Gender and race in Xica da Silva

A cinderela negra, by Ana Miranda

Abstract

This paper offers a reading of the intersectionality between race and gender in Brazil from the colonial period, having as corpus the work Xica da Silva: a cinderela negra, by the Brazilian author Ana Miranda, and the political and socio- historical eighteenth century country. The main purpose of the research is to analyze the place occupied by women in current feminist literary productions in the work in question. In the Brazilian case, it is important to verify how this place reflects the cultural formation of the country, in view of the gender / race intersectionality. In the perspective of interlocution between literature and politics, the methodological procedures of the study are based on bibliographical research and content analysis, with the contribution of the notion of intersectionality. The idea defended is that the record of the history of women propitiates other re-readings of the official history, with narratives that can be marked by the passage from a social position of subalternity to that of valuation and legitimation of the accepted social voice between the literary production circulation in the cultural field. In these terms, the literary work will serve as a proposal for a reading of the intersectionality between race and gender in the colonial historical context. The results of the study indicate that Xica da Silva was unique, considered as a case of exception of the condition of the black woman in Brazil.