Terra Quilombola de Nazaré: organização social e espacial, município de Itapipoca, Ceará.

Abstract

As a result of the initiatives of a number of different sectors of Brazilian society, the present-day quilombola (escaped slave) communities have assumed a new role on the national stage, discarding their secrecy to seek recognition and to struggle for the rights to their traditional lands, and the maintenance of their traditional way of life. Approximately two thousand quilombola communities have been identified in Brazil, where they can be found in rural, urban, and peri-urban settings in a number of different regions. In the Brazilian state of Ceará, where the negro presence was denied in the colonial and imperial periods, these groups, also known as rural negro communities, were, until recently, all but anonymous. Over the years, as a result of the local movement for negro awareness, the negro communities themselves, and the wider society, new elements were inserted into the historiography of the state, reinforcing the importance of these groups for the formation of the local identity. In this context, the present study aimed to understand the forms of social and spatial organization experienced by the quilombola community of Nazaré, located in the district of Arapari, in the municipality of Itapipoca, Ceará, Brazil. The starting point for this analysis was the understanding of the significance of the quilombo in the present-day, in the context of political reforms, changes in legislation, and the generation of new social policies, which have recognized the importance of these group for the formation of the national identity. Complementary data were collected using open and semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and a social cartographic approach, in which the observations demonstrated how familial and religious relationships, and the creation of associations (residents and quilombolas) are important elements in the social life of the residents of Nazaré, combining to solidify the movement that valorizes the quilomobola identity. In general, the results of this study provide an important contribution to the visibility of the quilombola movement of Ceará, as well as providing a historical, socio-economic, and environmental record of the Nazaré quilombo.