Lifting the saints from the dungeons: a museum for freedom

Abstract

Two collections of Afro-Brazilian religious objects that were confiscated by the police between 1891 and the first decades of the 20th century are the subject of reflection in this article. Studying the paths of these collections, the various values of meaning attributed to them were mapped, which, far from being permanent, are also not mutually exclusive. I propose to discuss the symbolic processes and institutional arrangements that have been activated throughout their trajectories. In this endeavor, these collections can be analyzed in two dimensions: On the one hand, as a subjective, affective, and cosmological reality; and on the other hand, as objects of political struggle in the public sphere of a socially organized collective. Both collections have similar origens and their common denominator is the requirement of the people involved that the museum is the institution in charge of housing them. The museum is indicated as the place to repair the pain and suffering caused by violence, religious intolerance, racism, and prejudice. In both cases, the agency power of these sets of objects are addressed, which has materialized actions and provoked mobilizations around them.