O Orixá que dança é um corpo negro em movimento: uma etnografia sobre existências e resistências negras gaúchas

Abstract

By analyzing the Brazilian slavery past, different ethnic-racial issues that guide the construction of the nation can be stressed. The strong African influence in the process of formation of Afro-Brazilian culture is noticeable. Through the slave trade, millions of Africans left the continent, being involuntarily taken to Brazil in order to carry out compulsory labor. In order to comprehend the impact and complexity, it is necessary to carry out studies that make it possible to understand these black bodies and cultures resisting the contemporary structural racism, a consequence of historical processes of enslavement in our society. This research intends to promote a reflection that analyzes some individual and collective resistance processes in the constitution of the black body and its territories. It intends to explore issues concerning the so-called Afro-Brazilian studies, particularly as regards to mythical culture, with its own notion of time, an important producer of performances in different religions and cultural practices originating from the Brazilian African matrix. Through observation and fieldwork, different mediations were perceived that create the conditions for the acquisition of this black body that resists. These mediations manifest themselves in controversies that build meanings from/to the world. For action in the field, learning through affectation was essential, as this is the possibility of distinguishing the knowledge that makes us perceive the intensity and breadth of the theme. The ritual magic is referenced through the body, it is in the orixá mythical body that the bodies of those are present constituted. Not just dance, but a composition between music and movement that produces energy and purpose. This research was developed in the regions of Porto Alegre and Pelotas, RS, Brazil, taking into account the characteristics and history of the region, and the strong presence of descendants of enslaved people, religious houses and practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions.