Abstract
This essay discusses how the time category and tangentially space can be thought through ethnographies, in African contexts, with distinct conceptions of the notion of a priori categories of understanding. From the so-called “Atlantic space”, I intend to establish a dialogue and a contrast between Gell’s ambitious proposal and some reflections, such as Shaw and Graeber’s, on memories of slavery. The empirical cases mobilized evidence practices, rituals and cosmological constructs by means of codified forms of expression and mnemotechnical production on past slaveholders, emphasizing different ways of conceiving time and space. The final aim is to highlight the impossible escape of philosophy, existing in different works in the field of anthropology, with the time’s notion occupying a particular highlight.
Keywords
time-space; slave memories; anthropology of time