THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THE BEAUTIFUL

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL LOOK AT THE EMANCIPATION OF THE BLACK CORPORITY OF ILÊ AIYÊ

Abstract

Between the continuous silencing historically faced by Afro-Brazilian culture and the act of resistance through the creation of the first Afro-Brazilian block in 1974, Ilê Aiyê proved to be one of the great protagonists of the (re)cognition of the history and political-social of the African diaspora in Brazilian territory. This study aims to understand the aspects of corporeity that manifest the blackness affirmed by the Afro-Bahian group Ilê Aiyê from the analytical foundation of a qualitative nature anchored in the phenomenological approach of Merleau-Ponty. The testimonies present in three videos of the audiovisual production “Ocupação Ilê Aiyê” (2018) made available on the Itaú Cultural channel, on the YouTube platform, were visualized and transcribed, which made it possible to unveil the black population as protagonists of their own stories: the self-affirmation crosses the Atlantic, the strings and historical gaps of concealment. Ilê, therefore, reveals itself as a powerful agent for the liberation of Afro-Brazilian manifestations and blackness as a means of affirming the struggle and history of the black population. In the block, the bodies become mediators of the afrodiasporic dialogue and carry an explicit message of the (re)existence of black culture, the beauty and pride of their identities in an interweaving of subjective and collective senses and meanings.