The current concept of quilombo and the participation of anthropology in the public agenda

The current notion of quilombo must be observed from the perspective of the public discussions that resulted in the appearance of a resemantized definition for the ethnic groups in question, which became the official interpretation, stating who they are, their composition, and how they must be viewed by public policies. The first public interpretations of the legal category pertaining to the notion of quilombo were geared towards a restrictive vision of the term (^{Jorge, 2016}). According to ^{Matos and Eugênio (2019)}, two interpretative paths stood in opposition in the analysis of the constitutional mechanism. The first was linked to the dictionary’s definition of quilombo, which considered the historical notion of quilombo to identify and recognize Quilombolas, using the literal sense of the definition the remaining members of quilombo communities. This definition was not only associated with the more general representations of quilombos, but it also viewed land rights as individual property rights. On the other end of the discussion, there was a movement that promoted a semantic shift, which was later baptized by the anthropological field as a process of “resemantization”, that advanced in the emphasis of the concepts of ethnicity and “common use lands”³ belonging to the quilombo remnants. This second interpretation broke free from “a necessary tie between the right to the land as a Quilombola and the need to prove a historical past” connected with slavery (^{Jorge, 2016}, p. 5), increasing the insertion of people and communities in the legal category of Quilombola.

This resemantization movement was the result of discursive and conceptual constructions in the 1990s and the resulting recontextualizations conducted based on the actions of various significant actions performed by social movements, sectors linked to the State and agencies that were involved with the issue (Palmares Cultural Foundation, INCRA), the social sciences and law, especially anthropologists, mainly through the actions of the ABA (^{Jorge, 2016}; ^{Mota, 2014}). It was this combination that led to the appearance of a hegemonic interpretation according to which the remnants of quilombo communities are seen as ethnic groups with self-declared identities and the collective right to land, as stated in the 1988 Federal Constitution in recognition of their own forms of territoriality and tradition (^{Schmitt et al., 2002}).

As an inflection point in the construction of this semantic shift, ^{Jorge (2016)} identifies the Document from the ABA’s Working Group about Rural Black Communities, which was published in 1994,⁴ as the instrument that pioneered the new interpretation. Thus, quilombos would be ethnic groups in a process of permanent constitution, through the establishment of boundaries and the affirmation of differences; a process that was dubbed “ethnogenesis” (^{Jorge, 2016}). The result of the resemantization process for the term “quilombo remnants” transformed it into a product that was less linked to a dated past and more associated with the results of ethnic and identitarian engagements of social groups that are, dynamically, still forming in the present time (^{Jorge, 2016}; ^{Mota, 2014}).⁵

Other categories and concepts stemming from anthropological repertoire would be present in the production of this interpretative framework, such as collectivity, territoriality, collective memory, traditional populations, alterity, and others (^{Jorge, 2016}). However, the main one, that which provided the central base for the term’s semantic shift, was the “ethnicity” category, and its derivations, such as “ethnic groups” and “ethnic boundaries”. To ^{Barth (2000)}, the process of ethnic identification has, as its main characteristic, the desire to establish the limits between “them” and “us” to define and maintain a “boundary”. More precisely, the established boundary results from a commitment concerning that which the group intends to demarcate. It is a social boundary. Furthermore, ethnicity has more to do with organizational and interactional elements - the ties and manners of sociability among individuals from the same group - than with a mere cultural manifestation. Although at first glance we might classify the groups according to their similarities and differences, these would not suffice to lead to the formation or recognition of different ethnic groups. The sharing of a culture would be a consequence, and not the cause or condition, much less an explanation of ethnicity (^{Villar, 2004}) since the differences between social groups should not be sought in apparent external characteristics or in the search for an essentiality that claims the notion of a distinctive or “original culture” (^{Barth, 2000}; ^{Cuche, 2002}).

Along with the idea of ethnicity, another theory related to the proposals for the resignification of the concept of quilombo was the distinction made by Max Weber regarding the difference between racial and ethnic groups (^{Jorge, 2016}). To ^{Weber (1982)}, racial belonging is based on a person’s community of origin, while ethnic belonging is established according to a “subjective belief” in one’s community of origin. Namely, classifications that are based exclusively on the social concept of race are one thing while self-classifications in a Weberian sense, which depend on a subjective belief of self-recognition of these individuals as carriers of a qualitative group difference based on their community of origin, would be another. This type of epistemic construction emphasizes the notion of ethnic self-declaration.

