A voice for the past: making 'public' slavery heritage in Rio De Janeiro

Por onde os africanos chegaram: o Cais do Valongo e a institucionalização da memória do tráfico negreiro na região portuária do Rio de Janeiro

“…O Porto Maravilha se inspirava num projeto mais modesto de reforma da região portuária desenvolvido ao longo da dupla gestão do prefeito anterior, entre 2001 e 2009. Desde então, grupos de moradores, organizações culturais e coletivos da sociedade civil começaram a se mobilizar, receosos dos efeitos gentrifi cadores da revitalização, num processo que se intensifi cou com a proximidade das obras (Cicalo, 2013;Costa, 2010;Guimarães, 2011;Vassallo, 2012Vassallo, , 2014.…”

‘Those Stones Speak:’ Black-Activist Engagement with Slavery Archaeology in Rio de Janeiro

“…The decade of the 2000s, importantly, saw the introduction of state policies that have shaped a new political culture around differential rights in favor of the black Brazilian population. Examples of these measures include the implementation of affirmative action policies to enhance the presence of 'black' (negro) students in public universities; law 10639/ 2003, which prescribes the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in Brazilian schools in order to modify their overwhelmingly Eurocentric curricula; and the Statute of Racial Equality, sanctioned in 2010, which sets a legal framework for federal legislation in Brazil in terms of racial equality (Cicalo 2012). The content of these laws, alongside activist struggles and negotiations to make black-affirmative measures effective, have created a solid ground for the development of mainstream black-activist political discourse.…”

“…In 1843, the site was replaced with the more elegant and modern Empress Wharf (whose remains were also found in the excavations), built to receive in grand style the future Empress Tereza Cristina of Bourbon in Brazil. The area was then transformed again over the following decades, and eventually landfilled in the republican period, around 1910 (Cicalo 2013;Vassallo 2013).…”

“…The construction of slavery heritage in the port area of Rio de Janeiro is an ongoing and multisided phenomenon, which involves a number of interests and different actors such as black activists, archaeologists, governors, and UNESCO bureaucrats (Cicalo 2013). This article aims to reconstruct this process, focusing on black activism.…”

“…However, general orientations do tend to prevail within black collective action at certain times. An example of this is the widespread support that black social movements gave to the introduction of black affirmative action and other racial equality policy measures in Brazil in the 2000s (Cicalo 2012). The kind of black activism that I focus on in this article reflects the pool of governmentally established bodies that were created between 1988 and the early 2000s for the institutionalization of black politics and their inclusion within Brazil's state politics (Telles 2004, 49-74).…”