O protagonismo das mulheres quilombolas na luta por direitos em comunidades do Estado de São Paulo (1988-2018)

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the political role of women in the struggles to maintain their way of life in the quilombola communities of the State of São Paulo, through the conquest of land titling and access to basic social rights such as health care and formal education. It seeks to understand the ways in which quilombola women acted in the elaboration of public policies and, at the same time, were influenced by them, from the 1988 Constitution. At that historical moment, Article 68 of the Transitional Constitutional Provisions legitimized the remaining quilombolas communities the rights to the recognition and ownership of land. However, the constitutional text alone did not guarantee access to these rights. The rural and urban black movements organized to conquer what the law affirmed, and other social actors were also important in this process: Anthropologists, representatives of the Catholic Church and Pentecostals. With this, new legal norms were conquered, such as Decree 4887/03, which reaffirms the concept of quilombo, in order to facilitate the titling process of the lands. On the other hand, there are environmental laws that hinder the continuity of the quilombola way of life, and new struggles are framed around environmental racism. This study emphasizes the leadership of quilombola women in these processes as protagonists of a new narrative in the contemporary quilombola struggle