The Surface of Race: Topology and Brazilian Racial Identifications

Abstract

This article explores specific insights provided by Jacques Lacan regarding the role of surface and the relevance of trace in a topological understanding of identification. Subsequently, the study aligns Lacan's perspective on identification - particularly emphasizing the importance of surface and the Other's act of naming - with pertinent issues to Brazil's racial dynamics. It embodies insights from race relations' scholars such as Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon, and Lélia Gonzalez. Placing the discourse on racial identities within the national context of Brazil, which has been shaped by the persistent myth of racial democracy propagated by a significant portion of the white Brazilian intellectual sphere from the mid-20th century to the present, this article retrieves Lacanian concepts to realize how contemporary identifications intersect with race. It also investigates discourses that have marginalized these discussions in both political and theoretical realms. In its final considerations, the article underscores the implications of this discourse for psychoanalytic clinical practice.