Moving Bodies and Memories of African Slavery in South America

Introduction

The MOVING project is aimed at developing an ethnographic and multi-disciplinary methodology to study the bodily traces of Africa-originated slavery enduring in post-slavery and diasporic contexts. The project is rooted in an anthropology of the memories of slavery that the PI has been conducting mainly in Colombia for the past fifteen years, and in her previous work on bodies, senses, emotions, and nationalism in India.

Methodological Approach

As importantly, the PI is a certified practitioner of a conscious, embodied movement methodology which she has been integrating into her academic practice, as a field researcher and in teaching and supervision. Taking research into new theoretical and methodological directions, the project focuses on people’s bodies and moves, and the individual and social transformative potential of the movement of emotions and memories through that of bodies.

Objectives

The project seeks to explore conditions of possibility for people who do not necessarily self-identify as ‘Afro-descendants’, despite their African heritage, to reclaim their history and transform their relation to it through body-based and artistic practices.

Historical Context

The project also investigates whether the chronology of events pertaining to the abolition of slavery may account for significant differences in the ways the latter’s legacy has been acknowledged, or not.

Comparative Focus

MOVING will adopt a comparative focus on three countries, i.e. Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, while pioneering a methodology combining three types of research:

1. Classic Academic: Documenting the legacy and contemporary memories and experiences of Africa-originated slavery, and the renewal of Africa-related modes of reconnecting with this African legacy through everyday bodily ways.
2. Experimental and Arts-Based Creative: Collaborating with scholars of body-based practices, somatic practitioners, and artists.
3. Action-Oriented: Involving social participation of citizen scientists and wider society.