Unmixing for Race Making in Brazil

This article analyzes race-targeted policy in Brazil as both a political stake and a powerful instrument in an unfolding classificatory struggle over the definition of racial boundaries. The Brazilian state traditionally embraced mixed-race classification, but is adopting racial quotas employing a black/ white scheme. To explore potential consequences of that turn for beneficiary identification and boundary formation, the author analyzes attitudinal survey data on race-targeted policy and racial classification in multiple formats, including classification in comparison to photographs. The results show that almost half of the mixed-race sample, when constrained to dichotomous classification, opts for whiteness, a majority rejects mixed-race individuals for quotas, and the mention of quotas for blacks in a split-ballot experiment nearly doubles the percentage choosing that racial category. Theories of how states make race emphasize the use of official categories to legislate exclusion. In contrast, analysis of the Brazilian case illuminates how states may also make race through policies of official inclusion.