The princess, the Beast and the black demon: reason and coloniality in “progress” for Feira de Santana

Abstract

In this article we examine how ideals, practices, political actions, knowledge, violence, among others, were moved by subjects in Feira de Santana, constituting contrasts between black ways of seeing and living and the Eurocentric and American models in the effort to consolidate “progress”, culminating in the totalizing and homogenizing planning of the city after the civil/military coup of 1964, with emphasis on the government of Mayor João Durval Carneiro (1967-1971). We used the novel “The beast that arrived at Feira” by Muniz Sodré to, through the imagery narrated by the author, understand conflicts over the city projects that were in dispute. For the appreciation of History and Literature, we scrutinized the novel through a wide collection of research on the History of Feira de Santana in order to identify similarities. We operationalize some concepts such as whiteness, coloniality, structural racism, symbolic power, racial dispositive and others, to problematize and interpret the long processes of struggle for the disafricanization of the city triggered by the constant conflict for control of the imagination of Lucas da Feira and blackness. In the end, we conclude and corroborate that Muniz Sodré allegorically interpreted factual events, understanding that Lucas was the black evil to be mitigated in opposition to progress, science, civilization and others, represented by a Military Chaplain, O Bicho, with repressive actions linked to the civil/military regime and former conservative political professionals, bossy old men.