1This article proposes a methodological tool that may help researchers decolonise their practices. This tool consists of creating and using a personal archive to decolonise the researcher’s mind and contribute to the decolonisation of the research itself. As such, this article seeks to contribute to the field by offering a potential model for researchers engaged with decolonising methodologies – one that can be reproduced, adapted, and critiqued. Additionally, this article hopes to open space for other researchers to discuss this methodological tool and assess its relevance and scientific validity.
2Museum professionals can also apply the tool proposed in this text to decolonise their practices. However, as this document focuses on the application of personal archiving as a decolonising methodology in scientific research contexts, it is specifically aimed at researchers working with or about museums.
3The following pages stem from applying this methodological tool during an exploratory fieldwork phase of my doctoral project. To help readers evaluate whether this tool suits their research needs and objectives, I will briefly introduce the context in which it was created.
- 1 An armed conflict that took place between 1961 and 1974 between the Portuguese state and the indepe (...)
- 2 Doctoral project “Narrativas (de)coloniais em museus: instrumentos de (des)construção do racismo em (...)
4I am a cisgender, white Portuguese woman with a family background marked by the presence of ex-combatants in the colonial war.1 My ancestry makes me – directly and indirectly – the daughter and heir of the coloniser. This is the background and lenses which I carry while currently working on a doctoral project that aims to understand how Portuguese museums contribute to the anti-Black racism in Portugal through their exhibitions – how they uphold it and how they challenge it.2
5Concerning colonial legacies and colonial wounds, museologists from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been especially effective urging museums (and their professionals) to recognise and take responsibility for their contribution to the colonial wound, as well as to make efforts to heal its effects (Vázquez & Wevers, 2019; Soares, 2024). Given the specific nature of my doctoral project, this research has increasingly been shaped by demands such as these, incorporating theory and practice from museology in LAC, particularly from Brazil.
6This focus on Brazil is due to two interconnected reasons. On the one hand, unlike in Portugal, the relationship between racism and museological practices in Brazil is addressed directly and with an increasingly effervescent rhythm (Costa, 2023; Ribeiro, 2023). On the other hand, since racism is always structural (Almeida, 2019, n.p.) and the social category “race” foundational for the colonial project (Quijano, 1999), looking at how racism is dealt with by two countries connected by a shared colonial past is particularly powerful. It should be noted that the origins of contemporary racism in both Brazil (Nascimento, 1978; Santos, 2022) and Portugal (Henriques, 2016; Maeso, 2016) are rooted in the colonial past that connects these countries.
7For these reasons, my research has been strongly impacted by scientific literature and various museum initiatives developed in Brazil. This process was further enhanced by a research internship I had the opportunity to conduct in São Paulo over the course of five months, from July to November 2023; an internship that was generously hosted by the Programa de Pós-Graduação Interunidades em Museologia of the Universidade de São Paulo (PPGMus/USP), under the supervision of the Professor Marília Xavier Cury at Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia of the Universidade de São Paulo.
8During this internship, which was geographically framed by contact with Brazilian museums limited to the city of São Paulo and, to a lesser extent, Rio de Janeiro, I examined how race and racism were (re)presented in exhibitions, paying particular attention to the work of educators and curators. The following objectives were adopted, which, in turn, were in line with the objectives of the doctoral research currently underway:
-
To analyse how the African diaspora is represented in exhibitions (What objects? What narratives? How are they told? And told by whom?);
-
To understand how racism is represented in exhibitions (Is it addressed directly? What understanding of racism is adopted? Is a link established between racism and the colonial past? In what way? Does the institution position itself within the colonial past and its legacies?);
-
To identify reflexive and discursive strategies employed in exhibitions, working to create decolonial or anti-racist narratives;
-
To understand how researchers and museum professionals perceive the power of exhibition narratives in maintaining/deconstructing contemporary racism;
-
To deepen my theoretical knowledge about whiteness, especially the relationship between whiteness and exhibition narratives (How is it present and exercised in the museum? How can it be analysed in an exhibition when it is a structure based on silences and concealment?).
9To achieve these objectives, I carried out multiple actions that had a profoundly transformative impact on the doctoral research (in methodological and theoretical terms), as will be discussed later in this article.
10I started attending different classes and participating in activities integrated into the PPGMus/USP. It allowed me to have contact with important authors, texts, concepts and approaches of museology in LAC. During this process, I encountered, for the first time, many texts dealing with specific issues related to decolonising practices in museums and racism in a museological context.
