Travessias desnorteadoras: ensaios decoloniais e suas tessituras dos estudos da bruxaria e da loucura

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to map and “desnortear” issues related to the field of decolonization in its intersection with psychology and other areas of knowledge. In portuguese, “Desnortear” indicates both a bet on decolonial movements, decentralizing the north as the center of the eurocentric world, and also refers to a Brazilian expression, with broad meanings, when we suggest that someone is desnorteada, somewhat crazy, somewhat witch. The decolonial perspective and its epistemic turn bring to the scene the geopolitical and geohistorical constitution of social processes, articulating the construction of subjectivities and their crossings of gender, race, class, sexuality and geopolitical territory. The writing proposes two movements. In movement I we will historicize some important concepts in the decolonial field, we will situate decolonial feminism and what this field of knowledge brings in terms of tensions for hegemonic white feminism. In “E/u Moderno”, we will bring questions to think the masculine crossing as erotic of rape, where the earth was being mapped as a sexual force, we will continue with Grada Kilomba and her notes of the black subject as a projection of the white and we will rehearse clues, with Neuza Santos, on the encounter with the strange and familiar. In “border-trip”, considering the transatlantic trip as the purgatory of white Europeans, we will think about how this conception of heaven (European metropolis), purgatory (sometimes the trip, sometimes the colony) and hell (colony) establishes a fundamental subjective separation for the modernity. In “decolonizing anger and lust”, we will stress the conception of an angry black woman as a construction, mainly but not only, of white feminism, to silence the demands of black women; we will think of anger as a transforming and creative power just like lust. We will begin movement II with studies of gender, race, madness, magic, witchcraft and religiosity. The movement begins with a brief summary of the reason for choosing these two characters and how they may compose the feminist decolonial debate. In “black magic” we will continue our journey to religiosity in the colony, a fundamental subject to think about both witchcraft and madness. In this moment, we will study evangelization, colonization and control of bodies, inquisitorial processes, the figure of the devil and heaven/hell. We will continue bringing to the scene a brief history of witchcraft, who were the people accused of witchcraft and what their crossings were in terras brasilis. How is the Inquisition updated and reorganized in Brazil? In “What madness is this?”, we will bring an overview of the construction of the scientistic racist discourse and the madness related to feminine physiology and biology, also emphasizing race and class, problematizing biological essentialization. We will conclude movement II with the question “what possible ties?”, where we will connect the movements carried out, such as madness, witchcraft, religiosity, pathologization of bodies and how these characters make urgent a debate about the disciplinarization of bodies for work. May we feed on this tangle of writings, dreams, questions and poetry.