The “tabuleiro” as an expression of resistance of black “quitandeiras” in Brazil (19th century):

A bibliographical review

Abstract

“Quitandeiras” were called the African and African-Brazilian women, enslaved, freed enslaved and free, who incorporated selling several foodstuffs as a craft in nineteenth-century Brazil. Being inserted in a world-system based on white and racializing ideals, the exercise of selling foodstuffs meant a possibility of resistance to the racism, abuse and exploitation experienced by these women. On this way, in order to ensure that coloniality is questioned and not reproduced in this article, decoloniality and the questioning of whiteness encompass the research methodology used, besides the food social history. Thus, two titles form the basis of this bibliographic review, namely the MA Dissertation “Das kitandas de Luanda aos tabuleiros das Terras de São Sebastião: conflito em torno do comércio das quitandeiras negras no Rio de Janeiro do século XIX”, by master of Urban and Regional Planning Fernando Vieira de Freitas; and the PhD Dissertation “‘Um pé na cozinha’: uma análise sócio-histórica do trabalho de cozinheiras negras no Brasil”, by doctor of Sociology Taís de Sant’Anna Machado. In short, the uses of food social history, decoloniality and the questioning of whiteness as theoretical presuppositions in the analysis of power relations and subalternization proposed in the Brazilian colonial society includes the understanding of the different forms of sociocultural, intellectual and dietary resistance exercised by the “quitandeiras” in the 19^th century.