Partners, workers, quilombolas: narratives and trajectories of access to land in the Quilombos of Imbé/RJ

Abstract

This article is result of the ethnography about the processes of recognition of quilombola communities in a rural area of ​​the city of Campos do Goytacazes, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. I propose to analyze the way in which residents affirm bonds of belonging to the territory and support their demands for rights, from becoming a quilombola in public arenas. For this, I mobilize the narratives that assume centrality and support demands for rights, related to the local historical trajectory. These narratives are elaborate in the face of the different dynamics of control and subordination, remembered and experienced over generations, as well as speak of the conditions for overcoming them. The agrarian reform program, for example, can be thought of as a moment of rupture with previous ways of life and work relationships, being qualified by residents as part of the “achievements” and “victories”, even though it is possible to speak of the ambiguities surrounding the conditions of access to land and possibilities for producing and marketing food.