The production and reproduction of institutional racism via state programs: a case study from PROERD

• Grant number: 17/09752-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2018
• End date: December 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Maria Aparecida Chaves Jardim
• Grantee: Kênia Rodrigues Mattos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The overall objective of this project is to contribute to the discussion agenda on institutional racism. After surveying initiatives that seek racial equality in Brazil, we conclude that institutional racism is maintained and reproduced. Thus, we suggest that the explanation for the institutionality of racism must be sought in the culture, in the dispositions of habitus, in the cognitive conventions and in the symbolic representations of agents and institutions, among them the State itself. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu and Mary Douglas, the project suggests a new argument for the already existing debate, the possibility of something we tentatively call "cognitive racism." To identify it, we will carry out a case study from the Drug Resistance Education Program (PROERD), implemented at the Rafael de Medina State School, located in the city of Araraquara (S.P). During the fieldwork, we will try to identify if and how PROERD (through its training agents, military police officers and content in the booklets) reproduces some form of racism. The results of the project should open a research agenda that incorporates symbolic issues in topics already well consolidated in the social sciences, institutional racism, and contribute with empirical data in the theoretical discussion on the ambiguities of the State. (AU)