{"id":63087,"date":"2022-02-14T18:42:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T18:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63087"},"modified":"2022-02-15T02:51:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T02:51:25","slug":"the-persistence-of-myth-brazils-undead-racial-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63087","title":{"rendered":"The persistence of myth: Brazil\u2019s undead \u2018racial democracy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41296-021-00477-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>The persistence of myth: Brazil\u2019s undead \u2018racial democracy\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.palgrave.com\/gp\/journal\/41296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Contemporary Political Theory<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/journal\/41296\/volumes-and-issues\/20-4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volume 20, Issue 4, December 2021<\/a><br \/>\nPages 749\u2013770<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41296-021-00477-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10.1057\/s41296-021-00477-x<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.memphis.edu\/polisci\/people\/faculty_and_staff\/sharon-stanley.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Sharon Stanley<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Political Science<br \/>\n<em>University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41296-021-00477-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static-content.springer.com\/cover\/journal\/41296\/20\/4.jpg\" width=\"200\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brazil\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brazil<\/a>. On the one hand, we find the so-called myth of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=22166\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">racial democracy<\/a> presented as the dominant racial ideology in Brazil, obscuring enduring racial inequality and thwarting the development of a mass-movement for racial justice. On the other hand, we find periodic announcements that the myth of racial democracy has definitively died. Accordingly, I theorize the myth of racial democracy as a paradoxically undead myth and ask what it is about the form of this peculiar myth that allows it to survive its own repeated death. Drawing on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roland_Barthes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roland Barthes\u2019<\/a> theory of myth, I show how the celebration of racial mixture, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=14551\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>mesti\u00e7agem<\/em><\/a>, functions as a mythological signifier of racial democracy that operates beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, activating powerful affects and desires even in those who ostensibly know better.<\/p>\n<p>Read or purchase the article <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41296-021-00477-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drawing on Roland Barthes\u2019 theory of myth, I show how the celebration of racial mixture, or mesti\u00e7agem, functions as a mythological signifier of racial democracy that operates beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, activating powerful affects and desires even in those who ostensibly know better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,83,21,8,26],"tags":[33027,21352,33034,30723],"class_list":["post-63087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-media-archive","category-politics","tag-contemporary-political-theory","tag-racial-democracy","tag-roland-barthes","tag-sharon-stanley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63088,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63087\/revisions\/63088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}