Ontological Subversion
The history of Brazil is unique in that the cultural exchanges and miscegenation of African, Indigenous, and white Europeans have constructed a myth of racial democracy where in the racial and cultural identities of Brazilians have become homogenously grouped (Stanley, 2021). This myth of racial democracy denies the diversity in histories, experiences, and ontologies of Afro-Brazilian culture.
Lia Batista’s Bonyeca Abayomi Workshops in Fortaleza Brazil, and its wider relationships with local networks of Multifaceted Community led Actions are to be contextualized as ‘acts of resistance’ to the myth of racial democracy. The actions outlined throughout the essay will articulate a complex web of relationships between human and non-human actors that interlink conceptual approaches of post-colonial and feminist ecology and economics. In connecting the linkages within these conceptual approaches with activist movements against racial democracy, I hope to illuminate a form of self-reflective scholarship that prioritizes the diverse construction of knowledge that Arturo Escobar calls an ‘ontological redesign’ of modernist ways of thinking. This redesign promotes an engagement between political and academic actors from the Global South that encourage knowledge production from within the complex struggles of ecological justice, rather than from outside of it (Leff, 2107).
To utilize and interlink the commonalities between post-colonial and feminist ecology and economics, there must be some conceptualization and review of them as separate conceptual approaches. Political Ecology (P.E) emerged in the 1970s as an interdisciplinary study of the affects the political economy had on natural systems and ecological processes (Blaikie & Brookfield, 2017). In Arturo Escobar’s politico-ontological approach, he holds the belief that “Mother Earth is under assault and the core problem is modernist ontology… modernism both destroys nature and seeks to eliminate other ontologies” (Roper, 2020).
To encapsulate, and articulate modernity would be to illuminate our everyday activities. As a global society we have consistently universalized social, cultural and economic practices in an effort to drive output, increase production, and encourage mass consumption. Those that oppose this world view are often considered naive, immature, and unintelligent - what society refers too as ‘uncivilized’. The truth is, those opposed to modernity have recognized “that we are killing ourselves by ending the lives of many ‘other'-than-human relatives on which our own lives depend” (Wildcat, p.39, 2009) .
In focusing on Latin American Post-Colonial Interpretations of P.E from Enrique Leff and Arturo Escobar, there is a shift in focus to networks of relations between human and non-human ‘actors” (Escobar, 2008 and Blaser, 2009). In nurturing these relationships, a sensitivity and autonomy with the natural world is developed that can reconfigure ontological designs and construct new imaginaries of sustainability outside of modernity (Leff, (2017), Escobar (2018).
In the case of Lia’s network of actions, acts of resistance not only prioritize connections with human and non-human actors, but extends these ecologies to feminist economics of care work. Intersections of Post-Colonial P.E and Feminist economics both highlight the complex interdependence of care between human and non-human actors. This intersection of care for each other and the natural environment is emphasized in Lia’s work and aligns with Julie A Nelson and Marilyn Power’s connections of ecological and feminist economics (Nelson and Power, 2018). By prioritizing circular economies designed to care for each other and build ecological sustainable practices with women at the helm, Lia creates a self-reflective scholarship that connects feminist and ecological economics into Post-Colonial Political Ecology (Leff, 2017).
From 2018 onwards, Lia started hosting traveling Bonyeca Abayomi workshops in Fortaleza as a way for communities to reconnect with their ancestors and discuss the historical and social importance of Abayomi (Batista, 2019). Abayomi dolls hold a lot of historical significance to Afro-Brazilian identity, as the dolls and the informal teaching of their construction originate in tumberios – a name given to small ships transporting African slaves to Brazil (Eduardo, 2020). As these ships crossed the Atlantic, African women would use scraps of their clothing to fashion dolls they gave the name ‘Abayomi’. In the Yoruban language, abayomi means ‘precious encounter, and these dolls were to be honoured as protective amulets (Eduardo, 2020). Yoruba is a large ethnic group of the African continent, with origins in Nigeria, The Ivory Coast, Benin, and Togo (Educardo, 2019). It was tradition for those who received these dolls to pass them from generation to generation as a way of cherishing the one who presented them. In circulating the stories and teachings of bonyeca Abayomi across her community, Lia prioritizes the care and exploration of cultural identities rooted in natural practices. As these identities develop and care for one another, they will come to create “conditions for changing the norms of (modernity) from within” (Escobar, p. 172, 2018).
