Ethnic and racial violence and violations in the context of the Brazilian democratic crisis: a study of Black and Quilombola populations

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article addresses the question of how the recent political context of Brazil shapes violations of various kinds against Quilombola communities in Brazil. Using data from online news sources, we track violations from 2016 to 2020 related to land disputes, physical attacks and threats, and environmental issues. We show that, despite the legal rights accorded to these communities since the 1988 constitutional reform and subsequent processes of democratisation, vested interests in the agricultural lobby and a later authoritarian turn, especially after 2016, led to a dismantling of social and economic policies for Quilombos. The violations suffered by these communities result from the denial of their collective identities as constitutional subjects and the non-recognition of their dignity, which are the product of historical processes of inferiorisation that have treated some people as non-subjects or not eligible to bear rights, based on colonial classifications but still present in the dominant society.