Decolonial inflections on the cultural region of the agrarian Northeast of the coast described by Manuel Diégues Júnior

Abstract

This paper aims to recognize, decode and translate, from a decolonial perspective, the coloniality of power and knowledge expressed in the cartography contained in the book “Regiões Culturais do Brasil”, pioneered by anthropologist Manuel Diégues Júnior, in 1960, and which addresses, even before geography in that context, an anthropological and cultural outline of the regions in the country. By analyzing, based on the hermeneutic method, the characterization of the Agrarian Northeast of the Coast, one of the cultural regions listed by the author and the central regional space of the discussion, the article identifies intersubjective constructions that describe and characterize the region, referring to conceptions crystallized in the collective imagination and largely loaded with forged precepts. In the nostalgic and romanticized colonial sugarcane past, which has Gilberto Freyre as one of the main exponents and a strong influencer in the work of Diégues Júnior. By verifying in the book object of the investigation evident signs of orientations that refer to the construction of the regional imaginary, based on conceptions anchored in what we call the Coloniality of Knowledge, we sought to activate the processes of critical inflections on the characterizations and descriptions presented and, subsidized by the decolonial perspective, repositioning positions out of place in their time that still insist on maintaining regulations that sound retrograde to current contexts, although they are still constantly fed back by reactionary narrative biases.