Necropolitics and Necrocapitalism: The Impact of COVID-19 on Brazilian Creative Economy

Abstract

The aim is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian creative economy, based on the concepts of necropolitics (Mbembe, 2003, 2018) and necrocapitalism (Tyner, 2019). The main argument indicates, also in line with Pelbart (2018) and Medeiros (2019), that the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced a political division between those who may or may not die, since some lives are considered disposable, especially those of creative professionals who have unstable and precarious conditions of work and are inserted in sec-tors seen as superfluous by the Brazilian state. Many of these people represent social minorities, who are the main targets of the economic and social death policies that have their legacy in violent practices linked to Brazilian coloniza-tion and slavery.