In search of affection alliances: the historian of the present time meets the “Warriors of Ancestry”

Abstract

This study investigates the ethical and epistemological challenges involved in the relationship between non-Indigenous historians and contemporary Indigenous intellectual productions, based on the research question of how to build affective alliances between different worldviews without reproducing colonial asymmetries. It seeks to understand how historiographical practice can be repositioned in light of Indigenous epistemologies, considering the historian’s role as a political and ethical ally in the construction of plural narratives. The research
adopts a qualitative and reflective approach, grounded in bibliographical analysis and a case study, using as its documentary corpus the writings of the “Biographical
Album Warrior Women of Ancestrality”, produced by the collective Mulherio das Letras Indígenas, as well as reflections by authors such as Ailton Krenak, Eliana Souza
Tremembé, and Felipe Coelho Iaru Yê Takarijú. The analysis reveals the centrality of affective alliances as an ethical mediation between different regimes of historicity
and as an instrument for transforming historiographical practice, allowing us to conclude that rethinking the historian’s place implies recognizing the pluriversality
of knowledge and building practices grounded in listening, respect for ancestralities, and the confluence between distinct worlds.