Representations of Africa Between Will, Body, and Death: Philosophy, Social Imaginary, and Necropolitics
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article critically analyzes the representations of Africa in the Western and Brazilian social imaginary, understanding them as historical constructions linked to relations of power, domination, and exclusion. Through the articulation of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy, Frantz Fanon's anti-colonial critique, Achille Mbembe's theory of necropolitics, Serge Moscovici's theory of social representations, and the contributions of Abdias do Nascimento, Kabengele Munanga, and bell hooks, it investigates how Africa has been converted into an object of colonial representation and racialization. The study demonstrates that such representations operate as epistemological, political, and ontological devices that legitimize practices of dehumanization, symbolic genocide, and epistemicide. It concludes that the reconstruction of the image of Africa requires a decolonization of knowledge, capable of repositioning African and Afro-diasporic subjects as protagonists in the production of knowledge, memories, and plural forms of existence.
Author: Everton Nery Carneiro
Institution: Universidade do Estado da Bahia
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7163704142
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