Un-covering-exiling findings: views over the Africa of diasporas.

Abstract

This article presents considerations on the use of ethnographical iconography in the approach of African material culture from surveys we have been conducting on the ethnological collections of MAE/USP and Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi-MPEG/MTCI. Such considerations have emerged due to some African objects related to black African contexts of Brazil, but concern especially studies on typical forms and graphisms of the arts of the Bantu speaking societies of Central Africa of the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. It points to the caution with which this iconography, forms and grafisms should be treated when of its application as source of research.