La emergencia de la identidad quilombola en contexto urbano: la familia Silva de Porto Alegre (2002-2009)

Abstract

Millions of Africans were brought to America as slave labor between the 16th and 19th centuries. One of the
forms of resistance on the part of the slaves was to form autonomous communities that in Brazil were known as
quilombos. After slavery was abolished in 1888, this concept disappeared from legal texts until 1988, the year in
which the Brazilian Constitution recognized land ownership by the remaining quilombo communities. In 2002, the
Silva family, a black community located in Três Figueiras, the most valued neighborhood in Porto Alegre, recognized
itself as a quilombola community, becoming 2004 the first urban quilombo recognized by the State. In this way, a term
unknown to the community becomes a self-referential category after a process of struggle. This work tries to explain
the emergence of the quilombola identity in the Silva family and its constitution in a remnant quilombo community.
Our methodological approach starts from the New History that is opposed to the Traditional History of a positivist
nature, proposing the expansion of sources, subjectivity as an intrinsic part of the construction of knowledge, and
strengthening the link between History and the other Social Sciences. We also drink in the Subaltern Studies that
seek to rescue the history of the sectors that do not have a voice in the Official History. Our activities were mainly the
work in historical, judicial, and institutional archives related to our subject of study; interviews with members of the
community, militants of Afro-Brazilian movements, and workers of state institutions with strong links to the path of
the Silva carrying out the rescue of Oral History; compilation and analysis of existing audiovisual documentaries and
journalistic reports on the internet; and ethnography of the community, mobilizations, and cultural events carried out
by Afro-Brazilian movements.
The results we have arrived at having to do with understanding the self-recognition of the Silva family as a quilombola
community based on their struggle for territory. After four unsuccessful attempts to obtain ownership of the land
through usucaption and facing several eviction attempts, the Silva end up activating a legal device that works as
“reparation” of the Brazilian State for the afro-descendant populations, due to the past of slavery that applied to them
and the consequences of that history: marginality, racism, and socioeconomic inequality. In this way, it is shown that
justice is not equal for all in an unequal society. Finally, we understand that from their self-recognition as quilombolas,
the Silva family’s black identity ends up becoming positive and a source of pride and a fight for their rights.