"Triangulation between Law, History and Literature: an overview of the construction of paid domestic work under the mediation of black hermeneutics (1888-1988)".
law; history; literature; hermeneutics; domestic work; black women;
This dissertation analyzes, under the mediation of black hermeneutics, the construction of paid domestic work in Brazil, especially regarding the period between post slavery abolition and the overthrow of the civil-military dictatorship (1888-1988). Therefore, it is based on a triangulation between Law, History and Literature (KARAM, STRECK, 2018). It seeks to understand the realities surrounding domestic work in Brazil, the difficulties around legislating on the subject, the unequal juridical-labor status of the category when compared to other workers, and the persistent "servants' crisis" (JOÃO DO RIO, 1910) conveyed by the employers' language. This is done through an analysis of journalistic material, legal norms, Brazilian literature, and discourses of the unionized struggle of domestic workers - with emphasis on the last two, it is highlighted the trajectory of Dona Laudelina de Campos Melo (PINTO, 1993) and the literature of fiction-truth contained in the prose written by Conceição Evaristo. This unveils a system of violence and images of control linked to the figures of black women in the category of domestic workers, placing them in a non-place of existence, the Other, an object-being, holders of various obligations and duties, but without any privileges or perks, always suspected and watched. Moreover, they had their labor forces used as economic support for Brazilian capitalism and for the white heteronormative nuclear family. Their bodies and their children are the main targets of state violence (COLLINS, 2019; GONZALEZ,2020; CARNEIRO, 2005; FLAUZINA, 2006, 2014). By interweaving these narratives with the “pretuguês” (black distinction of the portuguese language) accounts of the domestic workers' struggle for rights and the writings of black women, we find “ginga” and “quilombismo” as fundamental tactics for confronting the rules of silencing and constructing a new hermeneutic of the normative universe that surrounds us. (GONZALEZ,2020; CERTEAU, 2000; EVARISTO, 2009; BARBOSA, SANTOS, 1994; NASCIMENTO, 2002; COVER,
2016)