RAÇA E TERRITÓRIO COMO DIMENSÕES DAS LUTAS SOCIAIS NO CAMPO

In studies focused on rural areas, conflicts are often approached from the perspective of land disputes, access to water, production relations, and the impacts of development projects, while bypassing the racial issue. The occurrence of conflicts related to the titling of quilombola territories, as well as the demarcation of indigenous lands, has brought to the fore dimensions of power relations that were not previously considered, challenging us to seek theoretical and methodological frameworks capable of addressing the complexity of the rural world. In light of this, the article was developed with the aim of addressing conflicts involving quilombola communities, aiming to transcend the view of land disputes as they are typically interpreted. To do so, it draws on the theoretical contributions of the Decolonial Perspective and utilizes secondary data obtained from archives of social conflicts in rural areas, as well as empirical data collected during a qualitative research project focused on quilombola communities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. These procedures have allowed us to highlight race as a dimension of social struggles in rural areas.