INTERSECTIONALITY IN INSURGENT TERRITORIES: THE RE(EX)SISTANCE OF QUILOMBOLA WOMEN IN ZONES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES

Abstract

This paper presents an expanded summary of the master's dissertation “Intersectionality in insurgent territories: the re(ex)istence of quilombola women in environmental crime zones”, developed at the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences of the Federal University of Western Bahia (UFOB). The study's central problem is to understand how quilombola women from the Lagoa das Piranhas community, in Bom Jesus da Lapa (BA), articulate agency, memory and cultural practices to face environmental racism and historical inequalities affecting their territory. Intersectionality is adopted as a theoretical-methodological tool, considering race, gender, territory and class simultaneously, in dialogue with authors such as Lélia Gonzalez, Carla Akotirene, bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins, alongside frameworks on environmental racism and justice, agribusiness expansion, and quilombola epistemologies. The qualitative research combined participant observation, militant research, semi-structured interviews and conversation circles with fifteen women from the community. Results show that the contamination of the Lagoa das Piranhas lake by the Formoso Public Irrigation Project constitutes an environmental crime with serious social, health and cultural repercussions, and that quilombola women occupy a central position in denouncing, mobilizing the community and preserving traditional knowledge in the face of state omission and the slow pace of land titling. The legal framework for quilombola territorial protection, its limited effectiveness, and recent institutional advances are also discussed. It is concluded that quilombos must be understood not only as geographic spaces but as social and political constructions that promote buen vivir and environmental justice, reinforcing the urgency of public policies that recognize the specificities of these territories.