"Marielle's seeds" – Impulses to decolonize the concept of "dangerous memory"

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how subalternized groups empower themselves through "dangerous memory". According to political theologian Johann Baptist Metz, "dangerous memory" refers to the memory of suffering and unfulfilled hopes that disturb the present. From a theological point of view, dangerous memory is the memory of the cross. Engaging critically with Metz, the analysis of the memory of Marielle Franco offers impulses for a decolonial understanding of "dangerous memory" that focuses more on what has already been achieved. Marielle Franco's trajectory is a testimony to how black women from the favelas empower themselves individually and collectively through education, care, collective construction and the appropriation of a positive self-image. This article shows how, after Marielle Franco's assassination, her memory became a "dangerous memory" that empowers and inspires subalternized women and promotes processes of becoming a subject. In this way, the memory of Marielle Franco becomes a stimulus for political theology to reconceptualize "dangerous memory" as a memory of resurrection, which opens up paths to life.