首要前提。