(Un)masked racial discrimination: discursive analysis of Monteiro Lobato’s novel O Presidente Negro

Abstract

The black race in Brazil is historically marked by discrimination, devaluation and disrespect. Moreover, this reality is reinforced by cultural media products that define the stereotypes that depreciate black people and their place in society. In literature, meanwhile some authors try to give voice to these subjects, others reinforce and reverberate prejudices. In order to understand the possibility of using literature to promote discussions about sensible topics, especially in the field of Organizational Studies, this paper sought to answer the following question: how does the book O Presidente Negro (1926) by Monteiro Lobato (1882-1948) contribute to the construction of racist socio-discursive and interdiscursive imaginaries that still exist nowadays in organizations? For that, we adopted the Discourse Analysis, particularly the theoretical-methodological framework of the French linguists Charaudeau and Maingueneau, alongside with the Semiolinguistics concepts of the Social Imaginary and Interdiscourse, respectively. As presented in the analysis, the imaginaries and interdiscourses are representations that permeate the collective memory and end up showing a structural problem. Furthermore, it was possible to observe that the book is marked by other discourses such as the Enlightenment philosophy, racist theories and the Social Darwinism that reinforce the idea of prejudiced positions regarding race.

Keywords

• literatura
• monteiro lobato
• raça, análise do discurso