Ser sentido: a musealização como decolonialidade para a região amazônica

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the potential of musealizations in the Brazilian Amazon, a region that, as I address here, is seen as a subjugated space, both nationally and internationally. In this way, I seek to debate how the museological practices in the region can contribute to overcoming this subalternity, understood as the hierarchical perception of modernity. To this end, I draw on the work of philosopher Judith Butler on ontological framing and the work of philosopher Enrique Dussel on the Ethics of Liberation, a movement that seeks to combat the hierarchical logic of modernity. Through the analysis of the creation of private collections by families involved in the event known as the Chacina de Belém, which occurred in 2014 in the city of Belém (Pará, Brazil), and the creation of the collection of the Museu Memorial da Vila da Barca, a peripheral community in the same city, I demonstrate how musealization occurred through counter-discourses that aim to produce mourning. This is because the historical perspective of colonization, which is foundational to modern ideas, perpetuates hierarchy into the present day, not only through the production of inequality but also through the creation of violence. The groups analyzed in the case studies are victims of prejudiced perspectives that frame them as inferior. Thus, Amazonian musealizations are examples of decoloniality, as they seek mourning and the inclusion of these excluded, invisibilized, and inferiorized groups in social consciousness.