Heteroidentification, the judiciary and collective biographies: racial backlash in decisional grammars

Abstract

This article examines the disputes over justificatory moralities underlying the judicialization of heteroidentification in the federal civil service. The central objective is to investigate how the adjudicators' biographical profiles and habitus modulate decisional grammars in challenges to racial self-declarations. Grounded in Luc Boltanski’s sociology of critique and Frantz Fanon’s sociogenesis, this qualitative and documentary research employs prosopography to map the educational, professional, and political trajectories of the magistrates. The empirical corpus comprises 30 rulings issued between 2016 and 2021 by the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4), which accounted for 77% of such litigation during the period. Results reveal a polarization between the theory of commission autonomy (collective reparation) and the grey zone theory (restoration of the meritocratic status quo). We conclude that the TRF4, by deploying the notion of “reasonable doubt,” operates as a mechanism of silent racial backlash, through which the biographical agency of the judicial elite inscribes moralities that curtail the scope of affirmative action policies.