11While attending classes, I also conducted technical visits to museum exhibitions in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. These museum visits focused on analysing and documenting exhibitions that addressed themes related to the African diaspora, colonialism, and racism. Whenever possible, I participated in educational activities developed as part of these exhibitions.
- 3 In methodological terms, these conversations were regarded as informal conversations. No recordings (...)
12Finally, I want to highlight the conversations3 I had during this period with professors, researchers and museum professionals who work directly with topics related to race, racism and colonialism in a museum context. These discussions were one of the most important and defining moments of the internship. The people I spoke with not only shared their perceptions on various aspects related to the research but also recommended exhibitions to visit, books and authors to explore, and connected me with other professionals who could contribute to my research in meaningful ways.
- 4 The use of the term “colonial/racist” here is intended to evoke the umbilical relationship between (...)
13The general impetus of this internship stemmed from an intention to destabilise (decolonise) my colonial/racist imaginary,4 in a gesture understood as necessary for a white European person researching decolonial practices and racism. To enhance the decolonising nature and transformative potential of this internship, I created a personal archive as a methodological tool designed to foster processes of reflection on coloniality (Quijano, 1992) and whiteness (DiAngelo, 2018), expressed both in my imaginary and on the research project. This article examines this methodological tool, proposing a model to apply personal archiving as a possible decolonial methodology, reflecting on its potential to support efforts towards decolonising research inquiries.
14In her foundational book Decolonising Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999/2021) states that people who belong to communities that have been colonised, in order to decolonise their practices and methodologies, need to decolonise their own minds and imaginaries. This is because the colonial/racist worldview constructed by the coloniser was imposed on the colonised subjects, colonising their minds (Thiong'o, 1986). This worldview is continually (re)produced in their descendants, thus acting as another tool for the subjugation through colonial power, in a gesture as subtle as it is effective. If colonial ideology was internalised by colonised subjects and their descendants, the same is true for those who, like me, are descendants of the authors of the colonial wound; for those who are heirs of the coloniser.
15Under appeals to decolonise the minds – of both colonised and coloniser – there are increasing demands for museums and their professionals to recognise how they are implicated in the colonial wound. It is a call that goes beyond an abstract look at the institution “museum.” It is a demand that aims to reach the subjects that make up these institutions, directly reaching those who work in museums, who study them and those who visit them (Manjarrez, 2021; Modest & Rueda, 2022; Vázquez, 2022). This is a gesture that seeks to not only assign responsibility but also agency in transforming how we engage with, care for, and heal from our colonial wound:
If you are in a classroom, in a university, or a museum, there are things to do because you can change the way these things are used and displayed and how they reproduce colonial violence. Positionality is also about exiting this innocent position that makes us believe we are not implicated. María Lugones (2003) tells us we are all implicated, and that is the start; (…). By recognising that we are implicated, and that museums and universities are implicated, we can begin to transform how they can function. (Vázquez, 2022, p. 29)
16Following Vázquez, one can state that for decolonisation not to be just a metaphor (Tuck & Yang, 2012) but a praxis, we – researchers and museum professionals – may engage with this reflexive gesture of looking in the mirror. This uncomfortable but necessary gesture will guide us through decolonising our minds and knowledge. It is a gesture framed in what Wayne Modest calls critical discomfort: “where one recognises how complicit one is in structuring unequal presents, pushing us to imagine and inaugurate different kinds of futures” (Modest & Rueda, 2022, p. 88).
17Turning the mirror back on ourselves makes the connection between the personal “Self” and the professional “Self” evident. Instead of hiding (denying responsibility) behind the scenes of museum anonymity or of a supposedly neutral science, to decolonise our practices, we must reveal our positionality. We must disclose our social location, which inevitably conditions our practices. This is a powerful gesture. It’s a gesture that asks: “How am ‘I’ complicit in the colonial wound?” It’s a look in the mirror that places us as objects of study:
Decolonising a scientific domain involves turning ourselves, the scientists, into the object of our own critical analysis. … In this sense, the study of museology as a branch of knowledge related to museums may involve a decolonial interest in exposing our own colonial roots and their long-term effects on the museum theory and practice we conceive and reproduce. (Soares, 2021, p. 8)
18This look in the mirror triggers a process of recognising the coloniality – of being (Maldonado-Torres, 2007), of knowledge (Lander, 2000) and power (Quijano, 2000) – that is expressed in our thoughts and actions (Manjarrez, 2021). The urgency of this gesture lies in the fact that looking in the mirror promotes a process of decolonisation of our minds and imaginaries. This process is fundamental to the decolonisation of museums and museology since the decolonisation of museum discourses, practices, and collections depends on the decolonisation of the minds of those who work, study and interact with them (Manjarrez, 2021; Soares, 2024).
