Plantation, Race and Racialism: back to the infrastructure- superstructure nexus

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8034.2026.e111154

Keywords:

Plantation Economy, Infrastructure, Superstructure, Ideology, Race

Abstract

Rather than engaging in hermeneutic-theological type of debates over Marx’s sacred writings and their key concepts, in this article I will focus on his legacy – to which we are often indebted, whether we acknowledge it or not. I will start by addressing that legacy via the exam of an intellectual genealogy across some decades between history and anthropology. I will then discuss the infrastructure-superstructure articulations with reference to my own research on plantation economies and the making of racialism. The discussion will lead to the main point: how the plantation economy, or infrastructure, generates the ideology, or superstructure, of racialism.

Author Biography

Cristiana Bastos

Investigadora-coordenadora no Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa. O trabalho situa-se na intersecção entre as disciplinas de antropologia, história e estudos sociais da ciência, da tecnologia e da medicina, tendo abordado dinâmicas populacionais, mobilidades transnacionais, biopolítica colonial, medicina e o império, história social da saúde e do bem-estar e, nos últimos anos, os processos de racialização nas sociedades de plantação e as interações entre humanos e plantas. Trabalhou em diversos contextos etnográficos e históricos – nordeste do Algarve, Brasil urbano, América do Norte, Goa colonial, Moçambique e Angola, Hawaii e Guiana. Lecionou em programas de pós-graduação nas Universidades de Lisboa, Coimbra, ISCTE, Brown University, Universidade de Massachusetts (Dartmouth e Lowell), UNICAMP e UERJ; foi pesquisadora visitante no East-West Center, na University of Hawaii at Manoa, e no Global Health Program de Harvard. Os seus trabalhos podem ser consultados em https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/pessoa/cristiana-bastos e em https://cristianabastos.org/

 

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Published

2026-09-28

How to Cite

BASTOS, Cristiana. Plantation, Race and Racialism: back to the infrastructure- superstructure nexus. Ilha Revista de Antropologia, Florianópolis, v. 28, p. 1–20, 2026. DOI: 10.5007/2175-8034.2026.e111154. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/ilha/article/view/111154. Acesso em: 7 oct. 2026.

Issue

Vol. 28 (2026)

Section

Dossiê Antropologias de inspiração marxista em contextos rurais

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