“E aí, o negro virou museu?” Representações sobre o negro nas exposições do Museu Municipal Parque da Baronesa (Pelotas-RS)

Abstract

The following work aims to map and analyze the absences and presences of black people within the Museu da Baronesa (Pelotas/RS) over time, and its relation to the way ethnic-racial relations are structured in the city. Theoretically based on discussions about anthropology and museums and the anthropology of black diasporas, this work will pursue an ethnographic approach to the clashes around the best way to represent this black presence, the materialities chosen for this and their meanings for some black segments of Pelotas and region. The work seeks to reconstruct what was selected as significant at the time of the Museum's constitution, the materialities suppressed in this process, and what it means regarding the attempts to make the black presence in the Chácara da Baronesa and in the city invisible. The analysis proceeds to the management that took over the administration of the Museum between the years 2001-2004, when it seeks to insert narratives about the black presence in the city in a more significant way, the projects and clashes experienced in that period, and the collective investment in the Tambor de Sopapo as a representative symbol of afro-gaucho blackness. Finally, it proceeds to a detailed exposition on the reinsertion of the black theme in the Museum, starting in 2014, when the Tambor de Sopapo emerges as a representative object of this presence, as it articulates networks between a number of actors and organizations, which transcend even the state of Rio Grande do Sul itself.