Thus, self-declaration became the main form of attributing rights to Quilombola communities. In this sense, Decreto 4.887 (2003),⁶ is fully aligned with the concept of resemantization when it states:

Art 2. For the purposes of this Decree, the remnants of quilombo communities are considered to be ethnic-racial groups in accordance with the criteria of self-declaration, possessing their own historical trajectory, specific territorial relations, with the presumption of Black ancestry related to the resistance against the historical oppression experienced by this group.

Indeed, the development of this interpretation was vital, among other political actions, for the dissemination of categories that are present in the anthropological repertoire. The concepts of ethnicity, ethnogenesis and self-declaration were appropriated, recontextualized and used in disputes and discussions in the main public arenas (legislature, public administration, current legal proceedings, etc.), in which more discussions were held regarding which communities can, or not, be considered Quilombola communities.

It is important to underscore the fact that, while ethnic self-declaration is a stable action, the concept of ethnicity is part of a continuum, in the sense that its original boundaries may be more or less delineated, strengthened or consolidated. It is no coincidence that intermediary elements of Quilombola identities comprise the practices for recognizing such groups in Brazil (^{Jorge, 2016}). Part of the literature demonstrates how dances and parties, for instance, have served not as a manner of “rescuing” the past, but for recreating new cultural practices and traditions that legitimize the Quilombola condition and produce greater internal cohesion due to the shared social identity.

Lara et al. (2009) described the creation of a music and dance company called “Kundun Balê” at the Paiol de Telha Quilombola community (recognized as Quilombola since 1988), explaining that the company was created to fill a gap in the matter of the supposed “absence of Black culture” in the community. Similarly, ^{Maroun (2016)} demonstrated the role played by jongo as a restructuring element of the Quilombola collective memory and identity in Bracuí (Angra do Reis-RJ), contributing to the community’s permanence in the fight for its territory and for the public visibility of its demands. The jongo that is practiced today is a process of resignification since, in the past, it had a strong magical-religious appeal tied with religions of African origin (^{Maroun, 2016}). Finally, ^{Mota (2014)} describes how the urban quilombo on Sacopã Street in the south zone of Rio de Janeiro resulted from the group’s mobilization, originating from a samba circle that served feijoada (typical dish) in the 1980s, better defining this group’s Black culture and resistance in the elitist territory of Rio de Janeiro’s south zone.

If we consider the fact that Quilombola communities, as subjects of rights, are still relatively recent realities in national republican history, since many of them are still undergoing the process of recognition or registration (^{Jorge, 2016}), and if we add to this the fact that the guidelines for the model of Quilombola School Education (QSE) were only published in 2012, it is clear that we are faced with processes of construction and legitimization, both for differentiated education⁷ and for the reinforcement of said groups’ ethnic identities (^{Barth, 2000}). It is important to note that QSE is still under construction, subject to experimentations conducted by educational system administrators, school agents and the communities themselves. As stated by ^{Arruti (2017}, p. 109), “Quilombola school education is not a reality of which a precise portrait can be painted, nor is it a specific pedagogical proposal or a defined public policy”. However, the indissociability of the trajectories of Quilombola schools and communities has already led to concrete experiences in the scenario of the public education system. ^{Maroun and Carvalho (2017)} indicate that two Quilombola schools inserted in different contexts and conducting QSE experiments can be as distinctive as the very process of their communities’ processes of formation and self-declaration. However, it is possible to visualize tendencies of work conducted by the schools in this role of developing and strengthening ethnicity. Nevertheless, the following questions remain: How can this be constructed? What are the consequences? Which dilemmas and challenges are predicted?

The public policies geared towards Quilombola communities in Brazil have been characterized by a particular array of policies based on “recognition” and “distribution” (^{Honneth, 2009}; ^{Fraser, 2002}; ^{Arruti, 2009}; ^{Mota, 2014}). The former see Quilombolas as minorities with a particular ethnic identity, which requires the recognition of its differences, while the latter view them as underdeveloped groups that lack the basic rights and protections of national citizenship, indicating a right to equality in material and symbolic opportunities.

