O erê e o devir-criança negro: outros possíveis em tempos necropolíticos

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate how the notion of a child’s becoming-black is mediated by her experience of the erê—an intermediate psycho-spiritual archetype in Brazilian Candomblé—which in turn raises other existential questions relelvant for children in necropolitical times characterized by “normosis” (Butler, 2019) and loss of historical and cultural memory. The central hypothesis is that black children are signs of powerful social singularities, with the capacity to change the logic of the deadly coefficients that traverse the territory of contemporary necropolitics. At the same time, it maintains that without confronting the colonial burden (Rufino, 2017; 2018) it is impossible to mitigate the power and presence of necropolitics. To achieve that, the text updates the reader on the condition of contemporary necropolitics against the historical backdrop of the colonization process. Then, from research with black children in the Nagô Candomblé Ilê Axé Omo Oxe Ibalatam, located in São Paulo, the focus turns to the resources available in Candomble practice—most especially the mediation of the erê by the axé (vital energy)—that provides for resistance against the deadly energies that characterize these normopathic, necropolitical times. The powerful influence of the erê lies in the resistance to any and all foreshadowing of roles and static representation of life and agency, and in embracing their becoming-African (cf. “Africamite”), as well as working to create the conditions that make it possible to live beyond necropolitical times in the intimation of a new age.