19Under this premise, the personal and the professional are deeply linked. Decolonising the personal Self will lead to decolonising the practices of the professional Self. The following section reveals how this process can be promoted in the context of scientific research by creating a personal archive and applying it as a research tool supporting scholars to exercise “decolonial reflexivity,” which implies
drawing upon theoretical discussions about academic decolonisation to introspectively locate the inadequacies, limitations, and contradictions within our own efforts at academic decolonisation, particularly in relation to the potential for us to inadvertently perpetuate coloniality rather than dismantle it. … In this regard, decolonial reflexivity is a methodological tool tantamount to a theoretically informed autoethnographical exploration of one’s decolonial activities with the objective of achieving a more successful academic decolonisation. (Moosavi, 2022, pp. 138-139)
20This section will “trace” the methodological choices, principles and processes employed while designing and applying a personal archive as a decolonial methodology. Here, the word “trace” follows the words of Kakali Bhattacharya (2021), a researcher working on the theorisation of de/colonial qualitative methodologies:
Methodology is not just the technocratic process of systematically tracing the steps you have taken while working with data. But it is indeed a process of tracing the possibilities of inquiry. … Perhaps you can see that tracing work as methodology. Maybe it is a demonstration of affect work, or autoethnographic work, or the entanglement of the personal, structural, theoretical, spiritual, and analytical insights informing inquiry. Or maybe it is something else entirely. (p. xii)
21Personal archiving is presented in this article as a methodological tool designed to document and prompt decolonial reflexivity, fostering the decolonisation of both the researcher’s mind and research. It is worth start discussing three observations to trace the steps and principles behind this methodological tool.
22First, the decision to create a personal archive as a decolonising methodological tool resulted from an intentional choice that was also intended to be decolonising: the researcher’s geographical journey from Portugal to Brazil. This move – and its consequences for the research – stemmed directly from the inevitable “colonial relations” (L’Estoile, 2008) connecting these two countries. Although not a necessary condition for applying this methodological tool, the decolonial reflexivity that the personal archive may enhance is significantly increased when applied in contexts where the researcher (even symbolically) plays a role in reenacting or echoing these colonial relations between countries that colonised / were colonised. In the case of Portugal and Brazil, given their historical and current socio-political ties, the process of tracing my colonial/racist imaginary through personal archiving was profoundly amplified.
23Second, why personal archiving? While several formats could have been adopted to document, encourage, and advance decolonial reflexivity, personal archiving emerged as a natural choice. This stems from my training in both museum studies and information science, the latter focusing on working with personal archives (Carvalho, 2020). This has had a decisive influence on various technical characteristics while designing this methodological tool.
24Finally, the term “personal archive” used in this article follows the premises worked out elsewhere (Carvalho, 2020) and which can be summarised as follows:
-
- 5 It is important to clarify that ‘object’ here is used broadly, corresponding to any content within (...)
The contents of a personal archive are accumulated organically by its creator. In other words, while creating a personal archive, the objects5 accumulated are guided by a unifying intention and, therefore, not collected in an arbitrary way. This is why objects contained within a personal archive are deeply interrelated.
-
The organicity described above stems from an autobiographical intention that exists in any personal archive. That is, a personal archive is constructed (subjectively) through the creator’s choices about what is included and what remains excluded from the archive.
-
The information (objects) that a personal archive may comprise can be of any support (three-dimensional object, paper, etc.) and be expressed in any form (verbal, visual, digital, etc.).
25Having already mentioned the context from which personal archiving emerged as a decolonial methodological tool, as well as what this article means by ‘personal archive’, the following pages will reveal what this methodological tool consists of in practice. With the aim of best describing and clarifying the application of this tool, throughout the text are concrete examples of the personal archive I created when I applied this methodology.
26While applying personal archiving with a decolonial intent, the researcher will have to create and/or collect objects that will gradually establish the contents of the personal archive. The criteria for creating/selecting objects must be well defined in advance and aligned with efforts towards decolonising research.
