Whispers, screams, and entwined eesistance in "Slam Minas Coimbra"

Abstract

This article originated from my presentation at the Conference Exodus e GEDlit. In it, I present an analysis of Slam das Minas Coimbra, which emerged in 2020 as the first slam in the Portuguese context focusing on gender, race, and sexuality, with a particular backdrop of the migration experience in post-colonial Portuguese society. As I progress, I provide a context for the territory in which the collective emerges, highlighting various social contrasts, including the rhetorics of modernity/coloniality anchored in socially practiced, annually repeated, and ritualized events called as "praxes" ("trotes)." Next, I expose how Slam das Minas Coimbra probes colonial wounds, enabling a critical examination of the creation of the "Community of Portuguese Language Countries," viewed as an instrument of the dream of "Lusophony," which, in turn, reactivates the neocolonial root. Finally, drawing inspiration from Gayatri Spivak (2009) on appropriating imaginative language to unmask cultural nationalism, I reveal how the anti-colonial poem by Brazilian artist Artgk deconstructs the colonial fiction, the foundation of Luiz de Camões's poetry, and the need to transgress the norm (cultured, European) of Portuguese from Portugal, making room for the plurilingualism of Portuguese speakers in post-colonial Portuguese society.