56% of Brazilians are Black, but where is their history on the map?
Talita Azevedo, a researcher and entrepreneur from the countryside of São Paulo, Brazil, has created a mapping project of invisibilized territories. She advocates for a decolonial use of technology to preserve Afro-Brazilian memory.
In Brazil, more than half of the population is Black, according to IBGE (2022), yet historical references to their ancestry are rarely visible in urban maps, schoolbooks, or digital platforms. This invisibility is not an accident. It is the result of centuries of systematic erasure that continues to shape cities, education, and the telling of the country’s history. Streets lack the names of Black leaders, monuments celebrate only the white elite, and school curricula reduce African and Afro-Brazilian history to a single chapter on slavery. As writer Conceição Evaristo defines it, memory is “a writing of life, a writing-existence,” emphasizing the need for Black subjects to be represented as protagonists.
This lack of memory affects collective self-esteem, access to knowledge, and cultural representation. It reinforces symbolic violence and erases Black protagonism, including its scientific, technological, and intellectual contributions.
Yet this story is changing. Repairing Black memory in Brazil is possible because erasure is the result of political choices—and therefore reversible.
Talita’s platform, Presente Histórico, uses digital technology to map and geo-reference places connected to Afro-Brazilian memory. She combines oral history, geolocation, and collaborative digital tools to create a living and affective cartography of erased territories, stories, characters, and ancestral wisdom.
Launched in December 2024, Presente Histórico has already mapped significant sites, including:
- The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black People in Salvador
- Largo Terreiro de Jesus, Salvador
- Lagoa das Lontras, Rio de Janeiro
- The 17th-century Baobab tree on Paquetá Island, Rio
These sites exemplify the project’s approach: combining religious, cultural, technological, and territorial dimensions to recover Afro-Brazilian memory. The research also aims to propose an intersection in the scientific field, integrating popular practices, religious traditions, digital technologies, and territorial knowledge, creating a holistic methodology for memory reconstruction.
The platform has attracted thousands of online visits and generated over 30 organic national media mentions, reflecting growing public engagement. The initiative also earned Talita an invitation to her first TEDx talk, expanding the visibility of Afro-Brazilian memory internationally.
“My goal is to propose a new relationship between science, technology, and ancestral knowledge. Brazil has historically been a cradle of wisdom that points to systemic, healthy, and respectful ways of relating to our environment—especially Indigenous and Afro-diasporic knowledge,” says Talita.
The platform’s theoretical foundation integrates concepts of epistemicide (Boaventura de Sousa Santos; expanded by Sueli Carneiro), decolonial social technologies, and Afro-Brazilian philosophies of ancestry and territoriality. By merging oral traditions with digital mapping, Presente Histórico transforms educational and cultural paradigms.
In a country that often forgets, Presente Histórico makes remembering an act of resistance. It turns technology into a tool for social repair, giving Black Brazilians the ability to see themselves reflected in the very spaces they inhabit.
Talita Azevedo is a researcher and entrepreneur specializing in Afro-Brazilian memory and digital innovation. She is the founder of oná, a Web Summit Ambassador, and a LinkedIn Top Voice.
