Above and Beyond the Colonial Archive: Mixing Geographical Methods and Thinking with Afro-Brazilian Communities in Bahia, Brazil
Topics: Black Geographies
, Cultural and Political Ecology
, Latin America
Keywords: agriculture, resistance, slavery, quilombos, maroonage, palm oil, Atlantic World, cultural landscapes, environmental change
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 81
Authors:
Case Watkins, James Madison University
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Abstract
This paper presents strategies for mixing methods in historical-geographical research with Afro-Brazilian communities and landscapes. It draws on fieldwork in Northeastern Brazil to discuss synergies of ethnography, archives, and geospatial analysis, and connects this work with ongoing struggles for social and environmental justice in the region. This paper tells the story of Benta, a Black woman born into the cruel realities of Brazilian slavery in the eighteenth century. We know very little about Benta’s life, but according to a probate inventory of a Bahian sugar engenho (plantation) taken in 1790, she sold to her captors goods she produced there, including beans and palm oil. Buried in an archived account ledger, that mundane transaction records an enslaved “creole” woman of African descent engaging in cultural creativity, economic accumulation, and environmental change. And though that documentary paper trail quickly runs cold, her story does not stop there. Ethnographic and geospatial analysis connect Benta to contemporary quilombo (maroon) communities and landscapes. Propelling historical narratives of resistance into the present, these analyses demonstrate how contemporary communities continue to leverage complex socioecological strategies to resist top-down impositions of austerity and development. Multi-method fieldwork and mapping therefore help to amplify the Atlantic archive with a broader range of scholarly evidence that can reveal long-term and ongoing contributions and legacies of enslaved people and contemporary marginalized communities. Firmly rooted in an African diaspora of people, environments, and power, Afro-Brazilian communities and landscapes have much to teach us about socioecological relations, healthy livelihoods, and justice.
Above and Beyond the Colonial Archive: Mixing Geographical Methods and Thinking with Afro-Brazilian Communities in Bahia, Brazil
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
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