Forgetfulness as an Institutional Policy: The Case of the Palmares Foundation During the Jair Bolsonaro Government (2019-2022)

Abstract

The Palmares Foundation was created in 1988 in the context of Brazil’s process of re-democratization and the celebration of the one hundred year anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the country. Since then, it has played a central role in Afro-Brazilian memory and in the articulation of public policies in this area. The election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 marked a turning point for this Foundation insofar as it began to be used as a space for the dissemination of a certain conception of the racial debate present in conservative movements in Brazil, marked also by a denial that racism exists in the country and a reworking of the long-standing “myth of racial democracy.” In this study, I analyze how forgetfulness became an institutional policy of the Palmares Foundation and how this policy relates to a particular interpretation of racial relations in Brazil.