"Bacurau": a metaphor of racialised Brazilian territories

Abstract

The film Bacurau is the object of this article. It approaches Bacurau, a ficcional name, as an analogy about the Cangaço and a sort of winnig Canudos which can be represented by Bacarau in its social composition and in its spacial marginality. The article compares the landscape, the killings, and the lack of urban infrastructure in Bacurau’s territory to people’s images, struggles and resistence in racialized territories. It uses the concepts of biopolitics and necropolitics in the making of a brief review of Brazilian social and political history from the Cangaço and the War of Canudos to Bolsonaro’s election as the president – the historical context of Bacurau’s shoting and releasing. The article concludes that Bacurau is a symbol of the historical resistence of Brazilian racialized peoples and their struggle for the right of life and for the territory itself, much beyond a distopia of an imagined future in the social and political context of the 2018 presidential election.