Banca de DEFESA: VALDÍCIO ALMEIDA DE OLIVEIRA

(DE)COLONIAL TRACES IN "UNSUBMITTED WOMEN'S TEARS": CULTURAL, ANTI-RACIST AND ANTI-SEXIST MANIFESTATIONS IN EVARISTIAN LITERATURE

Black-Brazilian women’s literature; Conceição Evaristo; Intersectionality; Decoloniality

This research discusses black-Brazilian women’s literature as an artistic-cultural resource that insurges against contemporary forms of subalternizations and silencing. Therefore, it aims to produce reflections on the importance of black women’s writing, reinforcing resistance scenarios in the stories of characters socially marked by colonialities. Taking as corpora of analysis tales from the book Insubmissive Women’s Tears, by Conceição Evaristo, we suggest that the Evaristian proposal is to deconstruct negative stereotypes by advocating the possibility of outcomes in which the protagonists become resilient. In this gesture, the author breaks with Eurocentric discourses, resignifying the history of subalternized women – because of identities determined by social categorizations of difference. At this juncture, by taking into account studies directly linked to the consequences of colonialities (of power, being, knowledge, and gender/race), through bibliographical research anchored in intersectional and decolonial theories, we defend counter-hegemonic arguments. To this end, we dialogue with ideas elucidated by: Angela Davis, Aníbal Quijano, bell hooks, Carla Akotirene, Gayatri Spivak, Grada Kilomba, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Lélia Gonzalez, María Lugones, Patricia Hill Collins, Sueli Carneiro etc. In sum, we observe that the assumptions of intersectionality and decoloniality have been engaged in producing new investigations based on the commitment to overcome power relations, inviting us to take critical positions since they recognize us with the marks caused by the various oppressive systems. Furthermore, we verify that Conceição Evaristo produces literary texts that go against canonical paradigms and, above all, understands black women’s writing as an act of insubordination. Thus, we consider that – in the narratives Natalina Soledad, Maria do Rosário Imaculada dos Santos, Isaltina Campo Belo, Mirtes Aparecida da Luz and Rose Dusreis – the intersectional aspects and the potentials of agency highlight both the social and the epistemic place of the characters.