"Quando me descobri negra": pesquisa qualitativa através de um grupo de leitura

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze, as from a reading group accomplishment, how the reading and sharing of experiences contribute to the acknowledgement of self-identification processes among black women. The self-identification as a woman is a process linked to negritude and the place which a woman occupies in society as being black. This research study is based on the concept of structured racism of Almeida (2018) aiming to achieve a theoretical basis of racism in Brazil. The concepts of branquitude and self-identification are approached with the theoretical contribution of Schucman (2014), Ribeiro (2019) and concerns which link media and race by hooks (2019). Besides, we approach the definition of black feminism as from the perspective of Kilomba (2019), together with the concept of black women as “the ‘other’ of another”. As regard the methodology, this paper evolves in a qualitative perspective, featuring as a descriptive one. A reading group has taken place inspired in the methodology of a focus group, composed by five black women, taking as communicational basis the book “The moment when I figured out I was black” written by Bianca Santana. After the accomplishment of this focus group, we find out that the reading of black women by black women can contribute to the self-identification process of gender and race. We realized how the process of reading can be meaningful in the debate and approach of issues which they have not considered yet. This paper also proposes that concepts as colorism can act in a distinct way in the process of self-identification of these women, as well as in hair transition and in the acceptance of their own hairs.