Under Heavy Fire: Brazil and the Politics of Anti-Memory

Abstract

What kind of times are these when a talk about trees is almost a crime? Among other things, they are times of forgetfulness. Forgetting does not mean that reminiscences just vanish as time goes by. It is, on the contrary, a major cultural force grounded in a politics of anti-memory. One needs to forget in order to keep repeating oneself. In this article, I argue that the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro did not burn to the ground merely because of the lack of resources, but because being burned to the ground has always been a virtual feature of the existence of the museum since it was created in 1818. It burned as part of a long-term politics of anti-memory in Brazilian history.

Anthropology and the politics of alterity: A Latin American dialectic and its relevance for ontological anthropologies

“…In 1928, Oswald de Andrade proposed that Brazilian culture should devour European culture and digest it, as a cannibal would do, in order to produce something new, a mutual modification through addition. The idea of Brazilian relations with European culture via the predatory incorporation of the other resurfaced in the 1960s Tropicália movement and has influenced national anthropological traditions until now (Fausto, 2020).…”

“…In Brazil, 19th century Indianism drew on a much different context than Hispanic indigenismo did, since, as Carlos Fausto recently argued, ‘unlike Peru, Colombia, or Mexico, this past was only made visible through fragile materials – feathers, wood, and pottery – and not by sturdy stone monuments. There was no pre-Columbian indigenous state with which the new empire could identify’ (Fausto, 2020). Dominant Brazilian nation-building historiography of the time tended to focus on the effects of African slavery rather than indigenous populations; while Indianist thinkers of the mid-late 19th and early 20th century looked to the 16th century Tupi-Guarani, who were especially associated with the ritual practice of warfare cannibalism.…”

Do incerto ao inacabado: Uma aproximação com a criação etnográfica

“…Nos relatos que seguem insisto, portanto, numa dimensão antropológica -inacabada e imprecisa -do processo político. Ela se evidencia em zonas ou redes de experiências de sobrevivência que, mesmo a partir da sua fragmentação, redimensionam nosso pessimismo e o sentido do campo político (Didi-Huberman 2018;Hartman 2008;Fausto 2020). Defendo também uma teoria crítica não ancorada em visões apocalípticas, mas no poder de vivências imaginativas passadas e presentes -arquivos insurgentes, conforme as denomino -que persistem contra todas as probabilidades.…”

Lost Objects, Hidden Stories: On the Ethnographic Collections Burned in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro

“…The text published by BBC Brazil one week after the fire ended up focusing on the archaeological collections (see Schreiber 2018). Items found in middens ( sambaquis ), such as zoolites, bones, and other testimonies of indigenous life before European arrival, had become, as the news article discussed, lacunae in a history, of which the inherent imperviousness to being known—because of the lack of metal tools or large stone constructions—was suddenly increased by our negligence, as a nation, toward our own history (Fausto 2020).…”