Between the 16th & 19th century, it’s estimated that over 5 000 000 African slaves were brought to Brazil to fuel European Plantation economies (Turley, 1988). From the 1500s onwards, as an act of resistance to slavery, escaped and freed African slaves both during and after the abolishment of slavery would form settlements known as quilombos within remote areas of Brazil (Engle and Lixinski, 2021). To avoid recapture, quilombos would live in isolation among indigenous nations, where they would share their skills & culture and form tight knit communities (Engle and Lixinski, 2021). Today, many members of quilombos recognize the dolls from their childhood, but do not have any recollection of its origin, or theirs (Eduardo, 2020). This retelling and practice of traditional indigenous language, history and experience directly subverts the ‘racial democracy’ myth circulated nationally and internationally, bringing into being new realities that recognize and build relationships with nature outside of modern social constructions (Leff, 2017).
In creating these stories, and circulating them across diverse actors within the community, Quilombos benefit from the reterritorialization of their cultures from their lens rather than that of the colonizers. Many rural communities that could not sustain themselves during the industrial shift in Brazil were displaced from their ‘traditional’ territories. As an act of reconciliation, the Brazilian constitution passed ADCT 68 in 1988, which reads as follows, “The Final ownership shall be recognized for the remaining members of quilombo communities who are occupying their lands and the state shall grant them the respective title deals” (ADCT 68, 1988). Due to colonial land ownership by Brazilian elites (incumbent interests), ADCT 68 has historically been heavily contested by Brazilian Right-Wing governments, most recently, former President Jair Bolonsaro has promised thar “not one centimeter of land will be demarcated for Indigenous reserves or quilombolas" (Hirabahasi, 2018). As a result of this, out of an estimated 6000 quilombo settlements in Brazil, only 250 of them have received titles for any part of their land (Eagle and Lixinski, p. 883, 2021). In retelling their stories and contextualizing their identities in Afro-Brazilian culture more broadly, hopefully more settlements and communities will fight for their rights to reparations to enable them to share their unique ontologies with the next generation of Afro-Brazilian populations.
As an eco-artist, environmental educator, lecturer, and socioenvironmental entrepreneur, Lia’s workshops are meant to share ancestorial skills developed through historical cultural exchanges between African and Amerindian Indigenous communities. While techniques are not exactly the same as in the past, historical philosophies of little to zero waste are reflected in the use of fabrics sourced from waste materials, and students are taught traditional techniques for the sustainable harvesting of natural dyes from leaves, bark, flowers & seeds (Batista, 2018). Lia’s Bonyeca Abayomi workshops are a part of a wider community within Fortaleza that hosts collaborative Multifaceted Community Led Actions. As a member and a cofounder of The Network of Sustainable Women Entrepreneurs (Rede de Mulhers Empreendedoras Sustentáveis (REMES), Lia organizes and collaborates with different actors in her community to build regenerative relationships between humans, nature, and natural practices. A large part of her work is interdisciplinary in practice and is rooted in expanding creative capacities of diverse groups through artistic creations that draw from unique ways of knowing and being in Afro-Brazilian indigenous cultures.
