Quilombolas as “Green Collectives”: Contesting and Incorporating Environmentalism in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil

Abstract

By reconstructing major events that took place over the past 50 years in a small caiçara village situated within the Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar, São Paulo, this article explores the issue of environmentality, a process through which local people incorporate mandates of environmental governance and policies, progressively mobilizing and performing the position of environmental stewards. In 2003, this community was recognized as a quilombo reminiscent. The recognition led to a self-division of the community into two groups with around 35 families each. One group maintained a caiçara self-designation, whereas the other adopted a quilombola identity. Using qualitative data obtained through long-term participant observation and interviews with local residents, the article shows that over time, socioeconomic, environmental, institutional and cultural changes, culminating with quilombola recognition, have contributed to an ongoing formation of a “green collective” among quilombola families.

The Quilombola Movement: Sensing Futures in Afroindigenous Amazonia

“…Even though scholars have sustained more complex and nuanced versions of Afro‐Brazilians’ history and culture, the charismatic maroon past has nevertheless set the ground for some exotic representations of contemporary quilombola communities, mainly outside academia (e.g., Oliveira 2019; Planas 2014). One of these romantic depictions is that of quilombolas as “green collectives,” a stereotype that, aiming to attract ethnic and ecological tourism, implicitly connects these peoples’ resilient history with their currently attributed role of “environmental stewards” (Penna‐Firme and Brondízio 2017).…”

“…The puzzling landscape of multicultural policies that governs contemporary Brazil was implemented to repair historical injustices and social inequalities created by slavery (Penna‐Firme and Brondízio 2017). Despite the reparatory and inclusive intent, multiculturalism in Brazil brought about the naturalization of cultural difference and, in Amazonia, the bureaucratic invisibility of mestizo migrant peasants—also known as ribeirinhos— who lack a clear narrative of ethnic identity (Nugent and Harris 2004).…”

“…Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and Mauro Almeida (2001), for instance, have noted how “traditional peoples” perform political and ecological roles related to biodiversity conservation with the underlying goal of legitimizing their claims to territorial rights. Likewise, amid the complex interplay of Brazilian multicultural policies, traditional territories, and conservation areas, “quilombolas have both progressively embodied and also contested a romanticized environmental identity associated with sustainability, but not always reflective of local conditions and expectations” (Penna‐Firme and Brondízio 2017, 141).…”