Racial hetero-identification in Brazil: preliminary evidence of non-dichotomous perceptions

Abstract

The pardo category in Brazil has been associated solely with the miscegenation between Blacks and Whites, making other racial backgrounds invisible. Based on this observation, this article aimed to describe patterns of racial classification, focusing on pardos. An online survey was conducted with 440 participants from 16 Brazilian states, featuring 32 models who had to be classified into the official Brazilian racial categories. A chi-square analysis was performed using SPSS. Twelve of the presented models were perceived as pardos. Heterogeneity was observed within this group: four were associated with “descendants of Indigenous people”, while eight were seen as “Afro-descendants”. Northern/Northeastern participants had more difficulty classifying pardos with African features as Black and were also stricter in classifying Whites compared to Center-Southerners. The findings indicate that racial classification is not dichotomous, as people of Indigenous descent are also classified as pardos, even though they’re not Black, leading to their exclusion from current hetero-identification processes.