Vozes Insurgentes de empregadas domésticas no Brasil: uma leitura crítica da herança colonial,subalternização e supressão de direitos em Solitária, de Eliana Alves Cruz

Abstract

This study proposes proposes a critical analysis of the novel Solitária (2022), by Brazilian writer Eliana Alves Cruz, from a countercolonial and intersectional perspective, with an emphasis on representations of domestic labor in Brazil. The study is grounded in the premise that domestic work, predominantly performed by Black women, constitutes one of the most enduring legacies of the colonial slave-based system, sustained by racialized, patriarchal, and class-based power structures. The research seeks to understand how the characters Eunice and Mabel articulate, within the literary narrative, experiences of subalternization, resistance, and the erasure of rights, thereby revealing the historical and social links between race, gender, and social class. The analysis mobilizes the concepts of colonialism and coloniality—of power, knowledge, and being—to examine how these structural matrices have shaped and continue to shape Brazilian society, particularly with regard to the exclusion of Black women and the naturalization of domestic labor as a space of subordination. Within this framework, literature is understood as a site of social critique and symbolic reparation, establishing an interdisciplinary dialogue between Law and Literature that problematizes the persistence of seigneurial logic and relations of domination in contemporary contexts. A critical reading of Solitária demonstrates how the literary narrative constructs the domestic space as one marked by hierarchies, symbolic violence, and erasure, while simultaneously revealing strategies of resistance and the contestation of power structures. The research adopts a qualitative approach and a hypothetical-deductive method, engaging with authors such as Aníbal Quijano, María Lugones, Frantz Fanon, Sueli Carneiro, and Lélia Gonzalez, among others, through an intersectional perspective focused on analyzing the dynamics of oppression experienced by the characters. The methodology combines bibliographical and documentary research with literary analysis, contributing to studies that intersect culture, literature, human rights, and social justice. By demonstrating how literary narratives can problematize the historical invisibility of domestic workers and challenge the coloniality that continues to structure the Brazilian social imaginary, the dissertation reflects on the role of literature as a means of resistance, visibility, and social transformation, proposing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the fields of Law, Literature, and the Social Sciences.