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Displaying encounters: Jaime Cortesão’s São Paulo exhibition and indigenous knowledge in Brazilian history

2022; Elsevier BV; Volume: 76; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jhg.2021.08.008

1095-8614

André Reyes Novaes,

Indigenous Studies in Latin America

The paper explores how indigenous knowledge and hybridity were displayed at the exhibition to celebrate the fourth centennial of São Paulo city in 1954. The exhibition was curated by the Portuguese scholar Jaime Cortesão, who spent seventeen years exiled in Brazil and actively participated in intellectual controversies about territorial exploration and colonial encounters. Considering Cortesão's mobilities and his dialogues with Brazilian scholars, the paper proposes a critical and decolonial gaze to texts, images and objects selected to depict encounters in São Paulo exhibition. Drawing on sources from the National Library of Portugal and media reports published in the Brazilian press, the paper explored two categories incorporated in Cortesão's curation work to reconcile local, national and colonial identities: Tupi and Bandeirante. By exploring how Cortesão used these categories to reinforce Portuguese colonial agency in Brazilian territorial exploration, this paper suggested that critical studies of hybridism could provide essential insights for contemporary postcolonial and decolonial scholarship.