Out of the analysis of the relation between state practices of punishment, slaverist discipline and legal discourse in nineteenth-century Brasil, the article underlines the significance of the Foucaultian perspective to understand the practices of both the production of subjection and the legal discourse in contemporary societies. The text suggests the necessary articulation between the issues and methods proposed by Foucault, and the results of the historical research about the structural and cultural particularities of the Brazilian society.
State Practices of Punishment; Slaverist Discipline; Legal Discourse; Nineteenth-Century Brazil; Michel Foucault