Quilombolas from Invernada dos Negros and the Rights in Dispute:

Rights “For Real” Or “For English to See”?

Abstract

This text describes the territorial conflicts involving the Quilombola Community of Invernada dos Negros, located between the municipalities of Campos Novos and Abdon Batista, in Santa Catarina, showing how the actions of the state and the justice system reveal a particularized treatment that reproduces structural logics of prejudice and exclusion. Using an ethnographic approach, based on the analysis of court cases, interviews and documentary research, the research problematizes how the quilombolas face a continuous process of territorial expropriation and institutional delegitimization, which is articulated through legal discourses, administrative practices and court decisions that place them in a position of constant insecurity. The study also highlights the community’s internal disputes and resistance strategies in the face of the instrumentalization of the law as a tool of oppression. The struggle for recognition of the rights of the Quilombolas of Invernada dos Negros is a reflection of the persistence of colonial structures in Brazil, where the realization of rights becomes a field of asymmetrical dispute, conditioned by economic and political interests that have historically marginalized black populations. This case shows us how judicial and state institutions have not yet fulfilled their role of compensating for possible imbalances in the economic inequalities inherent to market societies, but instead highlights the responsibilities of our social normalization institutions in the production and reproduction of inequality.

KEYWORDS: Quilombola. Invernada Dos Negros. Rights. Recognition.