Ausências estampadas: uma análise numismática sobre a invisibilidade de grupos marginalizados nas emissões das cédulas monetárias do Brasil de 1942 à 2020

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the representations – or lack thereof – of historically marginalized groups on banknotes issued by the Brazilian State between 1942 and 2020, through the identification and quantification of the banknotes, distinguishing their respective representativeness. The research is based on the principle that money, beyond its seemingly obvious economic function of facilitating exchanges, also constitutes a political and cultural artifact, serving various uses and purposes, such as forging the construction of images of power, exalting and perpetuating memories of political leaders, or even the identities of groups or nations. By investigating which characters and symbols were used to represent monetary issues, this study sought to understand whether this was a historical process that generated erasures and invisibilities of specific social groups – such as indigenous people, Black people, and women, especially – in a republican regime that, in its founding moments, was inspired by the Positivist school of thought of Auguste Comte, which tended strongly to overvalue economically and politically privileged groups. The analysis was based on approaches from social history and emerging political history, especially in the last decades of the 20th century, in dialogue with discussions on identity, gender, memory, and social representations. The primary sources for the elaboration of the work were the national banknotes themselves, read and interpreted in light of specialized bibliographies on these intersecting and dialoguing themes. The proposal also aimed to demonstrate the role of numismatics as an auxiliary field within history, valuing its critical potential in research. It was concluded that the erasure of the aforementioned groups was intentional and strategic, perpetrated by political groups that were in control of a state and nation built on slave-like, highly exclusionary, and unequal relationships.