27Taking the example of the application I made of this methodology, the intention was to subvert the colonial logic of mapping the Other (colonised) by seeking to map the Self (coloniser). As such, the criteria behind each object that was added to the archive were the following: objects that evoked memories, thoughts and/or interactions in which I was faced with my own coloniality and colonial imaginaries, as well as the research’s. The criteria resulted in an archive of analogue and digital objects categorised into five categories. These categories were defined based on what best suited the needs for information retrieval, making it easier to identify the location of the objects within the archive and corresponding information. For this reason, in future applications of this methodology by other researchers, categories are expected to vary significantly. The categories used were as follows:
-
Field diary entries
-
Non-audiovisual born-digital objects (example: photographic records, websites)
-
Audiovisual objects (sound and video recordings)
-
Books
-
Three-dimensional objects (other than books, such as leaflets and small sculptures)
- 6 Since some of the language used hereafter draws on terms from museology and information science, va (...)
28Once an object was selected to be part of the archive, it was processed/catalogued6 in an information management system (Figure 1). For this purpose, Microsoft Excel was used to create a simple database with a metadata structure that was loosely based on ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description (ICA, 2000).
29Given the diverse nature of objects that comprise the personal archive – regarding content, format, and support – the information management system depicted in Figure 1 helped to gather virtually into a single platform all the information of the personal archive’s contents that was stored in different digital and physical locations. For those interested in applying this methodological tool, Table 1 depicts the metadata structure I suggest while applying personal archiving with a decolonial intent.
Figure 1. Screenshot from the information management system (digital format, Excel, 21 March 2024)
© Sofia Carvalho
Table 1. Metadata structure recommended when applying personal archiving as a decolonial methodological tool
|
Metadata
|
Description
|
1.
|
Image
|
Digital representation of the object (photographic record or print screen)
|
2.
|
Category
|
You can adopt a textual category or use a colour code
|
3.
|
Reference code / identifier number / catalogue number
|
4.
|
Title
|
-
|
5.
|
Date(s)
|
-
|
Production
|
Of the object itself (for example: book published in ‘2010’)
|
Acquisition
|
The acquisition date of the object prior to adding it to the personal archive. For example: although the book was published in 2010, it was bought in ‘2024’. Regarding the archiving date, see 14
|
6.
|
Location
|
Where is the object stored physically and/or digitally. In which box/binder/digital folder?
|
7.
|
Source
|
-
|
7.1. Type
|
Purchased, offered, collected
|
7.2. Identification
|
Institution / person / location
|
8.
|
Description / Scope and content
|
Description of the object, mentioning scope (such as time periods and geography) and content (subject matter)
|
9.
|
Justification for archiving
|
Why was this object archived? How does it relate to the research project? What (de)colonial reflections did it give rise to regarding the coloniality of the researcher/research?
|
10.
|
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
|
-
|
11.
|
Related objects
|
Information on which other objects in the archive are related to each other, and what types of relationships they establish
|
12.
|
Data descriptors / Categories / Themes
|
What ‘labels’ are relevant to categorize in the object within the purposes of the research?
|
13.
|
Notes
|
To provide information that cannot be accommodated in any of the other areas
|
14.
|
Archiving date
|
To indicate when the object was processed/catalogued and/or the information revised
|
30The above metadata structure was designed with two main objectives: (1) to gather information on all the objects in the archive to guarantee information retrieval, and (2) to justify why the object being catalogued was archived. This last attribute is expressed in “justification for archiving” (metadata 9). This metadata is particularly relevant because it is one of the elements that enhance the decolonising potential of this methodological strategy.
31When filling in the “justification for archiving,” the researcher is prompted to articulate the (de)colonial reflections that the object triggered and how it contributed to the decolonisation of the researcher’s mind and/or of the research itself. This process also allows the researcher to assess the value of this object being integrated into the personal archive, ensuring that the criterion for selecting objects is followed. Moreover, as seen previously, field diary and notes enter the personal archiving process as one of the categories of objects. As such, while filling the metadata “justification for archiving” also intensify the (de)colonial reflections that field diaries and notes already have the potential to foster by their nature. To illustrate this, Figure 2 shows some examples of entries from my field diary created during the research internship I conducted in São Paulo – the writing of which was greatly driven by the archiving process.
Figure 2. Multiple excerpts from the field diary with entries that were created during July and November 2023; photo 18 March 2024
© Sofia Carvalho
32After examining the objectives, guiding principles, and technical specificities of this decolonial methodology, it can be stated that personal archiving with a decolonial intent requires the researcher to engage in both a methodological process and the construction of a research instrument.
