Peoples’ Art and Cultural Memory: A Critical Dialogue between Latin America and Oceania

ABSTRACT Several theoretical positions such as the “Global South” have challenged the developmentalist logic that continues to maintain cultural categorizations as they relate to art in the aftermath of WWII. In the current neoliberal era, the post-1945 developmentalist paradigm has gone even further by instrumentalizing culture itself produced under “conditions of oppression,” primarily to foster public diplomacy and economic benefits. Nation-states face globalization using these categories in order to create an authentic and competitive identity. This article engages in a cross-cultural analysis of arte popular brasileira—in which Brazil belongs to the Global South—and Māori art—in what I call the “southern isles” of Aotearoa New Zealand—both of which function in conditions of coloniality. I identify the implications of the strategies implemented in governmental policies and official institutional spaces for these artistic and cultural expressions.