Paper Short Abstract:

This paper discusses how identity politics is transforming Brazilian politics, and more specifically how Blackness is performed and contested by politicians. As they make sense of a changing political landscape, what strategies they use to claim legitimacy (and monopoly) over their own identities?

Paper Abstract:

This paper will discuss how identity politics is transforming electoral competition in Brazil, and more specifically how Blackness is performed, instrumentalised and contested by politicians. Having conducted ethnographic research among politicians and campaign workers, I analyse their often over-looked perspective to understand how these actors make sense of the changing political landscape, their own role in it, and the strategies they use to claim legitimacy (and monopoly) over their own identities. My research spans from 2018 to 2022, covering the exact tenure of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, including field visits and data collection during the three electoral campaign periods that took place during this period. Against this backdrop, my research zooms in on the traditional left-leaning cities of Recife and Olinda (Pernambuco), where the realigning of political forces is affected by national politics at the same time that it makes concrete and explicit some of tensions of global political transformations. My study also offers insights into what Brazilian politics will increasingly become: a political arena where the identities of political candidates are not only central to defining voters' choices but also the locus of competition for legitimacy and hegemony, by answering the following questions: Who is allowed to claim Blackness as a political platforms? Is Blackness as a political identity a monopoly of the Left? What are the expectations for those who do capitalize on Blackness? What happens to politicians who cannot claim minoritised identities, as they lose space to new and often younger politicians?