Wednesday, March 13, 2019
12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Joukowsky Forum, 111 Thayer Street
Drawing on ethnographic field research in a quilombola community in the Brazilian state of Bahia, Elizabeth Farfan-Santos explores how quilombola recognition has significantly affected the everyday lives of those who experience the often-complicated political process. Questions of identity, race, and entitlement play out against a community’s struggle to prove its historical authenticity and to gain the land and rights they need to survive. Moreover, she discusses what might happen to quilombola communities as the few rights they counted on are threatened by the new right-wing government of Jair Bolsonaro.
Elizabeth Farfán-Santos is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Houston.