Skins that bloom gardens: black reason and modes of subjectivation among peripheral youths

Abstract

This article derives from a research project that aimed to problematize the effects of Black Reason on the processes of subjectivation of Black, Indigenous, and peripheral youths in the city of Fortaleza (CE), analyzing both the racializing dispositifs of capture and the strategies of re-existence developed by these subjects. The research is situated as a cartographically oriented inter(in)vention. Through artistic workshops and participation in cultural and political manifestations in the territory of Grande Bom Jardim, scenes were analyzed that reveal how Black Reason operates as a dispositif of subjectivation that institutes racializing and colonial overcodifications. However, the fieldwork also pointed to singular modes of self-creation, in which peripheral youths produce counter-narratives and re-existence practices grounded in their own aesthetics, Afro-Indigenous communal experiences, and collective resistance dispositifs. Emphasis is placed on strategies and tactics such as the redistribution of violence, the construction of existential territories of aquilombamento, and the narrative repositioning and re-elaboration through art. The study highlights the creative power of peripheral youths in crafting other narrative and existential politics that destabilize the colonial logic inherent in Black Reason and claim possible worlds where their singular expressions of Blackness may flourish.