Quilombolas de Jequitibá: processos identitários e luta pela terra

Abstract

The research aims to analyze the development of land conflicts in the Jequitibá Community - located in the municipality of Mundo Novo, north-central Bahia - and how, in the process of ethnic identification and territorial claim, the quilombolas of Jequitibá present and mobilize diacritics. In order to do so, there was mostly 18 days spent in the vicinity of Jequitibá, divided into two moments of 9 days each. For the production of research data, direct and semi-directed contact with the informants, direct observation of daily life or events in loco was essential. In addition, semi-structured qualitative interviews, individual and group, were carried out. There was documentary analysis for specific checks such as: dates of some events; confirmation of parental levels; elucidation of certain facts. In addition, the documents, in the spectrum of which captured or accessed images were included, were used as the primary source of analysis. The virtual environment, particularly the WhatsApp smartphone application, was also used as a means of data production. It was found that the institution of the address / household at the Jequitibá Farm was a remarkable condition in the formation of the Jequitibá Community, linked to the narrow horizon of possibilities, in the rural area, for the ex-slavery slaves in the post-abolition. It was found that land conflicts on the farm start when the asymmetric balance, which characterizes the address / household, breaks. In a second moment, such conflict develops in demand for territorial title to the State, through public policy for quilombola territories. In parallel, there is the process of ethnic identification in Jequitibá. The research revealed that ethnic diacritics, in this process, are mediated and mediators of an imagination about the “quilombola people”. It also showed that this imagination is materialized in the bodies of the agents involved in ethnic identification, now conformed in a positive sense. The research revealed, finally, that those elements that from the local point of view do not find an exact ontological definition (whether of nature or culture), such as Jequitibá's haunts, may, in the context of a meeting between researcher / technician / public servant and the be highlighted as diacritical.