The Living Traces of Clay: Ancestry and a Decolonial Perspective in the Mediterranean Ceramics of València and Afro-Indigenous Ceramics of Brazil

Abstract

This article explores ceramics as both an ancestral and contemporary practice that connects historical and cultural experiences between València and Brazil, from a decolonial perspective aimed at making subaltern knowledge and memories visible. Through the analysis of Valencian ceramics—with its Andalusí and Mediterranean heritage— and Brazilian productions—shaped by the confluence of Indigenous, African, and European traditions—this work highlights clay as an archive of resistances and cultural mestizaje. The proposed decolonial approach conceives ancestry as a living process of cultural resignification, capable of challenging the homogenization imposed by Eurocentric narratives. Moreover, it emphasizes the pedagogical potential of ceramics to construct critical imaginaries, recognizing cultural diversity as a pathway for enrichment, historical restitution, and social transformation.