THE BODY IN MOTION AS A TECHNOLOGY FOR THE MAINTENANCE AND PERSISTENCE OF TRADITIONAL CULTURES AND KNOWLEDGES
This symposium proposes to bring together research investigating the body in motion as a technology of transmission, maintenance, recreation and persistence of traditional cultures and knowledges in the Americas. It is grounded in the logics of organization, circulation and transmission of knowledge present in Afro-diasporic Brazilian and Amerindian cultures, understanding the body as a living archive, a territory of memory and a device for the production of knowledge, identities and forms of collective existence.
Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, the symposium seeks to foster dialogue among different cultural, religious, artistic and community expressions, considering that bodily practices, rituals, dances, musicalities, gestures, games, celebrations and performances constitute fundamental modes of preserving and updating intangible cultural heritage. In this context, the symposium intends to enable an articulation between expressions such as Candomblé and other traditional Brazilian cultures of African origin, as well as Amerindian and Afro-American knowledges and practices, establishing connections with experiences from other territories of the Americas where the body plays a central role in the continuity of ancestral knowledge.
We are interested in understanding how the performativity of these cultures contributes to processes of persistence, resistance, transformation and sociocultural development amid the historical dynamics of colonization, racialization, displacement, urbanization and globalization. The symposium welcomes studies addressing the body in its ritual, aesthetic, educational, political, spiritual, therapeutic and communal dimensions, recognizing it as a social technology for the production and transmission of knowledge.
Especially welcome will be research engaging with topics such as cultural heritage, education, performing arts, anthropology, history, performance studies, Afro-American religiosities, indigenous peoples, popular cultures, orality, memory, decoloniality, corporeality and cultural policies. The aim is to constitute a space for exchange among researchers, masters and keepers of traditional knowledge, artists and community leaders, strengthening research networks and expanding debates on the ways in which the body in motion sustains the continuity and renewal of traditional cultures in the Americas.
