Pelotas pequena África: territorialidade negra a partir das Festas Black

Abstract

This thesis is a retrospective of the historical process of the presence of Africans in southern Brazil. Has a non-Eurocentric trajectory that allows a vision of Africa in Brazil, observing the importance of the kidnapped black people, who, in perpetuating themselves, contributed to the construction of the Brazilian people, and more specific, those of Rio Grande do Sul. The second moment deals with cultural spaces in dialogue with blackness, considering the understanding of one of the fundamental issues in this context of society, cultural spaces and the construction of identities. The main objective of the investigation is the Afrocentric cultural forms that are processed in the Black Parties, considering them as spaces and forms of black visibility in Pelotas, RS. In this way, I observe some points that I consider important about Brazil, about what it means to be black in this country, about black visibility and invisibility, about my perception of Afrocentric cultural forms and spaces. The guiding principle is the ethnography of the Festas Blacks in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, something that was and still is present in my life. The questionings made scientifically are answered and demonstrate, since then, in the origin in Africa, until now, post-enslavement Brazilian territory, how we perceive in our terreiros of umbanda and batuque of the south and that black music and black parties present themselves as territorialization. A party territory that in this city punctuates an expressive presence of Africa. The thesis presents the constant action of repression and marginalization developed through the social system structured in the denial of black people. The system, when it is convenient, recognizes this cultural manifestation, but when it is not convenient, it uses the so-called “legality” to impose its non-fulfilment. “Despite the regrets”, it remains in our days, as a result against all negative interventions, even if subjugated to the laws of society with still slave-holding and colonialist convictions. The actors involved make themselves available for the maintenance of this cultural legacy, which was built in Pelotas and passed from generation to generation, with a lot of commitment, with a lot of affection and affectation, and that promote meetings of blackness. The thesis presents the Afrocentric territory, loaded with the heritage of our civilization matrix, with the ancestral legacy, giving continuity to the dynamics of the parties that brings together the black collective, which is dialectically connected between past, present and future, bringing together different generations in a process, which reveals belonging and resistance. It is a resistance of me, of my ancestors and of the actors involved here who re-present the Afro-descendants residing in this Pelotas as a small Africa