This essay has three goals: First, to illustrate the epistemological interventions of Black Brazilian queer artivists in theories of Black liberation through naming and defining their sexual-dissident-subjectivities and the affective modes they engender, such as the feeling of solidão (solitude). Second, to contribute to efforts to decolonize the academy in the Americas more broadly, by pointing to the emergent Black queer archives and repertoires that Black queer artivists are intentionally producing outside the Brazilian academy. And third, to highlight how, why, and where Black queer theory is being produced in Brazil, to avoid crediting privileged (in this case, white mestizo) actors within the Brazilian academy for the intellectual production of Black queer theorists who generally do not have access to the transnational academic sphere.
Theorizing Kuirlombismos and Black Liberation across the Diaspora: Black Brazilian Artivists Challenge the Coloniality of Affect
Tanya L. Saunders is an associate professor in language, literature, and culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Saunders is a sociologist interested in how the African diaspora throughout the Americas uses art as a tool for social change via decolonizing affect. They are also the director of the film project titled “Afro Feminismos em Cuba,” which is currently streamed on YouTube. They have published and lectured extensively throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. They are currently writing a book about Black Brazilian artivism and politics of liberation as a spring 2022 Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow at Harvard University.
Tanya L. Saunders; Theorizing Kuirlombismos and Black Liberation across the Diaspora: Black Brazilian Artivists Challenge the Coloniality of Affect. GLQ 1 October 2022; 28 (4): 589–616. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-9991355
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