"Aquilombamento" as a Potentializing Praxis for Black Existences in Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Black Studies and Archaeology" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

To date, the archaeology program at the Federal University of Sergipe, in northeastern Brazil, doesn’t offer an African Diaspora course at undergraduate level. Such an absence points to the epistemic violence pervasive in the teaching of archaeology, particularly blatant in a region with a predominantly Black population. In this work, I intend to use the theoretical concept of “aquilombamento” as a basis to offer an alternative pedagogical approach of archaeology. Introduced by Afrobrazilian historian Maria Beatriz do Nascimento, such a term emerges from a re-understanding of the Quilombo that goes beyond its common definition as a historical maroon camp, and rather considers it as a form of social and political organization outside the hegemonic colonial society that is marked by Black people’s agency and extends itself until after Abolition, in the twentieth century. “Aquilombamento”, or maroon-izing, constitutes a guiding avenue to elaborate a counter-pedagogy proposal for Black students of archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Black Studies and Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology