God, lords, missionaries and witches: the Jesuit mediation of the encounters between Portuguese and Central-Africans (1548-1593)

• Grant number: 16/15870-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2016
• End date: November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Adone Agnolin
• Grantee: Tomás Motta Tassinari
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

To approach the missionary mediation of the encounter between Portuguese and Central-Africans is to displace our attention from the cultures understood as systems of beliefs toward how both sides of the encounter situated themselves in relation with each other. It means to advance identities as networks and changes in which the subjects get involved actively. On one hand, the missionaries had to translate the natives according to their assumptions. After all, the difference between Africans and Europeans had to be recognized and reduced in order to the mission to be operative. On the other hand, the missionary presence in the region was fragile, thereby the Jesuits had to negotiate the practical and symbolic limits of the missions with the natives. Hence, we advance the following hypothesis: the intercultural communication between Portuguese and Central-Africans was founded in the codes of religion and civilization. In other words, we have to depart from these two codes in order to characterize the misunderstandings that made the mission operative. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

TASSINARI, Tomás Motta. God, lords, missionaries and witches: the Jesuit mediation of the encounters between Portuguese and Central-Africans (1548-1593). 2019. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.