When an analytical category enters the xirê: thinking about gender from Candomblé

Abstract

The construction of gender as an analytical category enabled an important theoretical and methodological means to think about the process of becoming aware of the ideologies of capitalist cisheteropatriarchy. On the other hand, this notion, challenged and disseminated to feminism studies for a long time and based on the life of white European women, did not allow to gaze at other experiences and situated knowledge produced mainly by African, African Americans and Amerindian women. At this epistemic crossroads, the narratives of people practicing Candomblé on the themes of gender and sexuality provide us with an immeasurable set of experiences from different bodies that transit in these spaces and fissure the universalist character of the concept of gender to think social relations. This study briefly reflects on this category in Candomblé based on the contributions of Oyèronké Oyěwùmí, bringing to the debate some dynamics of Candomblé, Afro-Brazilian religion, and other theoretical possibilities for understanding society based on the dynamics of matripotence, seniority or relative age and the Orixás trance.