Brésil(s) (May 2018)
La gouvernance environnementale brésilienne à l’épreuve des communautés quilombolas : conquêtes nouvelles, ambiguïtés persistantes
Abstract
In 1988, Brazil adopted a new constitution that embraced democracy, integration, and multiculturalism. In this context, and as a remedy against the discrimination suffered by the Afro-Brazilian population since slavery, the state granted rural black communities (so-called quilombolas) the possibility of obtaining special legal status, including the collective ownership of their lands. Since 2006, these communities are also considered protected areas, which underscores their environmental role. This article analyzes and questions certain aspects of Brazilian environmental governance, starting with the quilombola model, which is a variant of a delegated socio-territorial model of managing environmental resources, at once collective and local. Firstly, I am interested in the genesis of this model, from the evolution of environmental management paradigms to the specific Brazilian case. In this section, I present the national and international historical and ideological context by which quilombolas have become crucial actors in the environment debate. Next, I analyze the contemporary realities of environmental governance. For this, and in addition to the standardized discourses, I study the practices of the quilombola communities and the actors with whom they interact. I emphasize how often the environment becomes a political instrument, used in various ways depending on the current paradigms, the actors involved and their own interests, thus leading to certain ambiguities and distortions. Finally, I show how the sustainability of the collective management of resources depends, on one hand, on the domestic economic needs of the quilombolas and, on the other hand, the hierarchical and interdependent power relations that they have long maintained with regional political and economic actors.
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