Universidade de São Paulo. Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
Abstract
The last decade theoretical accumulation on peripheries has turned this concept into a fundamental tool to approach contemporaneity. It has become an effective key to rethink the complex morphology of modernities, in particular when the modernization processes don’t seem completely to entail the diversities of the generated modern forms. After a synoptic genealogy of peripheral thoughts, inscribed in the synthetic categorial circle of Periferic, the concept key is adopted to draft the very particular profile of Portuguese colonialism, historically grounded on a paradoxical “weak force” that fed a mythology of exceptionalism of the Portuguese Overseas case. In this sense, a modern peripheral discourse may become an international work of articulation of fake forms and narratives. Such a rethorical and ideological device, defined by the ideology of Luso- Tropicalism - set up in Brazil, that is in an ex-colony with the decisive contribution of Gilberto Freyre, but after recycled by the contemporary metropolis, Portugal and the Salazarian regime, in order to justify the maintenance of the African colonies - shows a crucial but hidden aspect and risk of the postcolonial theories. If it isn’t assumed with a particular ethics of discourse care, uncritical postcolonial arguments may be turned as a exceptional colonial alibi to feed the immagination of a necessary colonial relation. Therefore, postcolonial theory has to keep a very strict link to the metacritcal dimension of the discourse.acumulação teórica das últimas décadas sobre as “periferias” atualizou o conceito clássico, que hoje é chave para repensar as morfologias complexas do moderno. Com tal conceito, esboça-se, aqui, o perfil do colonialismo português, baseado historicamente numa paradoxal “força débil” que alimenta uma mitologia de excepcionalismo. Assim, um discurso moderno periférico pode se articular no plano internacional a narrativas falsas. Tal dispositivo ideológico, presente na ideologia do Luso-tropicalismo – constituído no Brasil por Gilberto Freyre, e reciclado pela metrópole – mostra um aspecto encoberto nas teorias pós-coloniais. Ao não se cuidar de uma particular ética do discurso, formulações acríticas pós-coloniais podem se converter em álibi colonial alimentando a imaginação de uma colonização necessária. Portanto, a teoria pós-colonial deve manter um elo estreito com a dimensão metacrítica do discurso
