African-Brazilian Philosophies:
Movements of Resistance, Re-Existence & Enchantment

Drawing on thinkers including Eduardo Oliveira, Nêgo Bispo, Leda Maria Martins, Grada Kilomba, Sueli Carneiro, Tanella Boni, bell hooks, and Jota Mombaça, she develops an understanding of Afro-Brazilian philosophies grounded in the historical experiences, cultural practices, and forms of resistance created by African-descended and Indigenous peoples in Brazil.

Central to the presentation are the concepts of ancestry, the crossroads, the body as territory, and enchantment. Ancestry is understood not merely in terms of biological descent, but as a living relationship with collective memory, spirituality, the earth, and the visible and invisible dimensions of existence. The crossroads functions as an epistemological figure of mediation, encounter, translation, choice, and creative transformation. From this perspective, philosophical knowledge cannot be reduced to abstract reason or written argumentation alone: it also emerges through bodies, affects, images, voices, gestures, dreams, spiritual practices, and relationships with others.

Machado consequently calls for the decolonization of philosophical language, perception, and embodiment. She criticizes epistemic models based on rigid classification, binary opposition, and the exclusion of forms of knowledge that do not conform to Western academic conventions. In their place, she proposes an epistemology in which reason enters into dialogue with feeling, imagination, intuition, spirituality, and embodied experience.

Afro-Brazilian philosophies thus appear as an epistemic, pedagogical, ethical, and political project of re-enchanting the world. Through movements of resistance and re-existence, they defend threatened forms of life, recover suppressed memories, and create alternative possibilities for collective liberation. The presentation concludes by emphasizing that epistemic justice requires not only resisting colonial domination, but also transforming inherited ways of seeing, naming, representing, and relating to the world.

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About the Presenter

Adilbênia Freire Machado is an Adjunct Professor at the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Department of Education and Society at the Multidisciplinary Institute. She serves as the Vice-Coordinator of the Pedagogy Program and is a faculty member of the Graduate Program in Education, Contemporary Contexts, and Popular Demands (PPGEduc – UFRRJ). Her research focuses on African and Afro-Brazilian history, culture, and education, with particular emphasis on African philosophies, decolonial methodologies, ancestral knowledge, and anti-racist education. She coordinates the African and Afro-Diasporic Philosophy division of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (ABPN) and is a member of various academic groups, including the Association of Philosophy and Liberation (AFyL – Brazil), the Brazilian Network of Women Philosophers, and several research collectives on African and Afro-referenced philosophies. Machado has published numerous books and articles on African philosophy, feminist ancestral wisdom, and decolonization in education. Notable works include Filosofia Africana: ancestralidade e encantamento como inspirações formativas para o ensino das africanidades (2019) and multiple book chapters and journal articles exploring African-centered pedagogies.