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In this article, the authors analyze Brazil’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic through a critical analytical lens, utilizing the concepts of necropolitics and gore capitalism to identify its underlying social and politico-economic approach, which they argue are more persistent problems than the pandemic itself.
A Health agent of the City of Rio de Janeiro performs a COVID-19 rapid test on Aloizio dos Santos, 78, while another writes down the information of the person at Morro da Mangueira (favela) on September 3, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Aloizio is part of the risk group and says that during the pandemic he had hypertension symptoms. His test result was positive.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive human suffering just as much as it heightened pre-existing socio-economic and political issues. Brazil, where over 700,000 people perished, offers one of the starkest cases as Black and Indigenous lives were particularly neglected through a hands-off approach. While commonly characterized as mismanagement, the authors argue that the Bolsonaro administration’s strategy instead represents a case of malgovernance—where deliberate (in)action rather than technical inaptitude accounts for the policies adopted. They draw from detailed account-taking of the government’s actions (and calculated inactions) throughout 2020 to 2022 to offer an elaborate analysis of Brazil’s case through the lens of necropolitics and gore capitalism. The authors expose how a libertarian self-reliance ethic, with racist undertones, joined together with boundless capital accumulation to create a social Darwinist approach to the handling of COVID-19 in Brazil. The malgovernance of the pandemic thus reveals deeper issues that in time may become manifest in newer, grimmer forms.
Feature / Rates of deforestation and conversion linked to the expansion of soy production in Brazil increased according to the latest Trase data for 2021–2022.
Perspective / Trase outlines its recommendations to make the best use of the one-year delay in the implementation of the EU deforestation regulation (EUDR).
Perspective / Trase’s co-directors write that proposed amendments to the EU deforestation regulations are not based on evidence and could breach free-trade rules.
