A feira é o mundo : a branquidade do Estado e a luz negra do Zumvi na Feira de São Joaquim

Abstract

In a global context of inequality, the state and issues of race work together to shape, perpetuate, and promote the capitalist system. As Brazil is part of the global neoliberal capitalist context, racist actions by the state occur when different types of racism and racial exclusion can be identified in public policies, narratives, and state conceptions in our country. This dynamic manifests itself through the “whiteness of the state.” In Salvador, this logic is expressed in historical processes of pathologization and criminalization of racialized spaces such as the São Joaquim Market. The São Joaquim Market, however, constitutes a multiple territory of existence, resistance, and production of life. Beyond commerce, the market is home to social, religious, emotional, and housing relationships, challenging the hegemonic narratives imposed by the state. The research takes as its premise that Salvador is a black city, although the black presence in the conformation of urban space has been historically silenced. It also considers architecture as an instrument of the state’s whiteness in the construction of visual and material discourses about the market. As a final premise, the market is recognized as a powerful space of existence, wealth, life, and multiple possibilities, especially through photographic and historical records such as those of photographer Lázaro Roberto, founder of the Zumvi Afro-Photographic Archive. The research traces two main threads: the renovation projects and plans promoted by the state and notions of heritage. Based on Lázaro’s images, the black light — guided by Denise Ferreira da Silva — points to paths that go beyond the whiteness of the state. As other perspectives emerge, the black centrality of the market and its production of positive culture and visualities are investigated. Thus, the study seeks to contribute to the expansion of narratives about the São Joaquim Market as a territory of dispute, resistance, and imagination of other possible futures.