Race in the construction of a political identity: some preliminary concepts

• Autor(a) principal: Monagreda, Johanna Katiuska
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/23664
• topic: Race; Racism; Ethnic-political identity; Afrodescendence; Raça; Racismo; Identidade étnico-política; Afrodescendência

Even in societies where there are no formal impediments associated with the notion of race, racism permeates the real possibilities of exercising citizenship. Although definitions of race are, in fact, highly ideological constructs that seek legitimacy in phenotypic traits, race symbolizes and plays an important part in social, economic, and political inequalities, and continues to function as a significant element in social relations. On the one hand, the concept of race has served to naturalize inequalities, and, on the other, it constitutes the “lens” through which one looks at the world. As the concept of race is socialized, racism also socializes and remains introjected into the collective imagination, functioning actively in the establishment and reproduction of group hierarchies, as well as in the maintenance of racialized social, economic, and political structures. However, the “race” constructed to discriminate, can and has been mobilized with emancipatory potential for stigmatized groups, starting from the construction of a political identity in the social movements that arise from ethnic-racial belonging.