Urban Encounters—Affirmative Action and Black Identities in Brazil

"In this work, I discuss the introduction of racial quotas in favor of 'black' students in some public universities of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The implementation of racial policies has raised strong reaction in a country like Brazil, where ideals ofracial and cultural mixture are crucial components of national identity. Focusing on my ethnographic study of a public university and its users, I analyze the practical and symbolic potential that affirmative action has to redress historically-produced and territorialized inequalities in the urban space. Due to the variety of users that racial and other social quotas have produced, the ethnography allows for a broader discussion of race and class relations in Rio de Janeiro and in Brazil"--

Andre Cicalo is a post-doctoral researcher at the desiguALdades research network at Freie Universitat in Berlin. After starting a career in international development, he pursued postgraduate studies in Social Anthropology at the Universities of Sussex and Manchester. He is the author of several articles about affirmative action in Brazil as well as the ethnographic documentary Memories on the Edge of Oblivion about the legacy of slavery in the urban space of Rio de Janeiro.