Ancestralidade e identidade negra feminina em Conceição Evaristo, Alzira Rufino, Alda Espírito Santo e Conceição Lima

Abstract

This dissertation engages in a critical discussion of literary production authored by Black women. The study mobilizes four fundamental female voices in the composition of a corpus comprising the poetic works Poemas da Recordação e outros Movimentos by Conceição Evaristo (2021), Eu, Mulher Negra, Resisto by Alzira Rufino (1998), É nosso o solo Sagrado da Terra by Alda Espírito Santo (1978/2010), and A dolorosa raiz de Micondó by Conceição Lima (2012). Taken together, the analysis of these works highlights the constitution of an intellectual praxis grounded in ancestry and the recovery of legacies of resistance against white, racist, classist, and sexist hegemony—byproducts of the structures of domination inherent to the colonial system. Fundamentally, this research posits poetry as a device of existence capable of unveiling and problematizing the complex matrix of historical oppression, foregrounding poetic discourses that seek to destabilize and reconfigure epistemological standards traditionally imposed upon Black women within social, political, and cultural spheres. Supported by an interdisciplinary theoretical framework encompassing studies on ancestry, identity, colonialities, postcolonial theory, and intersectional Black feminism, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the visibility of a body of literature that directly confronts narratives legitimizing colonialism in Brazil and across the African continent. These works engage in redefining Black female subjectivity, dismantling pre-established images through marginalized corporeality and vocality, resulting in the emergence of a new epistemology experienced through the authors’ “escrevivência” (writing-as-lived-experience), which promotes the decolonization of speech and inscribes an identity substance of (re)existence. Therefore, the primary objective of this dissertation is to analyze Black women’s writing through the lens of ancestry as an axis of identity affirmation, examining its incidence in the configuration of the represented subjectivities. Methodologically, the research is grounded in an extensive bibliographic survey incorporating scholars such as Joel Candau (2011, 2021), Manuel Castells (2000), Kabengele Munanga (2006, 2008), Neusa Santos Sousa (1983), Stuart Hall (2006, 2014), Caio Prado Júnior (2000), Emília Viotti da Costa (1988), Aimé Césaire (2020), Frantz Fanon (2002, 2008), Aníbal Quijano (2005), Lélia Gonzalez (1988, 2020), Nelson Maldonado- Torres (2022), Walter Mignolo (2003, 2014), Sueli Carneiro (2003, 2019), Catherine Walsh, Grada Kilomba, Gloria Anzaldúa (2000), Kimberlé Crenshaw (2004), Carla Akotirene (2019), and Patricia Hill Collins (2002, 2019), among others of equal relevance to the attainment of the study’s results. In this regard, it was verified that these writings constitute an act of identity refoundation, in which the pain of the historical past is transmuted and metabolized into a political and subjective force essential to the construction of a new existential and social order.