Particularly regarding policies associated with the educational field, ^{Arruti (2009)} suggests that, initially, the different character of school education in Quilombola communities was dealt with, exclusively, through the lens of redistribution, valuing their inclusion in the access to universal educational resources. Thus, municipalities with a Quilombola presence, that is, those that contained recognized and certified Quilombola communities, were given greater access to funds for financing basic education,⁸ allowing an increase in the number of schools in their territories, small improvements to infrastructure and increased access to other resources such as school meals and transportation.

However, despite guaranteeing greater inclusion to Quilombola communities, these gains were marked by references to a universal, undifferentiated school. It was only in 2012, with the implementation of the DCNEEQ, that a new stage of this process began, broadening the recognition policies, that is, those that emphasize communities’ ethnic and cultural differences through the development of a specific curricular project for education in each of these territories.

This direction taken by public policies, going from a distributive/universal character to the recognition of ethnic and cultural differences, is associated with the process of developing a public understanding of quilombos in Brazil. Thus, we emphasize the argument that the appearance of an official interpretation of quilombos resulted from the contribution of countless social movements and actors, institutions, and the public dimension of anthropology and the social sciences based on their symbolic productions. However, the academic field of Brazilian anthropology was the main formulator of the points that became the official interpretation of the concept of quilombo (^{Mota, 2014}) and it is worth remembering that all of this anthropological grammar was also appropriated and resignified in the educational field and in social movements. ^{Jorge (2016)} indicates that the history of the current definition of quilombos can also be understood as the social history of anthropology’s monopolistic production regarding this object.

The recontextualization and mediation of anthropological concepts in the pedagogical discourse regarding Quilombola education

As mentioned in the introduction, between 2017 and 2019, we were involved in field research, observing the attempts to implement QSE in the school located in the Caveira community, in São Pedro da Aldeia, Rio de Janeiro. In this period, we observed two different moments that deserve to be highlighted. In the first moment (2017-18), we witnessed the development of a curriculum geared towards symbols of what we can generically dub Africanities, as well as an anti-racist pedagogy that intended to value a Black identity among the Quilombola and non-Quilombola children in attendance. However, the emphasis on the valorization of Blackness and the supposed anti-racist pedagogy produced a sort of dislocation of the school in relation to the local history of resistance, causing discomfort to the political leadership, which began to consider that the Quilombola school functioned very similarly to other schools in the municipal education network.

In 2019, this criticism was recognized by the Municipal Department of Education, which developed a work agenda with the goal of creating a differentiated curriculum for the Quilombola school at Caveira, the only school for this educational modality within the municipality. This led to the offer of a continued education course for the teachers (which was also extended to other school staff members) to support the development of a differentiated curriculum associated with the Caveira quilombo. In September of 2019, the São Pedro da Aldeia municipal department of education created a technical commission to develop the Dona Rosa Geralda da Silveira Quilombola Curricular Proposal (^{Rodrigues, 2019}). Aside from members of the department’s pedagogical team, school administration and some of the teachers, the commission also included a representative from the CONAQ, an anthropologist with ties to a federal university, a political leader from the Quilombola community⁹ and our research team, which was invited to observe and help with the course development, if possible.

Throughout the course, we observed continued education actions for the teachers based on the very meaning of what Quilombola communities are and the role the school could play in the construction and consolidation of that particular community’s ethnic identity. Our records, in agreement with the literature on the topic, indicated that the course’s experience, with all of its idiosyncratic characteristics, was a part of a broader and more cohesive legal framework that, in short, had to do with the need for engaging and strengthening that Quilombola community’s identity. During the course, we observed a process of pedagogization, translation and recontextualization of anthropological concepts, as well as an emphasis on the history of political fights for land rights in Caveira and the social movements that are inherent to the Quilombola cause in Brazilian society. It is possible to say that the course’s intent was to create a pedagogical discourse to support the process of curricular construction at the school based on the socialization of recontextualized anthropological ideas.

