"Face of thief": a brief essay on the disarticulations to colonialism from the short story "The theories of Dr. Caruru", by Lima Barreto

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the disarticulations to colonialism expressed by the Brazilian author Lima Barreto in his short story The theories of Dr. Caruru, weaving, through a linguistic-scientific narrative, possible ways for the ideological dismantling produced by European scientism intrinsic to the cultural sphere through racial theories, still considered today from the point of view of criminalized subjects, raising the expression “face of thief” intermediated by such medical theories, founding structural racism in socio-criminal and penal ways and the imagery construction of the black subject from its phenotypic characteristics. This study presents results that are directly related to the socio-cultural problems currently faced by the black population in Brazil, having as a result a historical-cultural diagnosis, parallel to the impregnations of the pseudosciences of race in the constructive processes of Brazilian cultural developments, which fundamentally integrate the knowledge about the nation in its identity sphere, through the criticality indicated by the bibliographic review of such approached objects and their discursive fields, seeking to catch their characteristics and relationships. The analysis promoted highlights the need for elusive theoretical-methodological materials, which commit to a reconfiguration of the margins of these cultural productions through the fabrication of knowledge of Eurocentric scientific absolutism.