“State racism,” “necropolitics” and the production of “bare lives”: an introduction to transfeminicide in contemporary Brazil

In this work, the Foucauldian concept of “biopower” is related to the notions of “necropolitics”, elaborated by Achille Mbembe, and “bare lives”, by Giorgio Agamben. Based on these three theoretical frameworks, we will analyze how some lives can be considered less important than others and how they...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: de Oliveira Cezar, João Marcelo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2024
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
Repository:Faces da História
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:seer.assis.unesp.br:article/2671
Online Access:https://seer.assis.unesp.br/index.php/facesdahistoria/article/view/2671
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Estado de exceção. Necropolítica. Racismo de Estado. Vidas nuas. Transfeminicídio.
State of exception. Necropolitics. State racism. Bare lives. Transfeminicide.
Description
Summary:In this work, the Foucauldian concept of “biopower” is related to the notions of “necropolitics”, elaborated by Achille Mbembe, and “bare lives”, by Giorgio Agamben. Based on these three theoretical frameworks, we will analyze how some lives can be considered less important than others and how they are part of a death policy that calculates and defines livable and killable bodies. The objective is to create a concatenation of the three concepts mentioned, as a way of interpreting the phenomenon of violence, lethal or not, which is directed at “unimportant”, marginalized bodies, almost like a “law that occurs outside the law”, made possible by a kind of permanent “state of exception”. To deepen this theoretical discussion and better analyze whether these conceptual operators are linked to the Brazilian context, a brief problematization will be carried out, based on the problem of “transfeminicide”. In this context, we will highlight the specificities of the dossiers and reports on murders and violence against trans people, released by the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (ANTRA) between 2017 and 2021.