The anthropologist, who was the main guest lecturer, presented conceptual elements that would be covered in the course,¹⁰ with the target audience being almost entirely constituted of non-Quilombola teachers who were teaching at the school in question. The anthropologist discussed basic ideas about two elementary concepts of the social sciences: culture and identity. He warned against the naturalization of these terms, present in common sense. Regarding the concept of culture, he defined it based on the history of anthropological theory, bringing up three classical conceptions. The first one associates culture with the notion of a way of life, defending that this idea was based on comparative terms among people, to state that, on the evolutionary scale, some were civilized, and others were primitive or savage. He emphasized that, even today, this evolutionist idea that is somewhat reified in the social fabric is still used in arguments that associate culture with erudition - a pool of knowledge considered superior, that supports a hierarchical distinction between cultural practices, nations and people. The second highlighted concept associated culture with the idea of a people’s spirit or soul, a shared mentality, ways of being, feeling and thinking, as indelible marks of a nation, as the “soul” of a group. The third concept, which is also the most recent one, is the one that, according to him, is vital for the school’s teachers to incorporate. This concept holds culture as the values that its agents express and the discursive meanings they attribute to their own material and symbolic practices. He emphasized that, in the first two concepts, the interpretations occurred amid the colonial period, with relationships of power that were generally determined from the colonizer’s perspective. The third concept represented an epistemological shift, in which the meaning of culture is inscribed in a vital dynamism which, aside from being mutable, disregards any fixed existential or historical condition. This concept, from the anthropologist’s perspective, would be the most adequate to apply to the Quilombola communities, since an ethnic group’s identity is not always determined by skin color or by cultural or artistic manifestations. Based on this viewpoint, his advice to the teachers was for them to listen and interact with the community, notice the traces of what it presents as local culture, local history and, basically what it values and practices in everyday life in the occupied territory.

From our perspective, the anthropologist encouraged the teachers to go beyond the walls of the school, adopting the persona of “lay-ethnographers” in the Caveira Quilombola community. Upon understanding the cultural logic of that location and the Caveira community, the teachers should select knowledge, history and content to be emphasized in the development of that school’s curriculum. By highlighting the fact that the concept of culture shifted from an outside determination to an internal narrative stemming from the group, the anthropologist was describing, in other words, the process of ethnic self-declaration and mobilization.

As for the concept of identity, he insisted on warning the participants that this concept is dominated by common sense, which normally considers it to be immanent, that is, solidly marked in the essences of individuals and groups, in their bodies and subjectivities. The anthropologist’s statements frontally attacked the essentialist idea of identity (^{Cuche, 2002}) - mainly through didactic examples and the pedagogical recontextualization of the discussion pertaining to this concept. Against the essentialist conception of identity, he stated that questions such as “Which characteristics should native Brazilians have?” or “Which characteristics should Quilombolas have?” define the identity of others through stereotypes produced by those who had the power to identify the “other” from an “outside perspective”, which established a relationship of power. However, the anthropologist argued that identities should not be assigned from the outside in, but instead based on what the group or individuals themselves must self-define. The manner in which the group defines itself has to do with the way in which their collective elements and historical processes are constructed, as well as what they themselves establish as their own marks and characteristics.

According to another conception, from Durkheimian sociological theory, identity can be understood as a social construction that is necessarily external to the individuals, who passively incorporate it. It is only through socializing action that the identities would be internalized in those who possessed them. Thus, we would “learn” to be Brazilian or Hindu, from certain regions, certain religions, fans of certain soccer teams, etc. and, once consolidated, such socialization processes function as an indelible mark of what we are, or better, what we imagine ourselves to be.

Clearly, we are faced with an explanation of the pedagogical recontextualization of the ethnicity category, as well as the concepts of self-declaration and ethnic identity, although these were never literally mentioned by the anthropologist, who was adjusting his speech according to the participants. He stated that being Quilombola in Caveira must be an active construction performed by a group that is organized around significant mobilizations of itself and its existential repertoire. He said that, despite this category being necessarily associated with the historical phenomena of slavery and colonization, as mentioned in the original definition of quilombo, Quilombola identity possesses, beyond historical ties, other markers created by the collective experiences and memories of the families in that community. Leaving behind the essentialisms of old identities, the anthropologist emphasized that “memory was and should be constantly updated by the communities”. Thus, he encouraged the teachers to open channels to the community to better listen to local memories. However, for this to occur, the teachers had to go out into the field and think of education as something larger than the school space and the standardized teaching routines developed for the profession during their college degrees.

