Destabilizing the National Hegemonic Narrative

Abstract

Theories of decolonization (principally those of Dussel, Quijano, and Mignolo), hold that knowledge is produced not from a neutral and universal position but from the different positions of actors within a hierarchical structure of power. Analysis of the thought of Brazil’s unionized domestic workers as a subaltern voice reveals that these workers’ political activism produces a form of knowledge that articulates class, race, and gender and allows us to problematize the national hegemonic narrative, destabilizing the hegemonic cultural meanings structured by the myths of racial democracy and the good master.