Overview

This book shows how racial perception goes beyond the limits of sight. Drawing on Semiotic Cultural Psychology, it challenges the dominant visuocentric paradigm that equates race with visually apprehended phenotypic traits. Through an in-depth case study of a congenitally blind individual, the author demonstrates that racial distinctions are not self-evident to the senses but emerge through socially mediated, symbolic, and affective processes. Integrating insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and disability studies, the volume explores how race operates as a dynamic, culturally constructed sign within intersubjective relations. It critically revisits Brazilian racial classification systems, affirmative action controversies, and heteroidentification procedures, exposing the contradictions between race as a social construct and the visual essentialism embedded in current practices. The book advances a theoretical framework that reconceptualizes racial identity as a dimension of body image—biopsychosocial, historically situated, and affectively charged. Combining rigorous theoretical analysis with qualitative methodology, Race Beyond Vision: A Semiotic-Cultural Study of Racial Perception and Blindness contributes to debates on race, perception, and embodiment by revealing how blind individuals participate fully in the social construction of race. It will appeal to scholars and graduate students in cultural psychology, critical race studies, semiotics, and disability studies, as well as researchers interested in epistemology and qualitative inquiry.

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9783032153173

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Author Information

Márcio N. de Abreu is a university lecturer, filmmaker, and Jungian analyst. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), with a research internship at the University of Pennsylvania, along with master’s degrees in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies (University of Nottingham) and in Culture and Society (UFBA), as well as a bachelor’s degree in History with a specialization in Cultural Heritage (Catholic University of Salvador). His interdisciplinary academic background informs his current research, which draws on Semiotic Cultural Psychology and Qualitative Epistemology to explore the interfaces between perception, identity, and subjectivity. He is the author of O Efeito Negro Encantado: Representações Étnico-Raciais na Era Obama (Devires, 2018).

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