marina dadico amâncio de souza

Brazil is known worldwide for its large Black population and vibrant Black culture. Within this context, there has been a growing scholarly interest in the land struggles of maroon communities, or quilombos—often defined as Afro-Brazilian communities descending from fugitive enslaved Africans. Early historiographic research mostly situated quilombos in rural contexts, imagined them almost exclusively in northern regions, and shaped debates about their resistance through masculinist framings. Since the inclusion of a clause guaranteeing maroon collective land grants in the 1988 Constitution, anthropological research echoed this academic tradition while also restricting the focus of discussions to juridical questions about land tenure and maroon authenticity. These conventions have fueled suspicions about maroon (quilombola) land and identity claims while rendering the notion of women-led quilombos in the Urban South as ostensibly counterintuitive. Yet, women are at the forefront of the 11 quilombos that today fight for territorial rights in Porto Alegre, Brazil’s southernmost metropolis. They unsettle enduring assumptions about quilombos while archiving collective strategies of Afro-diasporic liberation. My project focuses on women’s everyday acts of resistance and future-building in three quilombos in this city to examine how they resist and reconfigure geographies of racial domination while cultivating a “maroon sense of place”.