On the Colonial Past of Anthropology: Teaching Race and Coloniality in the Global South

Abstract

This article addresses some of the discussions taking place at the Social Sciences program of the Afro-Brazilian International University for Lusophone Integration (UNILAB), such as the coloniality of knowledge, racial hierarchies, and anthropology’s complicity in colonialism. The article reviews current literature and draws on ethnographic fieldwork for two main purposes: First, to analyze how Afro−Brazilians, and Afro−Brazilian culture have been depicted and used in the process of national formation. Second, to examine the role that social and anthropological analysis played by dismissing “race” and “racism” as a structuring feature of Brazilian society. I propose that the ethics of an anthropological praxis aiming to create the necessary conditions for a different kind of knowledge to emerge, would be critically reflective about its own process of knowledge production, and aware as well, of voices and locations where this knowledge is being produced. The process of decolonization relies on epistemological choices made in the field, at the institutional level within the departments and programs, and in classrooms.

Keywords

• anthropology
• colonization
• Brazil
• race
• UNILAB
• decolonization
• Global South