DISCURSIVE DISPUTES AROUND THE QUILOMBOLA NOMINATION
Quilombola communities; discursive practices; document analysis
This thesis approaches with the discursive production around the quilombola nomination. The
recognition of quilombola subjects and communities has been marked by disputes that involve
especially the issue of land demarcation and land tenure regularization in Brazil and the large
developmental projects. We argue that the discursivities built around the quilombola category
from the different positions taken on contribute to (re)produce different versions of this
category. For this, from the Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyzed public domain documents
as critical incidents that allowed us to visualize the controversy produced around the recognition
of Quilombola subjects and communities, identifying voices, positions and mobilized
repertoires. It was possible to identify two discursive matrices: 1) historical/archaeological; and
2) plural/heterogeneous. The first, which reinforces the official historiography and contributes
to the erasure of the trajectories of black communities in the post-abolition period, is mainly
defended by groups opposed to land demarcation, generally linked to agribusiness and large
estates. This matrix feeds back racism and strengthens the social structure of exclusion and
inequalities experienced by quilombola communities. As for the emergence of the second
matrix, the political action of rural black communities, in dialogue with anthropologists, and
the construction of a quilombola social movement, which favored the production of a new
lexicon based on notions such as group ethnicity, common land use and territory. This matrix
recognizes the diversity of experiences around the idea of a quilombo, facing the historical
silencing experienced by communities and allowing the creation of public policies aimed at
guaranteeing rights and social emancipation.