Towards a critical approach to raciality in the Brazilian public health field: a debate on the production of knowledge about racial relations in health

Abstract

Based on the theoretical and socio-political perspectives that emerge from radical black thought and critical racial studies, this article seeks to carry out a critical analysis of the epistemological and political approach to raciality in the field of public health today, starting from the scenario of the absence of black perspectives in the process of constituting the Brazilian public health field. We carried out a literature review, based on systematic review procedures, with the aim of collecting only studies dealing with racial issues. We defined a time frame for analyzing works published in the three years prior to the study (2022-2024), and we chose to analyze only the journal Saúde e Sociedade, owing to its interdisciplinary focus and because we understand that its publications have an important potential impact and influence on the circulation of ideas in the field. Nonetheless, this study has made significant critical and theoretical contributions, given the small number of studies found and the lack of a debate that considers the complexity of the racial issue, which contributes to the demand for a sociopolitical and epistemological reorganization within the process of reforesting the field’s perspectives in the face of the current challenges of the SUS.