SOCIAL SCIENCES AND THE ETHNIC-QUILOMBOLA FIELD: FROM DIFFERENCE TO IDENTITY

Abstract

The studies on alterity in Brazil begin in the colonial tradition anchored in models imported from the
great European centers, that saw the difference as a social problem that had to be overcome. This
vision inspired a vast repertoire of studies anchored in a folkloristic and romanticized perspective on
the other, seen as exotic and strange. In these perspectives, such dynamics were understood in terms
of processes of extinction, miscegenation, syncretism and acculturation, sustaining a certain racist
content. This research investigates how the Brazilian historical configuration generated social,
political, juridical, and academic guidelines that contributed to a concealment and invisibilization of
communities that are based on a specific identity, such as the Kalunga remaining maroon community
in Goiás. It intends to revisit the social structure and organization of the ethno-maroona field, from
the Kalunga, in order to perceive the evolution of the theme in the social sciences, realizing the
possibilities and conceptual limits of its approaches on alterity and identity.