Racialization and professional interactions: A case study of a Domestic and Family Violence Court in São Paulo, Brazil

This article examines how judicial clerks articulate discourses on professionalism and racialization. Focusing on mid-level public servants in the Brazilian Judiciary, the study analyzes their daily interactions within a Domestic and Family Violence Court in São Paulo. We argue that professional and racial identification processes are not fixed essences, such as “being a Black clerk,” but processes of becoming. They are permeated by experience, drawing on race as a “sliding signifier” and on identification as hybrid and fluid. Whiteness, in turn, is not totalizing but acquires a universal meaning as a privileged place predetermined by being white. We employed an ethnographic methodology combining participant observation, field notes, and semi-structured interviews with 15 clerks. Our findings show racialization as a dynamic, contextual process tied to professional practice and ideology, further complicated by heteroidentification committees in public examinations. The workings of these committees generate new disputes over racial belonging and reaffirm its fluidity. Narratives on racial inequality in the Judiciary also tend to emphasize socioeconomic barriers over discriminatory practices.