Neoquilombos & The Afro-Diaspora

"The concept of quilombo has evolved into the “Neoquilombos” a term used to refer to the remaining quilombola communities around Brazil - nearly five thousand strong. It has also been expanded and redefined to include the trans-national array of actions, organisations and cultural practices that exist unashamedly as modes of Black resistance, having broken past the need to hide. The capoeira groups, candomblé houses, land rights movements, Catholic brother and sisterhoods, Black-run newspapers, anti-violence organisations, trans-national activist networks, Black political organizations, Black studies programs in universities, Black feminist and gender-focused organisations.

 

The essence of quilombismo is also found in cultural practices such as the afoxés, maracatus, samba schools, and the hip-hop movement, headwrap classes and in countless other instances. Technology has also created space for many digital quilombos to emerge; every technological expression that makes an effort to produce discourses and practices with a clear focus on Black liberation - cultural, material, and epistemological: including this publication you hold in your hands - becomes a Neoquilombo."