DEVOTIONAL SCULPTURES IN DECOLONIAL PERSPECTIVES:

HERITAGE EDUCATION AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF ART

Abstract

Postcolonial theories, inaugurated with the studies of Edward Said (1990), Literary Criticism
and Social Sciences, impacted the various sectors and disciplines of the Humanities, including
the Social History of Art (Bell, 2008), which found in the Image phenomena and material
culture, a reflection of this complex theoretical, artistic, cultural and political spectrum,
frequently challenged in new research objects and new problematizations throughout History.
Such intercultural dialogues arrived in basic education curricula, as well as in museums, cultural
institutions and art collections. In this panorama, devotional sculptures were not unaffected or
distant from the debates and approaches raised. On the contrary, they reaffirmed themselves as
repositories of histories, diversities, religiosities and ambivalences of the colonial and postcolonial
world. Furthermore, the iconographic analyzes, in this context, allow dialogues with
heritage education, with art education (Barbosa, 2014) and with the teaching of history (Lúzio,
2022), as reinterpretations of the colonial past.