Presenting knowledge of the region and the community itself, the anthropologist prescribed that the land conflict be treated as the core of the Caveira identity. After all, in his words, it was the fight for the occupied lands that produced a part of the collective identity of that social group, upon establishing an “ethnic boundary” in relation to society as a whole. Thus, a symbolic marker of the group and its ethnogenesis was recontextualized. It did not matter, according to the model for anthropological prescription, how each family got there; if each individual’s phenotype showed elements associated with Blackness; if they possessed a distinctive cultural element. What was expected from a Quilombola community was a common history and memory of the community’s formation, in this specific case, marked by the fights for the occupied lands against the supposed landowners who held the land titles thanks to violent processes legitimized by the State. The anthropologist insisted that the teachers should abandon the allegoric aspects of Black identity, even their exotification, to seek elements and knowledge alongside the community, to reflect about the axes of that specific Quilombola curriculum.

In these terms, the school gained a new function. Not only was it to operate based on the classic pedagogical presumption of beginning with the local culture and reality to create the curriculum, but it was also to actively produce mobilizations and legitimizations of the Caveira community’s specific struggles. To some extent, the school was not supposed to merely respect and reproduce the community’s ethnic and cultural characteristics but, somehow, it was to develop, (re)elaborate and systematize the local ethnic identity and memory, with the last point focusing on the (historical) struggles of many families for the right to remain in their lands. The anthropologist encouraged the teachers to be active in this process and conduct, as previously mentioned, a sort of “lay ethnography” of the community to develop a differentiated curriculum and the Quilombola identity alongside the community leaders.

Other common cultural elements were listed and should be considered a consequence of the community’s social interaction: the way they make flour, the practical mathematics used by community elders, the family trees of group members, etc. However, one point that was repeated many times was that the mobilization of “folkloric” cultural elements or those linked to “Africanities” - such as products and dances that are supposedly Quilombola or “exotic” - based on superficial associations between the community and the African continent should be avoided or always mediated in accordance with local reality. The Caveira school should be, according to what we understood from the anthropologist, an instance of ethnic mobilization in the construction of the local Quilombola identity which, in the absence of previously consolidated cultural elements, should underscore the networks of support and internal cohesion resulting from the threats of territorial loss undergone by the community during the 20th century. With this, using the terms espoused by ^{Bernstein (1996)}, it would be possible to state that we were faced with a process of recontextualization of anthropological discourse according to pedagogical discourse.

The construction of singularity and difference in the heart of QSE would then become a part of the education of professionals engaged in both the mobilization and construction of this memory associated with the fight for land. As we speculated in our discussions during the field work, the course’s normative tone attempted to induce and provide hints for the teachers to become “para-ethnographers” or “para-historians” for the community surrounding the school in the sense of developing a “text” or a “translation” that established that group’s boundaries and idiosyncrasies. Here, the school should bring about the consolidation of Quilombola identity which, according to the community leaders, was not yet consolidated (^{Jesus Oliveira & Martin, 2014}; ^{Soares et al., 2022}).

Strengthening the topic of boundary establishment, the CONAQ representative described how Quilombola communities in other cities and regions of the country were organized. She explained that the ways in which these communities dealt with the land were, generally speaking, different from the ways of white farmers, underscoring the difference pertaining to the ethnicity and territoriality that were common to these communities.¹¹ From her perspective, the category of Quilombola community remnants, without adequate educational handling, could lead to an existential unrest that would need to be considered during the implementation of QSE. Such an idea, due to its association with slavery, could create a stigma that negatively affected the construction of subjectivity in the community’s children. She also gave an example related to her personal trajectory, as she “discovered” herself to be Quilombola during her college degree in Education. She used the expression “Quilombola conversion”, marking her conscious, voluntary and individual act in taking on this identity but she also highlighted the need to include ethnic mobilization in Caveira as a part of the school’s social responsibilities. Thus, she expressed the recommendation to “teach [in this school] the children so that they do not learn about this only when they go to college”.

Transforming the knowledge presented by the lecturers into pedagogical practices in the school curriculum was the main goal of the teacher training provided by the São Pedro da Aldeia Municipal Department of Education. The department’s educational specialists reminded everyone of the need for teachers to consider three aspects: “How to (re)construct local knowledge?”, “How to work on a curricular proposal for the school?” and “How to consider educational strategies?” Thus, the teachers were encouraged to reflect about the Quilombola school’s curriculum (which local and differentiated knowledge should be a part of the universal curriculum?) as well as the forms of knowledge transmission (differentiated methods) to be employed in curricular practices.

