Slavery, freedom, museum narratives and contested histories at the Museu Afro Brasil and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

• Autor(a) principal: Abreu, Marcelo
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Anos 90 (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/anos90/article/view/129859
• topic: AFRO BRAZIL MUSEUM; NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE; NATIONAL HISTORIES; SLAVERY AND FREEDOM; MUSEUMS; MUSEO AFRO BRASIL; MUSEO NACIONAL DE HISTORIA Y CULTURA AFRICANA AMERICANA; HISTORIAS NACIONALES; ESCLAVITUD Y LIBERTAD; MUSEOS; MUSEU AFRO BRASIL; MUSEU NACIONAL DE HISTÓRIA E CULTURA AFRICANO AMEIRCANA; HISTÓRIAS NACIONAIS; ESCRAVIDÃO E LIBERDADE; MUSEUS

This text intends to contribute to the understanding of the musealization of the struggle for freedom and slavery and its impact on the transformation of national narratives. The text also points to changes in museums as cultural devices. The Afro-Brazil Museum, created in São Paulo in 2004, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), opened in Washington in 2016, allow us to understand how the historical experience of freedom and slavery, as well as the persistence of racism, are intertwined with other historical events and processes specific to their respective national cultures and historical processes such as the African diaspora. The resulting narratives differ in terms of the ways in which historical time is incorporated into space. At the NHMACC, the exhibition evolves in a tension between freedom and non-freedom, and equality and inequality in the history of the Unit States, while at the Afro-Brasil Museum, the narrative affirms the Afro-Brazilian contribution to national culture in an expography that privileges the simultaneity of the historical times and spaces. In both cases, hegemonic national histories are openly contested, suggesting to visitors other visions of the history we share. Considering the opening of their narratives, both narratives present good cases for thinking about the transformations in the memory of slavery and struggles for freedom and the citizenship rituals that museums make possible