Congo, Congado, Congadas

Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition of resistance to racism and discrimination and the times of diasporas and slavery

Abstract

This article is inserted in the field of social history, with a bias towards the cultural manifestations associated with Congo, Congado and Congadas. In this way, theobjective is to problematize issues inherent to this practice, without disregarding in these discussions, the historical process in which the subjects who are protagonists of this socio-cultural doing and living are involved. The central problem is to reflect on the permanence of racism in the city of Uberlândia, which permeates social, cultural and religious relations, in the relations of leisure, work and power. Among the supporting documentation for the text, statutes and minutes of religious brotherhoods, period newspapers and other sources from oral reports stand out. In this regard, theoretical contributions are used that contribute to thinking about representations, temporalities, resistances and memories. The proposed theme, likewise, permeates the understanding of the notions of identities and their complexities, seeks to establish a relationship between the tactics of experiences, as strategies to confront racism, through cultural and religious manifestation in the times of the Congada party, when racist practices emerge in a more accentuated and explicit way. This approach is also about thinking about ancestry, connected to the present, a past that merges with contemporary times and points out ways for the future, and, in this way, seeing this Afro-Brazilian manifestation of African descent, as a historical, social presence and cultural in the city of Uberlândia and in many regions of Brazil.