Paper short abstract:

This presentation aims to delve into the emergence of indigenous museums and the indigenization of traditional museums in Brazil, highlighting an ontological and epistemic shift that actively challenges colonial power relations in practical terms, as well as questioning decolonial theories.

Paper long abstract:

In his work "The Falling Sky", the Yanomami thinker Davi Kopenawa recounts a visit to a Parisian museum, which the white people term a "large house," where they confine the remnants of ancestors from the forest—long gone, their voices silenced. The aged artifacts, according to Kopenawa, trap the "ghosts" of their original owners, captured and stolen during conflicts with white people. Kopenawa utilizes his physical and ontological encounter with ethnographic collections as a means to critique the patrimonialization of material culture. Inverting the established order, Kopenawa conducts an anthropological analysis of white people through ethnographic collections, associating the confinement of objects in glass cabinets with the material obsession and violent nature of the invading white people.

In recent decades, traditional museums in Brazil have not only engaged in a profound dialogue with indigenous experts but have also witnessed the initiative of indigenous peoples establishing museums that reflect their own culture and perspectives. This dynamic challenges the foundational power structures inherent in museums and provides a platform for new epistemologies. It also encapsulates an indigenous critique of colonial societies—a central theme for decolonial thinkers.

This presentation endeavors to explore the emergence of indigenous museums and the indigenization of traditional museums, actualizing concepts that are often confined to theoretical frameworks in the works of decolonial authors.

By doing so, the presentation aspires to foster intercultural knowledge arising from an ontological, epistemic, and ethical encounter. Ultimately, it seeks to engage in the decolonization of the very framework designed for decolonization.