Racial and Amefrican relations in Western universities: the message is given

Abstract

Western universities classroom’s still present it selves as a white privilege social space, so that the writing and interpretation of the Afrodiasporic history follows the path of one single history. Therefore, this article aims at problematizing both the study of racial relations, Amefrican relations, and African history at Western universities through the enunciation of black political-bodies performed in fictional narratives. Regarding the methodological approach, we bet on an escrevivência[i] (write-living) in oraliture performed in fictional narratives to mark the academic scene with a writing politics that is both engaged and imbued with a science which rationality is nonlinear,  hence constituting itself on the complementarity of reason and emotion.  The narratives were built from memories inscribed in the political bodies of two black women and one black man, who have answered the online survey of the Necropolitics and Black Population research, that is tied to the E’léékò Studies and Research Center. The Afrodiasporic and Amefrican history resist forgetfulness, silencing, invisibility, and erasure between the white walls of Western universities, in the Brazillian scenario, through the intellectual and militant presence of black men and women. In this study, escrevivência in oraliture performed in fictional narratives marks the experience of being through being within the production of knowledge of many black women and men at university; it marks the future of the knowledge produced through black experiences.

[i] In respect and appreciation for the copyright production of Brazilian black scholars, the concept of “escrevivência” in Portuguese will not be translated. “Escrevivência” is a concept that was brought up by Conceição Evaristo through a neologism between the terms escrever (write) and vivência (personal living experience), implying writing as a political act for black women whose self-writing is, at the same time, arranged by a collectivity and pervaded by social, racial and gender relations.