33Firstly, the researcher conducts a methodological process when creating, selecting and collecting the objects that will make up the personal archive following previously defined criteria. Also, when processing/cataloguing each entry in the information management system, the researcher is engaged in a methodological process, reflecting on how each object echoes (de)colonial imaginaries and compelling the researcher to justify why to include the object on the archive. Secondly, when conducting both these methodological processes (defining which objects to include in the archive and while processing each object), the researcher also creates two research instruments: the personal archive per se (the objects within it) and the information management system. Both allow the collection and analysis of data during fieldwork, specifically data that results from questioning the (de)colonial imaginaries of the research and researcher. Ultimately, personal archiving with a decolonial intent is both a process and research instrument that supports and encourages decolonial reflexivity during fieldwork.
34As discussed, I applied personal archiving as a decolonial methodological tool while conducting a research internship as part of my doctoral project. As I write these words a year after this experience, I can say that the research project has been profoundly transformed in terms of methodological design and theoretical framework as a direct consequence. I have no doubt that these changes (some of which are outlined below) have been fuelled by applying the model of personal archiving proposed in this article.
- 7 This article follows the definition proposed by Brazilian psychologist Lia Vainer Schucman, underst (...)
35By provoking profound moments of decolonial reflexivity, developing a personal archive during the fieldwork contributed substantially to (1) spending more time writing and reflecting on entries in the field diary than I would have done without this methodological tool, and (2) above all, establishing a significant number of surprising connections during fieldwork. One of the most significant connections brought about by personal archiving led to a shift in the focus from the study of anti-Black racism to the structure that sustains it: whiteness.7
36Since the beginning, when drafting my doctoral project, I intended to study how Portuguese museums represent the African diaspora to understand how the narratives museums construct contribute to whiteness. However, I found it challenging to identify ways to realise this objective. How could one analyse whiteness in exhibition narratives – in terms of analytical categories and approaches – when this is a structure of power based on a pact of silence, on a (de)racialisation of white people and by omitting how they are implicated in racism (Bento, 2022)?
- 8 Some of these clues were made clearer by my making connections through personal archiving while div (...)
37It was through the actions carried out during the research internship and through the processes of decolonial reflexivity fostered by personal archiving that I started to gather some clues as to how to answer this question.8 Although the specific outlines of the methodological (and epistemological) transformations that resulted from this shift of focus are beyond the scope of this article, it is worth mentioning that they led me to adjust the research design.
38On the one hand, from a study that sought to understand the narratives constructed about anti-Black racism and the colonial past from a restricted number of museum institutions from different perspectives (museum professionals, exhibition analysis and visitors), the research design changed, opting to focus the analysis exclusively on exhibition narratives across a greater diversity of museum institution and collections. On the other hand, the categories and axes of analysis adopted while applying critical discourse analysis to examine museum exhibitions were redefined. This shift meant that exhibition narratives would be then analysed with a focus on the discourses created about whiteness, examining how the (symbolic and concrete) privileges of white people are maintained, reinforced and/or dismantled depending on the representations made of the African diaspora and the Portuguese colonial project within museum exhibitions.
39In practical terms, this analytical shift meant a change in the type of questions I ask when analysing exhibitions. For example, I initially thought of conducting the analysis through questions focused on the discourses constructed about the African diaspora, especially with regard to the representation of Black people and Portuguese colonialism. Some of the questions included: How is the African diaspora portrayed in the exhibition (its people, history, material and immaterial heritage, etc.)? What connections does the exhibition establish between the Portuguese colonial past and anti-Black racism (then and/or now)? What connections are drawn between colonised people in the past and Black people today? What are the implicit meanings of such (dis)connections?
40As I shift my analytical focus to whiteness, the questions above remain vital. However, they are now used to help answer another set of questions centred on white people, examining how the exhibitions reinforce and challenge white privilege. By shifting the focus – from Black people/Blackness to white people/whiteness – other types of questions arise, such as: How are white people represented? When comparing the representations made in the exhibition of Black people and white people, what meanings are constructed and/or contested? How is white racial identity made visible/hidden? What connections does the exhibition make between Portugal’s colonial past and white privilege (then and/or now)?
