Dispositif of Raciality: The Construction of the Other as Non-Being (Critical South)

This book by the leading political thinker and philosopher Sueli Carneiro examines how race operates in Brazilian society and why myths of racial democracy have so much staying power in the country despite the many ideological and cultural shifts.To understand this, Carneiro develops Foucault's concepts of biopower and dispositif and links them with Charles Mills' writings on the racial contract, creating the concept of 'dispositif of raciality'.Carneiro argues that the dispositif of raciality operates through, on the one hand, 'epistemicide', the process through which Black people are invalidated as knowing subjects, and, on the other, through a complicity among white people in relation to the social subordination and elimination of Black people. As with all dispositives, however, the dispositif of raciality possesses its own resistance, and Carneiro also addresses Black resistance, understood through the voices and testimonies of insurgents against subordination and epistemicide.Thei