The bonyeca Abayomi workshop is one of many actions that repurposes urban residue and natural materials and turns them into valuable artefacts. In other workshops Lia teaches soldering, sewing, and painting techniques while in the background traditional instruments like the berimbau, atabaque, and pandeiros offer rhythms and beats specific to the Northeast. Each of these instruments can be traced in origin to parts of East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Today the rhythms and sounds made by the instruments are specific to their region and territory, showing the diversity in experiences across Afro Brazilian descendants (Molloy, 2017). Lia’s goals are to create a safe space that prioritizes a ‘creative circular economy’ that seeks to distribute as many products, materials, and services as possible at their highest value. In doing so, participants celebrate and acknowledge the strengths, skills, and experiences as African and Indigenous women.
Through storytelling, and the sharing of skills, diverse definitions of sociocultural identities develop and build communities that work together to design their own way (Escobar, 2018). Both feminist and ecological economics critique the growth driven structure of mainstream political economies due to their devaluation of the environment and ‘care’ work, and criticize their exclusion from monetization (Waring, 1987). In excluding ecological processes and unpaid work from economics, accessing basic inalienable necessities for life becomes more difficult for vulnerable populations that have historically disagreed with or are a victim of ontological modernity. The network of Multifaceted Community Led actions help create an economy that prioritizes ecological processes and care work, facilitating a politico-ontological shift from growth and destruction to something resembling a relational pluriverse (Escobar, 2018). In analysing elements of Lia’s work, we are beginning to see formations of complex assemblages of interlinked ideas within post-colonial and feminist political ecology and economics that act against power relationships within modernist ontology.
Lia’s work also questions the myth of ‘racial democracy’ which erases Afro-Brazilian experiences from Brazilian identity and has enabled the denial of access to land, education, and employment to Afro-Brazilian and mixed populations. After the abolition of slavery, Brazilian elites implemented a policy by the name of ‘branqueamento’, which translates in English to ‘whitening’ (The Brazilian Report, 2020). The policy allowed only white and Asian immigrants into Brazil. Today, the repercussions of othering is illuminated by the fact that “53% of the Brazilian population identify as Afro-Brazilian or mixed but make up 66% of incarcerated individuals and 76% of the impoverished population” (The Brazillian Report, 2020).
This denial of resources is deliberate, and has contributed to the Racialization of Latin American and Africans as lazy and uncivilized (Kara, 2022, Pereira de Sá, 2019). Racialization, or racial coding is a term that defines race as a non-biological entity that therefore does not exist unless relationships are coded or created (Flera, 2017 (ch.3). Racism is then the process of discrimination based on identifiers of difference that have been constructed through history and constantly renegotiated. Colonial, Imperial, and Modernist structures created an ontological design that permitted the domination and destruction of natural ontologies through the construction of myths that privilege incumbent interests and their agendas of growth and capital accumulation.
The analysis of Multi-Faceted Community Led Actions by Activists, artists, and academics within Fortaleza’s most impoverished neighbourhoods present an ontological redesign’ of communities that emphasize the reconnection with the non-human world (Escobar, 2018). In abandoning the belief that modern technocratic solutions will solve sustainability and acknowledging that these frameworks are a part of an agenda to sustain and reproduce inequalities – communities can move forward in constructing new imaginaries and worlds that nurture their natural relationships with the living and non-living communities around them.
It is important to note that ‘socio cultural identities’ of Afro-Brazilian descendants are diverse in nature, and these relationships are far from simple. Typically, they exist in a dimension of plurality, shaped by unique experiences that cannot be articulated with just words. My hope is to showcase some of the beauty in these unique acts of resistance, but in no way is it possible to encompass the complexity of these relationships without having experienced them firsthand. Cultural rationales and experiences are prioritized, but it is crucial I emphasize that they barely scratch the surface of the diversity within Afro-Brazilan culture .
All over Brazil, movements such as these redefine ethnic formation and reterritorialize sociocultural identities and spaces through the exploration of identity outside the myth of racial democracy. These movements are rooted in regenerative natural practices reflective of synergies within Feminist and Post-Colonial P. E and economics. Each part of Lia’s actions actively resists incumbent interests of growth, illuminating the relations of power that construct meaning and guide interactions with human and non-human actors.
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