A diasporic look at the experience of black african feminists: in search of encounters and empowerment

Abstract

The reflections present in this article result from the unfolding of the study carried out for the post-doctorate. This text aims at relating the knowledge and experience of black African feminists to the experience of black Brazilian feminists, identifying approaches and new learnings. In this sense, the productions of six women, identified as feminists from African countries, were surveyed. For the reading we intend to carry out, we will use Afrocentricity as a category, a category coined by Asante in the 1980s. The category brings to the center the experience of African peoples and blacks in the diaspora, at the same time that it draws attention to the dangers of a single thought. The study is justified by the need that blacks in the diaspora have to recognize themselves as descendants of a powerful continent, whose history in Brazil has been distorted and denied. The study will contribute to affirm that this silenced history has impacted the lives of blacks, as well as, it is an effort to potentiate narratives that deconstruct the idea of a weakened, passive and historyless Africa. We understand that the study joins others that seek to rescue and retell the history of Africa, connecting the past and the present, in the recognition that African knowledge and epistemologies are essential for a new look at the  Brazilian history and the empowerment of black Brazilian women.