African mothering on both sides of the Atlantic: dialogues of care and ancestrality in Brazil and Mozambique

Abstract

This article emerges from the encounter between two research projects that share objectives, paths, and interests, yet are crossed by distinct voices, experiences, and shores of the Atlantic. The first was carried out in the Brazilian diaspora, with the Quilombo Buieié, located in the Zona da Mata region of Minas Gerais; the second took place on the African continent, with the community of Chinonanquila, in Maputo, Mozambique. Considering the processes of resistance of African and Afro-diasporic peoples in the face of the project of erasure of their bodies and philosophies, we aim to present the intergenerational networks that sustain African and Afro-diasporic mothering practices, committed to ancestral and everyday knowledge and practices that invent ways of educating Black children. These practices act as forms of resistance, preservation, and cultural re-signification, revealing continuities between Africa and the diaspora in the construction of Black memories and epistemologies. We draw on cartography and escrevivências as methodological weavings and, (dis)oriented by debates on motherhood that historically diverge from African and Afro-diasporic matrices of care and creation, we follow paths guided by spaces of community organization built around Black children. This directs us to references that highlight matrifocality, community mothering, and ancestrality as structuring principles of educational and caregiving processes, expressed in collective ways of nurturing and creating. Thus, we identify community-based approaches that strengthen the resistance of traditional knowledge and practices centered on the well-being of children, configuring models of care that transcend the boundaries of Western motherhood and emphasize mutual support and collaboration.