Black women jurists and the construction of the agenda for education on ethnic-racial relations in Brazil in the 1980s

Considerations on Racial Justice through the Semiotics of Photography

Abstract

This article aims to briefly present aspects of the role played by Law through the pioneering work of two Black Brazilian jurists—Eunice Aparecida de Jesus Prudente and Dora Lúcia Lima Bertúlio—conducted within graduate programs at public Brazilian universities. In their work, they developed arguments that gained traction among activists across various sectors of the country's Black movements during the 1980s—amidst struggles for rights and the restoration of democracy—particularly regarding the need to implement what would later be termed education on ethnic-racial relations (ERER) and anti-racist legal education. The argument is developed in three parts. The first part analyzes the role of social photography as a mediator in disputes over the social meaning of justice, through a brief examination of the relationship between semiotics and Law. The second part analyzes the issue of racial justice and Law as a foundation for debates on ERER from a multicultural perspective. Finally, the article addresses aspects of the pioneering work of the aforementioned Black Brazilian jurists, who founded the field of Law and Ethnic-Racial Relations. The research employed a historical-legal method, utilizing a literature review and pictorial sources analyzed through a technique that bridges the semiotics of photography and the semiotics of law.