From western dichotomies to “Outras Histórias”

Towards a Symmetrical Anthropology

Abstract

This paper was conceived, first, as a review of Outras Histórias - Ensaios sobre a composição de mundos na América e na África, a collection organized by Marcio Goldman. However, the complexity and multiplicity of the texts that compose Goldman’s work made our writing expand into a kind of essay, whose proposal is to present its articles in contrast with dear themes of anthropology: 1) classical, as the processes called miscegenation and syncretism due to the strong influence of lusotropicalism, in vogue when racial studies were implemented in Brazil, and its relationship with debates about the binomial nature/culture; and 2) contemporary, giving rising to contemporary concepts and their applications: cosmopolitics and ecology of practices. This becomes possible due to the empirical contexts presented in each of the texts, that help us to review the relationships of Afro-indigenous collectives from their own narratives and epistemic bases, confronting Western academicist readings that sometimes suppressed, or interpreted in an uniform and incipient way the encounters between Africans, indigenous peoples and Europeans. Therefore, we ask by this essay to encourage a symmetrical anthropology, which rereads, through other epistemologies, classic and contemporary challenges, and effectively shares space with non-hegemonic knowledge and cosmologies.