Lélia Gonzalez: interpreting Brazil from its popular festivities

GONZALEZ, Lélia. Festas populares no Brasil. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2024.

Abstract

GONZALEZ, Lélia. Festas populares no Brasil. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2024.

This text analyzes the work Popular Festivals in Brazil, by Lélia Gonzalez, highlighting its relevance as a critical intervention in the debates on culture, identity and resistance in Brazil. Originally published in 1987 and republished in 2024 by Editora Boitempo, the book articulates Lélia's research and productions with her political and pedagogical performance to highlight black and indigenous contributions to Brazilian cultural formation. From an Afro-diasporic and anti-colonial perspective, Lélia examines various celebrations — such as Carnival, the June Festivals, Bumba Meu Boi, the Reisados and the Congadas — revealing the dynamics of symbolic re-elaboration and popular resistance in the face of the Euro-Catholic model and colonial impositions. His analysis challenges the myth of racial democracy and the idea of syncretism as harmony, positioning popular culture as a political space for confronting and producing subjectivities.