In the anthropologist’s vision, the curriculum presumed a pedagogical text supported on/by the local Quilombola community, with an appeal for the reconstruction of their collective memory and allusions to their ancestry. However, it could not be just any element of their memory (any cultural artifact), but instead the memory of their fights and struggles for the land. In the course we observed, we noted that the process of mediation and recontextualization sought to provide the teachers with concepts and ideas to understand and work with the DCNEEQ, bringing them closer to Barth’s (2000) concept of ethnogenesis.

The anthropologist who was involved in the process, whether consciously or not, led through that course a process of recontextualizing and mediating the anthropological knowledge, the Quilombola struggles and the DCNEEQ in the production of pedagogical discourse. He emphasized that the subjects and contents should be connected “whenever possible” to local history or based on the “mediations” between “traditional knowledge” and “consolidated school subject knowledge”. From a practical standpoint, he spoke about the convergence between school activities and the life story of individuals from the community, traditional knowledge and the elders’ experiences as a manner of “traditionalizing” the universal content of subjects such as Science, Mathematics and Portuguese. At a certain moment, he said:

. . . Quilombola School Education may, for instance, bring in a member of the community, whether literate or not. Mr. Afonso has mathematical knowledge he uses in his life. This knowledge can be brought to school for the students to observe that there are other ways of counting and measuring beyond official mathematics. This knowledge stems from another cultural logic. (Field diary, Oct. 2019, own translation).

His idea was to stimulate the teachers to use anthropological lenses when constructing curricular mediation and translation processes, considering the need for the school to value local history and knowledge. From another angle, the example above served to relativize the Eurocentric logic that presents itself as universal while calling attention to the existence of other manners of thinking that exist in parallel to the knowledge legitimized by Western thinking; there is nothing more anthropological than using the socialization of a balanced relativism to contemplate the “other”. From his perspective, the Quilombola school should have a deep knowledge of the history of its children and the families surrounding it, encouraging them to “get interested in the history of their family trunks” (family trees):

We, folks, are Quilombola education, talking about Quilombolas, about our history, you know these children’s stories, right. “Ah, but where do I get whatever?” From the children, right, from their trajectories. Teach them to ask at home: “Mommy, Grandma, why is it like this?”; “Who was Ms. Rosa?”. Based on Ms. Rosa, you can bring up the whole story, right. “Okay, but what about Mr. João?”; “Mommy, what about Mr. Silvio?”; “Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa…”. And with this, you bring the families closer to the school. (Field diary, Oct. 2019, own translation).

Conversely, the anthropologist explained that there is no exact and ideal model of a Quilombola school to follow. “There is legislation that presents principles”, he stated, citing the DCNEEQ, “but not models per se” (Field diary, Oct. 2019, own translation). As such, he suggested observing other cases, such as that of Conceição das Crioulas, Pernambuco,¹² the educational model that inspired the DCNEEQ (^{Silva, 2012}). However, he reminded us that no model can be mechanically transplanted, since the models are idiosyncratic and connected to each community (Field diary, Oct. 2019). Thus, each school should develop its own pedagogical project. Here, we observed that the anthropologist was reinforcing a scenario present in the field of Education, in which each school, as well as its context, is singular, requiring pedagogical choices and decisions that align with its specificities. However, as we know, there are school cultures and administration processes that, occasionally, make schools very similar to one another, despite the singularities imposed upon them by territorial and social relations (^{Julia, 2001}).

The teacher training presented herein attempted, in a certain way, to reinforce a normative ideal that should guide curricular development in that Quilombola school, that is, it should produce a curriculum intended to act upon the students’ subjectivities regarding the construction of their ethnicity. These ethnic subjectivities should be based on the recognition, organization, access and valorization of the memories of the group that, in that space, with all the strengths and weaknesses of community ties, identifies as the Caveira Quilombola group due to the struggle to remain in its land. Thus, we observed that, in the time and space of that teacher training course, there was a pedagogical recontextualization of the discourse/text constructed throughout years of discussions and actions pertaining to the definition of the Quilombola community category,¹³ for which the mobilization of each group’s ethnic identity is a central element and based on which the school is expected to work on the development and intermediation of this identity in the heart of the community (^{Soares et al., 2022}).

