THE DISPOSITIF OF RACIALITY AND RACIAL QUOTAS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE OF UFRJ

Abstract

As part of an ongoing doctoral research, this article seeks to understand how institutional discourses at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) were regarding the topic at the time of its implementation. To this end, we conducted an analysis of news in institutional media, where we observed that discourses on the topic emerged around the early 2000s, with the proposal of PL 73/99 and concurrently with the “Ari case,” which highlighted the need for and later inspired racial quotas at the University of Brasília (UnB). Based on the concept of dispositif, from the perspective offered by philosopher Michel Foucault and enhanced by the theoretical-analytical construction offered by Sueli Carneiro, we observed that amidst much debate, the discourses of this historical moment can be divided into those for or against quotas. The official position of UFRJ, in the discourses present in the news on the analyzed site, was against racial quotas in favor of social quotas, as was the case in other institutions and in the positions of researchers and scholars at the time. This collection of discourses can show us how society understands racism, blackness, and ethno-cultural diversity in line with the notion of dispositif and the dispositif of raciality, operative concepts that allow the articulation between raciality and racial quotas, dimensions in which the discussion about quotas emerges, understanding the dynamics of racial relations in Brazil and how the dispositif of raciality operates in Brazilian society through the denial and interdiction of powers, knowledge, and subjectivities, becoming a domain of production of powers, knowledge, and subjectivities.