Favor colocarem aqui as suas reflexões sobre as seguintes leituras:
Almeida, PITFALLS AND PERSPECTIVES IN ANTHROPOLOGY, POSTCOLONIALISM, AND THE PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING WORLD
Klimt and Lubkemann, Argument across the Portuguese-Speaking World: A Discursive Approach to Diaspora
Madureira, IS THE DIFFERENCE IN PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM THE DIFFERENCE IN LUSOPHONE POSTCOLONIALISM?
Martins, Lusofonia e Luso-tropicalismo. Equívocos e possibilidades de dois conceitos hiper-identitários
(HERE GOES PART 1 ...)
ResponderEliminarLusofonia entails a shared imagination based on a deterritorialized and syncretic imagined community. Seen as a multipolar, anti-essentialist signifier, the concept can contribute to attenuating racial and economic tension, accentuating common socio-cultural traits beyond the mere ethnic lens. Seen from the angle of Luso-Tropicalism, however, the difference of Portuguese colonialism seems not very different from Lusofonia. As Almeida rightly asks, “to what extent and how were certain intracolonial representations reproduced across the Empire and continued into the postcolonial period? “It seems to me that a discursive analysis of this transnational level is indispensable in examining who it is that sets the limits, where, how and why. Discourse and representation need to be confronted with the practice of social agents.
Almeida argues that in present postcolonial times, most people are social agents in between, which affects their symbolic resources for action. Proposing the idea of ‘Brown Atlantic’ as an designation for Lusofonia, the author points to the actualization of the Portuguese ‘miscegenation project’ in “the construction of Brazil, and its blatant failure in Africa”. He points out that, due to a time gap between the Brazilian and African experience, Brazil could be used as a symbolic resource by Portugal for the construction of Lusofonia in Africa. Another interesting thought is that growing interaction of Portugal with Europe and non-lusophone countries seems to also have incited an inclination towards Lusofonia. As Almeida puts it, “the culturalist trope of language and the vague notion of a common past seem to creep up as attempts to reconstitute a postcolonial entity, one that may create transnational links in order to balance the erosion effect of globalization.”
Klimt and Lubkeman advocate a discursive approach to Lusofonia, which they analyze as a form of diaspora. A diasporic analysis, they argue, opens the way for a plural view of Lusofonia. They also state that “Portugueseness” is inextricably built upon processes of colonialism, migration and nation building, pointing at the various ways in which this concept can be “imagined, constructed and deployed”. Defining the breadth of concepts such as discourse and framing, the authors encourage a diachronic connectedness of imagined geographies, however salienting the specificity of context of each separate community as well as of the people moving between them. Amazingly interesting and of great relevance for my own research on lusophone migrant musicians in Lisbon, is the “tense interplay between persistent essentialist versions of Portugueseness [I think of fado and its recent depiction as a port town genre that has influenced other musics] and emergent images of multiculturalism, fusion and hybridity.” This “unpolluted and untouched Portugueseness ‘at home’” unidirectionally stands in contrast with the influences from the ex-colonies on Portugal, of which visibility is being largely or totally denied.
(... AND PART 2)
ResponderEliminarIn his dense, syncretic article, Madureira makes a plea for “the elaboration of a lusophone postcolonial theory positioned in and oriented toward the South.” As Klimt and Lubkeman, he stresses the context and time specific plurality of the various communities that take part of a frame of Lusofonia. “To reconsider the history of slavery, racism and colonization from the standpoint of those who endured its effects. I would insist that it is this question— and emphatically not the putative hybridity, subalternity, inefficiency, and indeed incompetence of the Portuguese colonizer—that ought to figure at the center of Lusophone postcolonialism,” Madureira argues. In this sense, one could arguably deduce that Lusofonia’s present legitimacy is constituted by these same southern players - except Portugal. I myself would not put things that sharply.
Martins, finally, opts to define Lusofonia as a sort of ‘culturofonia’: a space of lusophone cultures. Interestingly, and paraphrasing Bourdieu, he argues that all cultural production in this space in fact links itself to various symbolic [lusophone or not] imaginations. Martins points out that Lusofonia is a form of practical classification, that is subordinated to practical functions and is oriented towards the production of social effects. Martins implicitly refers to the power role of the political and societal elite when he says that “aquilo que se joga nesta luta simbólica entre globalização cosmopolita e globalização multiculturalista é o poder de definir a realidade [numa]memória igualmente plural e fragmentada” In my opinion, this power battle may as much highlight as obscure specific national multicultural realitities, rendering an objective analysis of discourse indispensable in keeping the project of Lusofonia healthy and unbiased.
These week article's together with Bart's assertion about lusofonia entailing "a shared imagination based on a deterritorialized and syncretic imagined community," have brought a Martin Sökefeld's article to my mind. In this article, entitled "Mobilizing in Transnational Space: A social Movement approach to the formation of Diaspora" (2006), Sökefeld suggests to define "diasporas as imagined transnational communities, as imaginations of community that unite segments of people that live in
ResponderEliminarterritorially separated locations" (266). "The focus on the imagination of community" he argues, "helps prevent primordialist and essentialist ideas slipping into the analytical and conceptual level." (...) "Imaginations of community are never true representations of social reality but instead cover up complexity and difference within the imagined community. Instead of mapping social life such imaginations project a community." All Bart's, Sökefeld's, and Klimt and Lubkemann's points highlight the need for looking at the diasporas of the "Portuguese-speaking world" (as Klimt and Lubkemann call them) as multi-centered, milti-sited, trans-national communities. Martins echoes all of the above but he specially stresses the importance of imagining plurally to forge the realities of the lusophone dream (12). Sökofeld's view of diaspora also serves to respond or, better, to dialog with, Almeida's and Madureira's points about "discourse and representation (...) being confronted with the practice of social agents" (Almeida, 111) and "the elaboration of a Lusophone postcolonial theory positioned in and oriented toward the South" (Madureira, 141). And this is so specially taken into account Sökofeld's proposition of looking at diasporas as social movements: "I propose that the study of diaspora should take inspiration from the field of the social sciences that is fundamentally concerned with the question of how people get mobilized for collective purposes and actions, the analysis of social movements". For, as he says, "a focus on mobilization in the study of diaspora effectively counters primordialist and essentializing approaches, which represent diasporas as given social formations that are naturally rooted in a distant ‘home’" (268).
Almeida aponta a Lusofonia como efetivação do projeto de miscigenação portuguesa, ressaltando o lapso temporal entre a experiênica brasileira e africana. Trata a lingua comum (Português) como tentativa de reconstruir uma entidade Pós-colonial.
ResponderEliminarKlimt e Lubkemann analisam a Lusofonia de forma diáspora, com uma visão ampliada da mesma.
Madureira coloca Portugal como o centro do Pós-colonialismo Lusófono e afirma fazer-se necessário a elaboração de uma teoria Pós-colonial.
Martins aborda a Lusofonia como produção de efeitos sociais.
As leituras acima referidas, me fazem refletir sobre a colonização do Brasil que teve sua história alterada com a ida da corte portuguêsa para a colonia em 1808. Os grupos de interesses eram diversos, como monarquistas, republicanos, federalistas, separatistas, abolucionistas, traficantes de escravos. Todos estes se opunham numa luta pelo poder que no meu entender, mudou radicalmente a história do Brasil e de Portugal.