A particularly black political and intellectual tradition

black movements and the creative impulses of Afro-Brazilian social thought during the Military Dictatorship (1970-1980)

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the Afro-Brazilian political-intellectual protagonism between the 1970s and 1980s, amid the historical period of the political “opening” of the Brazilian military regime established in 1964. It deals specifically with the process of resurgence of black movements in the Brazilian public sphere and the specific autonomy of black women's movements during the aforementioned period. The aim is to reflect jointly on the production of knowledge about Brazilian reality driven by black intellectuals and activists, directly linked to or at least influenced by the praxis of black movements and black women between the 1970s and 1980s. Adhering to its specific thematic scope, this work aims to present and reflect critically on some of the main general characteristics of this Afro-Brazilian critical fortune and, especially, on the nuances present in the varied contributions of black intellectuals such as Abdias Nascimento, Beatriz Nascimento, Clóvis Moura and Lélia Gonzalez. Through a schematic presentation of the creative impulses of Afro-Brazilian social thought of the period, it is concluded that the genesis of a critical-structural perspective on racism in the Brazilian style and the affirmation of black and black women's enunciating locus, based on the political construction of an Afro-Brazilian identity, they configure the most important epistemic legacies of the creative impulses of the critical fortune of Afro-Brazilian social thought historically accumulated between the 1970s and 1980s. The relevance of the present study lies in its contribution to the epistemic diversity in research agendas focused on Brazilian social and political thought.