From the European South

a transdisciplinary journal of postcolonial humanities

Obia. The Bushinengués des Guyanes: political and ecological awareness in the Americas

NICOLA LO CALZO

Abstract

The photographic work of Obia is part of Nicola Lo Calzo's long-term photographic project KAM about the living memories of colonial slavery and anti-slavery struggles. The project interrogates the fundamental bond of the Bushinengués, a Maroon community, with the earth, based on a cosmogonic and collective conception of the territory that breaks with the Eurocentric notion of “virgin forest.” The Obia series reflects on the fragility of this relationship, endangered by the historical abandonment of ancestral villages, by contemporary migration towards urban centers and by the process of patrimonialisation underway towards living cultures.

Keywords

Maroon communities, afrodescendants, slavery, resistance, memory, ancestral land

Pages

78-91

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