Luzes para uma face no escuro: a emergência de uma rede de valorização da expressividade afroalagoana

Abstract

Democratic reopening of Brazil in the 1980s is a milestone for a social change in race relations in the country. From then are demanded and taken over several institutional shares of public policy that legitimizes these changes, including affirmative policies and policies for cultural diversity and citizenship. In (co) incidence and dialogue with these phenomena, in Alagoas, enlarges the space of social tolerance for public expression afroalagoanos elements, including the religiosity of African origin. Parallel to this appeal, we see the growing intellectual interest and the agency and legitimacy of cultural agents and groups linked to the symbolic universe of the black in the state. All this coalesced from arguments mobilized in the invention process from three traditions: the Quilombo dos Palmares, Zumbi dos Palmares and the Quebra de Xango de 1912. These social phenomena are investigated and expressed here as the emergence of a network of valuing expressiveness afroalagoana. As part of these dynamics, I did incursions to participant observation in various events and conducted interviews with leading figures of black and expressive movements of Alagoas, and consult legal documents, political and cultural manifestos and the collection of some of the informants. The analysis was done with the aid of symbolic théories, cultural studies and literature survey of the intellectual production of local investigations, not only in the social sciences, but of works that deal with the presence of black and expressiveness in Alagoas, racial policies, religiosity of African origin and related to the topic of afroalagoanidade affairs.