Thinking about decoloniality, from the point of view of the colonizer's daughter, in the “Notebook of colonial memories”, by Isabela Figueiredo

other bias

Abstract

The work Notebook of colonial memories (2019), by Mozambican author Isabela Figueiredo, the subject of this study is a dense autobiographical text that presents a certain duality, on the part of the author, in relation to the process of colonization of the Portuguese colonies and the notion of decoloniality on which current authors have emphasized and have raised different approaches. We present this discussion, based on Adichie (2009); Lejeune (2009); Lerner (2019); Stevens (2014); Mignolo (2017); De Marco (2024) and Bento (2022), and we weave an approach from the perspective of Isabela Figueiredo's autobiographical authorial voice which presents, from two distinct phases of her life (in Mozambique and in Portugal), her vision of the process of domination imposed by slave owners, as well as the objectification of black subjects, especially women, and the naturalness with which Europeans established themselves as superior to them. It is a narrative that sometimes has traces of decoloniality, and sometimes, influenced by her father's Eurocentric concepts, the author tends to defend his attitudes, raising doubts about her ideological positioning. Our objective is to foster discussions about the unique bias of the History of the enslaved African people, shown from the colonizer's point of view, and to present the side of the oppressed, the subjugated, the objectified, whose labor force provided well-being and social prestige to the executioner.