ON BASTARDY AND THE CREATION OF NEW WORLDS: STATE AND COLONIALITY IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1970s AND 1980s

Abstract

This article analyzes four works: A interiorização da Metrópole, by Maria Odila Leite da Silva Dias (2005); Da Monarquia a República: momentos decisivos, by Emília Viotti da Costa (2010); A Construção da Ordem. Teatro de Sombras, by José Murilo de Carvalho (2003); and O Tempo Saquarema, by Ilmar Rohloff de Mattos (2011). These texts differ in several aspects, but share a common reflection on the 19th century. Our analytical focus is the problem of the imperial state. This work is geared towards the history of historiography in dialogue with studies on coloniality. The methodology employed is analytical-theoretical. As a result, we will see how the inseparability between Modernity and Coloniality has marked our writing of history, leading to a domestication of time that relegates us to a role of incompleteness, of a State that does not realize itself, where the promised Progress of modernity is not achieved. This allows us to propose here the idea that we are bastard children of Modernity, and that this opens up space for us to recognize its influence, but also to question its authority and create new worlds.