Pensamento negro e desobediência epistêmica: estratégias de insurgência em “Águas Turvas, Turbulentas”

Abstract

This article analyzes the short story “Águas Turvas, Turbulentas”, from Nei Lopes’s collection Nas águas desta baía há muito tempo (2017), through the lens of Black thought and epistemic disobedience as literary practices of insurgency. Grounded in the concept of dissident epistemologies, the reading explores the story as a rupture with colonial regimes of language and representation, articulated through an aesthetic rooted in orality, African ancestry, and the subversion of the white-Western literary canon. Anchored in Black voices and memories, the narrative calls for a reconfiguration of subjectivity through African languages, mythical references, and marginalized figures as historical agents. Drawing on theorists such as Walter Mignolo, Frantz Fanon, Cuti and Grada Kilomba, the article argues that Nei Lopes’s literature enacts an aesthetic-political gesture that repositions the Black subject as an epistemic agent, expanding the boundaries of the literary field and establishing an insurgent language. The analysis demonstrates how Nei Lopes’s writing embodies the notion of literature-that-thinks (as proposed in the journal’s call): a text that not only tells a story but also produces critical thought, challenges colonial norms, and affirms alternative ways of knowing, existing, and imagining collectively.