O iorubá como tecnologia de produção de presença: um diálogo entre afrografias e a máscara fanoniana a partir de ideologias linguísticas sobre o iorubá

Abstract

Yoruba is an indigenous African language spoken in Brazilian Candomblé temples (terreiros), and it has spread across various territories with the African diaspora. In the Baixada Fluminense region of Rio de Janeiro, a quilombola territory, there are significant occurrences of Candomblé temples (terreiros), where members learn this language through traditional practices. It is in this context that a language course focused on teaching the Yoruba language has emerged in Baixada Fluminense. From the intersections, challenges, and contradictions that emerge in the social, cultural, and linguistic encounters produced by the language course, this research seeks to generate knowledge about linguistic ideologies (KROSKRITY, 2006; WOOLARD, 2020; SCHIEFFELIN, WOOLARD, KROSKRITY, 1998) regarding Yoruba. This research investigates language as a field of struggle for the production of socio-psychic-political-spiritual absences or presences, especially of Black peoples. We primarily base our reflections on the concepts of Franz Fanon (2020, 2021, 2022) to contemplate what we call a state of absence, drawing from what the author exposes about "non-being." We understand that, contrary to a colonial language that aims to produce a condition of absence of self for Black individuals, in order to transform them into commodities, the use of Yoruba can function as a technology for creating presence, using Leda Maria Martins' concept of afrografias (2021a, 2021b) in dialogue with the notion of refuge (BONA, 2020). To conduct the research, semi-structured interviews were carried out with five individuals who participated in the process of creating teaching materials for the Yoruba course in question. Among the interviewed research participants, we have an Ekedi of Oxum, a Pai de Santo of Oxum, a babalaô from the Ifá Cult who is a native of the Yoruba community in Nigeria, a Nigerian Yoruba teacher, and a Black urban peripheral Griot from Baixada Fluminense. The methodological lenses guiding this work are grounded in linguistic ideologies (KROSKRITY, 2006; WOOLARD, 2020; SCHIEFFELIN, WOOLARD, KROSKRITY, 1998) alongside a perspective that emerges from crossroads (MARTINS, 2021a, 2021b) as points of view and knowledge creation, understanding the language investigated here as part of a cosmopoetics of refuge (BONA, 2020). As a result, we conclude that the use of Yoruba connects its speakers, across different contexts, to a historical trajectory that offers them not only a repertoire through which their full humanity becomes possible and realizable, but also linguistic/semiotic and social instruments for the continuous updating and re-creation of this repertoire and, consequently, avenues for action in the world that elude the racist project of dehumanization.