Publications

Abstract

While an abundance of research focuses on how Black American entrepreneurs respond to systemic racism, less attention has been paid to examining how Black entrepreneurs outside the United States respond. This research addresses the extent to which entrepreneurship is a response to systematic racism, and “Black” businesses exist in a “color-blind” society. I examine Brazil because of its color-blind racial ideology; moreover, Afro-Brazilians comprise 54 percent of the country’s population and 50 percent of its entrepreneurs. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews at 28 Black-owned businesses, I find Afro-Brazilians challenge anti-Blackness through a process I call aquilombamento. As a method of entrepreneurial placemaking, I argue that aquilombamento enables Afro-Brazilian entrepreneurs to intentionally construct culturally significant physical spaces that openly resist and challenge the existing racial order. Aquilombamento functions through three mechanisms: (1) the entrepreneurs make Black culture readily perceivable, (2) the entrepreneurs center Black knowledge and understanding, and (3) the entrepreneurs conceive a community. In explicating aquilombamento, I illustrate an economic and symbolic value system that privileges Blackness in a “color-blind” society. I identify a critical distinction between Black-owned businesses and Black businesses. And, I underscore the important role of entrepreneurs in Black placemaking.

Citation: Murphy, Demetrius Miles. 2022. “Aquilombamento, Entrepreneurial Black Placemaking in An Anti-Black City.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 8(2):235-49. 

Abstract

In 2013, the number of Black entrepreneurs surpassed the number of White entrepreneurs in Brazil. Of those Black entrepreneurs, 30 percent were women. In Brazil, gendered racism often stereotypes Black women as domestic servants or hypersexual. Despite the robust literature on Afro-Brazilians generally and Afro-Brazilian women particularly, Afro-Brazilian women entrepreneurs, their experiences, and their strategies for competing in the market and resisting gendered racism remain under-theorized. I use semi-structured interviews with Black women entrepreneurs to explain the relationship between gendered racism and Black entrepreneurship. My findings show that Afro-Brazilian women entrepreneurs actively defy and redefine the standard images of entrepreneurs and Black women in Brazil. They contest the treatment of Black women as objects of the market by situating themselves as agentic players by challenging gendered racism through two entrepreneurial cultural strategies: (1) engaging in dignity work and (2) employing a women-first imperative. By centering the experience of Afro-Brazilian women, I contribute to the entrepreneurship literature, Africana Studies, and Latin American Studies.

Citation: Murphy, Demetrius Miles. 2023. ““Quem pode ser a dona?”: Afro-Brazilian Women Entrepreneurs and Gendered Racism.”Gender, Work & Organization: 1-17.

Abstract

The historically dominant ideology, racial ambiguity, has structured Brazilian beliefs, opinions, and worldviews. Its antithesis, racial affirmation, has gained wider acceptance on a national scale due to Brazil’s Black movement and affirmative action policies. Which racial ideology do Brazilians employ within the context of police killings of Afro-Brazilians? Do Brazilians emphasize racial stories and ethnoracial categories of ambiguity or affirmation? I use computational text analysis and qualitative interpretation of Twitter data in Portuguese from 2019 to 2021 to analyze five prominent Brazilian cases of racial violence—Pedro Gonzaga, Ágatha Félix, João Pedro, João Alberto, and Kathlen Romeu. These cases create opportunities to examine the contours and tensions of Brazilian racial ideologies on social media. Across the five cases, I find Brazilians primarily use the ethnoracial category negro and foreground stories of racial affirmation. These racial stories align with the frames and identities the Black movement has struggled to promote for generations. In contrast to earlier scholarship that notes the ineffectiveness of the Black movement in Brazil to create a mass movement or a popular negro identity, I find the Black movement’s framing and ethnoracial category resonate with urban Brazilian Twitter users.

Citation: Murphy, Demetrius Miles. 2024. "Affirming Blackness in a “Colorblind” Anti-Black Nation: How Brazilians Negotiate Police Killings of Afro-Brazilians."Sociology of Race and Ethnicity