Ancestral voices and reparative policies: the legacy of the Memorial Museum Instituto Pretos Novos

Abstract

This research seeks to elucidate how the Memorial Museum Instituto Pretos Novos (IPN), located at Cais do Valongo, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, has contributed to the appreciation of Afro-Brazilian memory and the formulation of reparation policies. The site, which functioned as the Cemetery of the Pretos Novos between 1774 and 1831, received the bodies of enslaved Africans who died during the Middle Passage. Rediscovered in 2012, during renovations on the property, it has since become a place of memory and resistance. The construction of this article was based on situated dialogues conducted with a museum educator from the IPN. We adopted sensitive listening and the circularity of speech as methodological approaches, organizing the narrative into excerpts that gave rise to three axes of reflection, here referred to as Burdens of Tension. The BT1 considers the IPN as a territory of insurgency against historical negationism. The BT2 highlights the colonial burdens and ancestral voices that resonate from the space, challenging ethnic-racial relations and the formulation of public policies. The BT3 emphasizes the IPN as a place of memory and ground of ancestry. The study allowed us to understand the Institute not only as a site for exhibiting archaeological remains, but also as a space that fosters reflection on the barbarity of slavery and its continuities in Brazilian society. In this sense, the IPN establishes itself as a nucleus for confronting negationist practices, a space for the demand of reparative policies, and a place for strengthening Afro-Brazilian identity, historically marginalized and devalued.