Between the maid's room and other spaces: the Black body, heterotopias, and utopias in the pandemic

ABSTRACT Supported by decolonial studies from authors such as Carneiro (2020), Davis (2016, 1983), Moore (2017), Almeida (2018), Vergès (2020, 2021) and Vida (2021), as well as by the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia (Foucault 2013b[1967], 1984), the present work aims to analyze how the discourse-body of the Black woman domestic worker is demarcated by utopias juxtaposed to heterotopias during the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19. In order to do this, we propose an analysis of the webcomics strip Senzala, part of the series Confinada (2020), which has been circulating on the social media platform Instagram since 2020, during the pandemic. The webstrip leads us to a discursive reading about how the social imaginary manifests itself in the construction of these spaces (utopian and heterotopic) and in the constitution of the subject Black woman domestic worker. Specifically, we investigated how the body-discourse of the Black woman domestic worker is demarcated by utopias and heterotopias from the space of the maid's room, especially between 2020 and 2021, a period in which we experienced lockdown due to the aforementioned pandemic. We understand that the maid's room constitutes a modern heterotopia that, by evoking the slave quarters from the time of slavery, reveals a lot about modern society. The reproduction of this time-space persists in our current society, exemplified by the maid's room, which would function as a modern slave quarters. The maid's room represents a heterotopia that reflects and perpetuates power relationships and inequality between employers and employees, especially considering the racial and class context. KEYWORDS: Black Maid; Slave quarters; Maid's Room; Utopia; Heterotopia.