Although we have not included in this text any data collected regarding the pedagogical proposals put forth by the teachers, it was possible to visualize some indications of the dilemmas associated with the context of school practices. The teachers’ reception of the ideas presented in the course was symptomatic of the effects of the recontextualization of a discourse/text (^{Bernstein, 1996}; ^{Gallian, 2008}; ^{Mainardes & Stremel, 2010}). They made a visible effort to understand the recontextualized meanings of ethnicity, ethnic mobilization, indissociability between school/community/territory etc., as well as to deconstruct their own ideas about culture, identity and quilombos. However, some of the questions they asked reflected some barriers present in the process of recontextualization and mediation developed in that context: “Why was this culture lost? Because the children do not pass anything on to us”; “How can we teach them something without a practical experience if they themselves lost their cultures and identities?”; “What defines a Quilombola?”; “How can we recover what is not present in the community?”. One of the teachers complained that this process should be conducted from the community to the school, and not the opposite. In other words, her intervention, during the discussion that was held in the course, was to complain about the odd situation of the teachers at that school, who did not belong to the Caveira Quilombola community, being responsible for the reconstruction of local history and the mobilization of the Caveira Quilombola community’s identity. The strangeness felt by the teachers in the face of the demands presented by the development of a differentiated school education for the Caveira Quilombola community was not a surprise considering the challenges they already face with the basic universal curriculum that is established for these levels of education.

Final considerations

The appearance of public policies geared towards the country’s Quilombola communities, such as the land and educational policies, stemmed from a discourse centered in ethnicity and difference, with the establishment and reproduction of social boundaries and based on the strong role played by anthropology through its participation in this public agenda. As mentioned by ^{Mota (2014)}, Brazilian legal and social sensitivities depend on manners of “constructing differences”, to make individuals “without rights have rights”, that is, to transform underprivileged individuals and/or groups into beings (re)cognized in the public space and by public policies. This operation of highlighting difference as a form of accessing basic public resources is strikingly described in ^{Mota (2014}, p. 171):

The mere occupancy of a social position, such as that of “favelado”, an inhabitant of an “irregular occupation”, has no pragmatic effects regarding the right to remain in one’s home in the community in case of eviction or a conflict with the state. In this case, there is only the “right to have no rights”. In contrast, in the case of a person whose social identity is associated, for example, with the “Quilombola” social category and is a member of the group of inhabitants descending from slaves, this individual can “at least” access basic resources to retain legitimacy and attempt to recognize their fundamental rights, possibly even stopping the demolition of their home in case of eviction, as the subject has acquired the right to have some rights.

The social movements, the legal field, and the discursive research and production, especially when associated with the Brazilian anthropological field, can be understood as the producers of this effect in public agendas that emphasize differences (^{Jorge, 2016}). It is not only a case of social science participation in public issues, but also an example that demonstrates the interesting capacity for transforming social matters through the knowledge and theory we produce, a mechanism that ^{Giddens (1991)} termed double hermeneutics, as mentioned before.

The interpretations made by the academic field on its trajectory to the schools include, necessarily, the redevelopment of knowledge/texts/discourses, first in official agencies and, a posteriori, from these to the schools (^{Bernstein, 1996}). This whole process invites us to reflect within the educational field, as it requires new positions from schools, such as the odd situation of making schools responsible for mobilizing their surrounding communities, in the somewhat complicated role of local ethnic reconstruction.

The explanation of the operating principles in the development of QSE texts can contribute to a sociological analysis of real possibilities for schools to fulfill yet another public requirement, among the many that are directed towards it. It is worth highlighting that practical manifestations of differentiated Quilombola school education can not only be varied, but even contradictory, with their only common factor being the fact that they result from a conflict of perspectives, projects and expectations. Thus, a necessary research agenda within this field is to understand how local cultures are treated in the Quilombola schools and their communities, how they are inserted and emerge from situations of conflict and struggle, often trapped between the collective desires for schooling and the universal curriculum, which is linked to documents such as the Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Básica [National Curricular Guidelines] and the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) [National Common Curricular Base].