Black mothers’ experiences of violence in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This exploratory essay approaches gendered aspects of anti-black violence through the experiences of black mothers whose children were the victims of homicide in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Commonly understood to primarily affect black men, urban violence in Brazil has less-visible effects on black women. Their struggles to survive encompass not only their own fights against poverty, discrimination, and race and gender discrimination, but it also entails the consequences of violent acts perpetrated or facilitated by the state upon black men in their families. However, these experiences are either invisibilized or not taken into consideration in traditional analyses of violence. How can black women’s experiences deepen the analysis of anti-black violence and enrich African diaspora studies? Do the violent deaths of their relatives contribute to black women’s radicalization and activism? What are the main components of their political struggles? This essay addresses these issues in the framework of African diaspora scholarship and black feminist theory.