This dissertation argues that Black mothering is the re-creation of Black sociability in the African Diaspora in the face of the ways in which genocide attempts to eliminate black existence. Therefore, I argue for an approach to African Diaspora as creating, nurturing, resisting, and recuperative acts as an alternative to genocidal practices, which constitutes black mothering. Concerning genocidal practices, this dissertation focuses mainly on anti-black violence, specifically male-on-male and state-sponsored violence; although with an understanding that genocide also manifests itself through many other ways. The choice to focus on male-on-male and state violence is because I understand them as being the ultimate alternative to put forward genocidal ideologies when others fail. Thus, understanding the violent killing of the black population as the most visible expression of genocide in the African Diaspora, I want to confront them with their alternative, which is the given social, cultural, and biological significance of motherhood, i.e., to generate and nurture life. Therefore, my ethnographic project explores Black mothers’ experiences of violence in Rio de Janeiro’s poorest areas. Their struggle to survive encompasses not only their own fight against poverty, racism, patriarchy, and gender discrimination but also entails the consequences of violent acts perpetrated or facilitated by the state upon their families. Engaging with the analytical concept of Outraged Mothering, this dissertation builds bridges between African Diaspora Studies and the Anthropology of Emotions by applying a Black Feminist perspective in order to perceive Black mothers’ social-political insertion in society as well as their pedagogies of resistance. My research methods include participant observation, semi-structured interviews, oral histories, and documentary photography conducted in an extended period of seventeen months of fieldwork research between 2011 and 2012. This project embraces activism as a learning experience in the collaboration with the mothers in struggle, and employs auto-ethnography as a way to think critically through the researcher’s emotions while conducting and writing the project. This project aims to enhance developing literature on Black motherhood in Brazil and explores Black lives in the African Diaspora through an analytical framework that presents emotion as a catalytic stimulus for the rise of radical political projects. / text

[pt] A dissertação enfoca o racismo obstétrico e suas dimensões históricas e sociais no contexto brasileiro, especialmente seu impacto na maternidade das mulheres negras, abordando os efeitos psicológicos persistentes desde a gestação até o pós-parto. A pesquisa busca compreender como as experiências de racismo obstétrico influenciam a construção da maternidade das mulheres negras bem como analisa a relação entre a mãe e o filho após possíveis traumas obstétricos, explorando os aspectos psicológicos envolvidos. A abordagem metodológica foi fundamentada nos princípios da Psicologia Narrativa, que destaca a relevância das histórias na construção da identidade e da experiência humana. A psicologia contribui para uma compreensão mais completa e contextualizada do racismo obstétrico no Brasil. Este fenômeno, que se manifesta por meio de práticas discriminatórias e racismo obstétrico direcionadas a mulheres negras, tem sido pouco abordado nos âmbitos acadêmico e literário. A ausência de conhecimento e discussões sobre o racismo obstétrico contribui para a perpetuação de desigualdades raciais e para a invisibilidade das experiências das mulheres negras no contexto da assistência ao parto. Portanto, há uma urgente necessidade de mais pesquisas e estudos abrangentes sobre o tema, a fim de ampliar a conscientização e valorização destas mulheres, garantindo uma assistência obstétrica justa e igualitária para todas. / [en] The thesis focuses on obstetric racism and its historical and social dimensions in the Brazilian context, especially its impact on black women s motherhood, addressing lingering psychological effects from pregnancy to postpartum. The research seeks to understand how experiences of obstetric racism influence the construction of motherhood for black women, as well as analyzing the relationship between mother and child after possible obstetric traumas, exploring the psychological aspects involved. The methodological approach was grounded in the principles of Narrative Psychology, which emphasizes the relevance of stories in the construction of identity and human experience. Psychology contributes to a more complete and contextualized understanding of obstetric racism in Brazil. This phenomenon, which manifests itself through discriminatory practices and obstetric violence directed at black women, has been little addressed in academic and literary fields. The absence of knowledge and discussions about obstetric racism contributes to the perpetuation of racial inequalities and invisibility of black women s experiences in the context of childbirth care. Therefore, there is an urgent need for more comprehensive research and studies on the topic, in order to increase awareness and appreciation of these women, ensuring fair and equal assistance.

This essay examines Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl from the perspective of resistance theory. The essay uses the analytical framework created by Anna Johansson and Stellan Vinthagen in Conceptualizing 'Everyday Resistance': A Transdisciplinary Approach (2020) to concretize and understand different resistance methods and how black women resisted while navigating in society as slaves and as mothers. Resistance theory and methodology is a newer research area in literature studies, and this study attempts to add to that research field to broaden the understanding of Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography from a resistance perspective point of view. Johansson and Vinthagen’s analytical framework uses four different aspects to capture conceptual and situational combinations of everyday resistance and relationships existing between agents and powerholders. This study finds that motherhood and communal resistance motivate and influence Jacobs's will to continue fighting for liberty and explains how Jacobs’s everyday resistance actions create a feeling of meaning and agency in her life.

[pt] A dissertação discute políticas de memória e luto em face da violência anti-negro em uma perspectiva transnacional, visando compreender as formas como elas ocorrem na diáspora negra e voltando o olhar ao Estado Brasileiro. Para isso, tenho como centralidade familiares que perderam seus filhos para a violência policial, dando um foco especial para as mães dos movimentos de mães contra a violência, e a partir dos seus relatos discuto a forma como as famílias são afetadas e lidam com o trauma da violência racial. O objetivo geral é compreender como em face ao luto e ao trauma os familiares se tornam ativistas e se engajam numa luta por justiça e memória. A vista disso, realizo um estudo de caso sobre o memorial da Chacina do Jacarezinho, onde são discutidas as (im)possobilidades de luto e memória, bem como as disputas políticas inscritas na sua construção e destruição. / [en] The dissertation discusses memory and mourning policies in the face of anti-black violence from a transnational perspective, addressing the ways in which they occur in the black diaspora and returning the gaze to the Brazilian State. For this, I focus on families who lost their children to police violence, giving a special focus to mothers from mothers movements against violence, and based on their reports, I discuss the way in which families are affected and deal with the trauma of racial violence. The general objective is to understand how, in the face of grief and trauma, family members become activists and engage in a fight for justice and memory. Thus, we carried out a case study on the Jacarezinho Mass memorial, where the (im)possibilities of mourning and memory are discussed, as well as the political disputes involved in its construction and destruction.

Through a content analysis of the maternal relationships in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers Gardens, the author evaluates how southern black women writers construct black motherhood. This study is based on the premise that Eurocentric paradigms of motherhood confine black mothers to controlling images that continue to criminalize, distort, and devalue black motherhood. The researcher finds that the institution of black motherhood exists independently of Eurocentric paradigms. The conclusions drawn from these findings suggest that black women writers construct motherhood in terms of Womanist leadership. In the aforementioned memoirs, Womanist leadership is learned and defined in the black church. In summation, this thesis finds that southern black women writers use spiritual reconciliation as a form of Womanist leadership.