The Laws of Image-Nation: Brazilian Racial Tropes and the Shadows of the Slave Quarters

Abstract

The commemorative edition of the 80th anniversary of Casa Grande & Senzala, the founding book of Brazilian modern sociology written by Gilberto Freyre and published in 2013, shows on its cover a glamorous 'Casa Grande' (Big House, the Lord's house), lit like an architectural landmark, ready to serve as the set for a film or a TV soap opera. What happened to the 'Senzala' (the Slave Quarters) that appeared on the covers of the dozens of previous editions? This paper investigates, following some changes in Brazilian Visual Culture in the twentieth century, how such an astonishing disappearance could take place. The paper examines the image of the slave quarters as part of a racial trope: a foundational and colonial trope, one that is capable of institutionalizing subjects and producing a subaltern mode of subjectivity. It also explores connections between critical legal studies and visual and cultural studies to question how and why knowledge produced over the status, nature and function of images contributes to instituteand institutionalize subjectivity. In order to explain this disappearance we propose a legal-iconological experiment. We will enunciate, and attempt to enact, the Statute of Image-nation: the laws of the image that constitute subjectivity in Brazilian racial tropes. In doing so, we might be able to point out the ways in which law and image function together in institutionalizing subjectivityand subjection.

Migration, Fears and the Media in the Presidential Election in Chile (2017)

“…Así, por ejemplo, en México, "el racismo, la nación y el nacionalismo son conceptos que han evolucionado estrechamente vinculados", y donde una parte significativa de la población no solamente no ha sido incluida, sino que ha sido ignorada, excluida o eliminada de esa comunidad (Treviño-Rangel;Hammeken, 2008: 671). Lo mismo ocurre en Brasil, donde Lissovsky y De Matos (2018) señalan que hubo un consenso sobre que la población brasileña estaba formada por una mezcla de razas y que su destino sería alcanzado mediante la hegemonía de los blancos, particularmente los portugueses, cuyos derechos resultaron producto de su triunfo frente a los indígenas durante la conquista.…”