On dressed land: contradictions of a peasant territorialization process in the Resex Quilombo do Frechal (MA)

Author(s)

Natalia Ribas Guerrero

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2012-12-18

Examining board members

Valeria de Marcos; Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida; Sueli Angelo Furlan

• Advisor: Valeria de Marcos

Abstract

This thesis proposes a reflection on the contradictions of the territorialization process experienced and conducted by peasant groups of the Reserva Extrativista Quilombo do Frechal, situated in Mirinzal, on the northern portion of Brazilian state of Maranhão. Distributed among three villages Rumo, Deserto e Frechal the Resex population associates their ascendancy to former slaves and free peasants that were connected to the owners of the Frechal Farm since the 18th century. During the 1970s and 1980s, villagers mainly from Frechal were confronted by expropriation threats, which triggered off a struggle for the land. In their resistance, Frechal people got involved in what was known as the black rural communities movement. In articulation with the uprising of the Brazilian black movement, this dynamics culminated, in 1988, with the inclusion on the new Constitutional letter of an article (the 68th of the ADCT) assuring territorial rights to remainders of quilombos (maroon communities). Frechal pleaded the recognition of its identity as quilombolas, which was granted and turned the village into the first officially recognized remainder of quilombos in Brazil. However, there was not yet an agreement over the juridical regulation to actually give land titles to Frechal based on the 68th article. As the conflict with the land owner intensified, the solution came in the form of an Extractivist Reserve (Resex), an also recent form of environmental conservation unit with origin within the seringueiros movement. In 1992, the Resex was created exactly over the former farm perimeter, which entailed the recognition of the other two villages, Rumo e Deserto, as Resex beneficiaries as well as Frechal. According to Resex statutes, that qualifies them as members of traditional populations. The peasant villagers are, therefore, intersected by two recent juridical and administrative objects (remainders of quilombos/traditional populations), two official ways to guard the territory (the 68th article and the Resex). The actual implementation of the Resex, particularly over the last decade, results in a contradictory process of territorialization, and this was made the object of this research. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/12086-1 - Maroon State or Extractivist Reserve? Contradictions of a peasant territorialisation process on the Western Coast area of Maranhão
• Grantee: Natalia Ribas Guerrero
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master