41Figure 3 shows some of the objects that comprise the personal archive that strongly inspired this shift in the research. The left of the figure shows catalogues of some of the exhibitions that I got to know directly or indirectly, which made a solid contribution to understanding what an exhibition can do to represent both racism and whiteness. Moreover, the right of the picture depicts a few of the multiple books that allowed me to trace some of the outlines of my colonial imaginary regarding whiteness while at the same time strengthening the epistemological framework of the research.
Figure 3. Some books from the personal archive that have transformed the research project: exhibition catalogues (left) and books discussing whiteness (right). Photograph taken 21 March 2024
© Sofia Carvalho
42Personal archiving as a methodological tool was instrumental to this (decolonial) shift in the research project. By shifting the focus away from looking at the “problem” of the racialised Other (externalising the problem of racism) to the white Self (taking accountability and agency in dealing with racism), the research became better aligned with the statement that “racism is ultimately a white problem and the burden for interrupting it belongs to white people. … [Therefore] the ultimate framework for racism – [is] Whiteness” (DiAngelo, 2011, pp. 66-67). This is particularly significant given that I am a white person researching connections between museum exhibitions and racism. Having said that, I would like to evoke the words of James Baldwin to guide and urge us (white researchers and museum professionals) to “locate the terror within” so that we can deal with racism, taking advantage of the privileged position we occupy within whiteness.
It has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within. And yet, the terror within is far truer and far more powerful than any of our labels: the labels change, the terror is constant. (Baldwin, 1964/2021, n.p.)
43Grada Kilomba (2019) says that the ghost of colonialism requires us to give a dignified funeral to those who were the victims of colonialism under the following metaphor: “That is why we have colonialism and fascism as a ghost that haunts us. The ghosts come because they weren’t buried properly” (Pinacoteca de São Paulo, 1:22:57-1:23:16, author’s translation). We – white Europeans and historically white and colonial institutions – have an important role to play in the process-metaphor of giving this dignified burial. In the words of the Portuguese historian Miguel Cardina (2023), “a buried past is not a dead past; it is a past buried alive” (p. 167).
44One way of preventing the (colonial) past from being buried alive is by tracing our (colonial) imaginaries, to destabilise and decolonise them. Following the premise that to decolonise our professional practices we need to decolonise our minds, while conducting scientific inquiry, researchers need to be equipped with mechanisms to foster decolonial reflexivity. This article intended to offer researchers a model to do so through personal archiving, designed to help researchers identify, question and re-signify their (de)colonial imaginaries and research projects.
45After presenting the context from which this methodological tool emerged, its objectives, guiding principles and practical outlines, I hope that the possibility of developing a personal archive as a decolonizing methodology can emerge as a pertinent and attractive option for other researchers. Although the model proposed in this article arose from the needs of a specific research project, it would be valuable to see applications of personal archiving as a tool for exercising decolonial reflexivity in other types of research. I hope that future studies can critique, reproduce and/or readjust this methodological model so that it can be expanded and continually improved.
46For researchers interested in applying the methodological tool proposed in this article, I conclude by saying that personal archiving with a decolonial intent will support researchers in engaging with their practices in the way Wayne Modest (Modest & Rueda, 2022, pp. 87-88) suggest to those of us who interact with museums and their colonial legacies: to engage reflexively in critical discomfort. Although it may be uncomfortable, perhaps some of this discomfort is necessary so that we can collectively give a dignified funeral to those who were the victims of colonialism, as Grada Kilomba urges us to do.
47My sincere thanks to the professors, researchers and museum professionals who welcomed me during my research internship in São Paulo, Brazil, and who were kind enough to share their experiences and perspectives with me, always with profound openness and generosity: Alecsandra Matias de Oliveira, Aline Montenegro Magalhães, Ana Pato, Aureli Alves de Alcântara, Cristina Bruno, David Ribeiro, Gabriela Aidar, Guilherme Freitas, Jorge Adolfo Freire, Leilane Lima, Márcia Chuva, Maria Emilia Tagliari Santos, Marília Xavier Cury, Mário Augusto Medeiros da Silva, Renata Bittencourt, Suzy Santos.
48This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT with funds from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES), the European Social Fund (ESF) and Por Norte Programme. It is part of the project “Narrativas (de)coloniais em museus: instrumentos de (des)construção do racismo em Portugal,” reference 2021.05924.BD and DOI identifier 10.54499/2021.05924.BD. This work is also part of the I+D+i project PID2020-116662GB-I00 “Patrimonios controversiales para la formación ecosocial de la ciudadanía. Una investigación de educación patrimonial en la enseñanza reglada (EPITEC2),” funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033