Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1728-353X
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Sociology
Year Degree Awarded
2023
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Agustin Lao-Montes
Second Advisor
Millicent Thayer
Third Advisor
Brian Sargent
Fourth Advisor
Sonia Alvarez
Subject Categories
Civic and Community Engagement | Community-Based Research | Place and Environment | Politics and Social Change | Race and Ethnicity | Social Justice | Urban Studies and Planning
Abstract
In the face of recent colonial and capitalist expansion, scholars and activists have advocated for the decolonization of the world. However, how can we do that? My research investigates this question. I explore how Afro-descendant movements in Latin America organize urban communities as alternatives to Western modernity. By fighting for self-determination, these movements secured the title of more than 200 million hectares of land, an area slightly larger than Mexico. Besides, they organize their communities according to ethnic traditions and ancestral ontologies, creating self-determined collectives in which people forge new forms of being and living - territories of life. Scholars who have studied these communities define them as a path to decolonization. Yet, these studies focus on rural areas. This focus stems from associating alternatives to Western modernity with rural ancestral and ethnic groups. "Being urban," on the other hand, is often synonymous with "being modern" and Western urbanity (an individualistic and capitalist culture). Considering this, my dissertation investigates territories of life in urban contexts. Following participatory research principles, I conducted more than one year of ethnographic work in a large city in Brazil. The fieldwork included participant observation, thirty interviews, and six collaborative workshops with three Afro-descendant urban groups. The first is a matriarchal quilombo (a maroon community) located in the city's downtown area. The second is a Black-led socialist and feminist political organization that gathers those who cannot afford rent and occupies vacant lots to build houses. The third is a self-organized group led by Black women from a Brazilian favela (shantytown). In my dissertation, I explain how each group creates territories of life and provides different possibilities to decolonize urban spaces, as well as the challenges they face. More specifically, I discuss their struggle to protect ancestral lands in urban areas, the fight against the criminalization of the occupation of vacant land, and the creation of solidarity networks to survive police terror, prison, and displacement.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/35952390
Recommended Citation
Góes, Juliana M., "DECOLONIZING CITIES: BLACK MOVEMENTS AND TERRITORIES OF LINFE IN BRAZIL" (2023). Doctoral Dissertations. 2908.
https://doi.org/10.7275/35952390
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2908
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Justice Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons