Entre o quarto da empregada doméstica e outros espaços: o corpo negro, as heterotopias e utopias na pandemia

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Supported by Foucauldian studies on the concept of heterotopia, as well as by decolonial studies from authors such as Carneiro (2020), Davis (2016), Moore (2017), Almeida (2018) and Vida (2021). The present work aims to analyze how the body-discourse of the black woman domestic worker is demarcated by utopias juxtaposed with heterotopias during the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19. To do this, we propose an analysis of the web strip Senzala, part of the series Confinada (2020), which has been circulating on the social network Instagram since 2020, during the pandemic. The web strip leads us to a discursive reading about how the social imaginary manifests itself in the construction of these spaces (utopian and heterotopic) and in the constitution of the subject black woman domestic worker. Specifically, we investigated how the body-discourse of the black woman domestic worker is demarcated by utopias and heterotopias from the space of the domestic worker's room, especially between 2020 and 2021, a period in which we experienced lockdown due to the aforementioned pandemic. We understand that the maid's room constitutes a modern heterotopia that, by evoking the slave quarters from the time of slavery, reveals a lot about contemporary society. The reproduction of this time-space persists in our current society, exemplified by the maid's room, which would function as a modern slave quarters. The maid's room represents a heterotopia that reflects and perpetuates relations of power and inequality between employers and employees, especially considering the racial and class context.

KEYWORDS: Black Maid; slave quarters; Maid's Room; Utopia; Heterotopia.