February 12, 2022

11:02

Priscilla Peixoto – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Starting this year, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) will include in the Census statistics information about the reality of quilombola communities. It is the first time that the census, usually done every ten years, will bring an exclusive cut referring to the traditional population considering data such as economic issues, ethnic belonging based on data such as self-declarations, in addition to demographic, social and population characteristics, according to material released by the Alma Preta Portal. It is worth mentioning that the Census contributes as a tool, providing data for the federal government to distribute the resources of the Participation Funds of the States and Municipalities.

According to the technical responsible for the IBGE’s traditional peoples and communities project, Marta Antunes, the challenge is to be able to reach the territories so that the Census can be carried out without leaving anyone behind. Moreover, the whole process of evaluation and improvement has been carried out with the participation of quilombola representatives.

“At the current moment of planning for the demographic Census 2022 in quilombola locations, the challenge is to make these leaders from all over the country aware of the importance of the Census, so they can help IBGE to arrive in their territories and carry out the demographic Census without leaving anyone behind. For this, presenting to all the leaders the methodology of the Census and creating a permanent exchange network between the state IBGE teams and the quilombola leaders in each state is essential for the success of the Census,” said Marta in an interview with Alma Preta.

Progress

For the teacher and resident of the Barranco de São Benedito Urban Quilombo community, Rafaela Silva, located in the Praça 14 neighborhood, South area of Manaus, the initiative can be considered a breakthrough, because the survey helps the communities to come out of invisibility, besides serving as a support for the quilombolas in relation to the lands inhabited by them.

“This even serves as a support for most communities, because until then the quilombola lands do not even exist for the Palmares Cultural Foundation, so much so that there are many unresolved claims regarding the lands of rural quilombos and some urban ones,” says Rafaela, who calls attention to public policies and the so-called social cartography, which are important for data survey in the country.

“Let’s not forget social cartography, which is coordinated by Professor Alfredo Wagner of the State University of Amazonas, who also works with data collection within the existing communities in Amazonas and even in other Brazilian states, such as Maranhão. So, as soon as there are these initiatives, we can be sure of the progress, since we have so much of our land invaded by land grabbers and people who somehow want to take the land away from us”, points out Rafaela.

Alignment

According to information from Palmares Foundation, there are currently an average of 3 thousand quilombola communities in the country. On the other hand, IBGE and Conaq believe that the total number reaches almost 6 thousand communities. Also according to information from the Alma Preta portal, according to the executive coordinator of the National Coordination of Articulation of Quilombos (Conaq) Antônio João Mendes, the inclusion of the people in the studies helps to combat structural racism and aligns the conflicting information about the actual number of existing communities.

“We faced many difficulties, because the racism structured in government institutions did not allow the dialogue to flow. We know that the invisibility of this population plays an important role in the marginalization of our people from accessing the right to live with dignity in our territories (…) There has never been an institutional concern in qualifying the information about the quilombola population. The discrepancy in the information shows that there has not been a public policy to attend all this population”, says Mendes, who believes in the possibility of new public policies developed from the qualified information gathered by the Census.

Method

The Census 2022 will be carried out from August to October, the census takers who will cover the areas of traditional peoples and communities will go through training to attend and better understand the existing concepts.

In compliance with the health standards established by the health agencies, the IBGE agents will act with a distance of 1.5 meters from the interviewees and the questioning will be done outside the homes to protect the quilombolas from possible contamination caused by Covid-19 among other diseases.

In all, there will be 5,972 quilombola locations in Brazil including officially delimited Quilombola Territories, quilombola groupings, and other places that must be mapped.