Abstract
Since WHO’s statement of a pandemic of the new coronavirus, new habits and health security methods have been developed and adopted in order to contain the contagion spread. However, the stipulated methods are mainly conceived from a Western logic. They protect an abstract human being, disregarding the multiplicities that differentiate us, especially in the countries of the Global South. This paper analyzed the articulations between a specific method - the use of masks to protect against contamination - and singular bodies of part of the population that are exposed to different social vulnerabilities and marked by racial inequality. The masks that partially cover the face, when coupled with the bodies of black people, produce vulnerability, fear and death. These are different effects from the intended protection by the use of masks, owing to the necropolitical regime associated with the accumulation of inequalities and racism, structural conditions that are characteristics of the coloniality experienced in cities such as Rio de Janeiro.
Keywords:
Pandemics; Mask; Black population; Racism; Necropolitics