Transnational Solidarity and Quilombo Postcapitalism: Building Alternatives to Development amid Brazilian Racial Hierarchy and Amazonian Extractivism

Abstract

Brazil’s Amazonian quilombos (communities descended from self-liberated slaves) have formed through grassroots mobilization in the crucible of coloniality, White supremacy, capitalism, and neocolonialism. This essay examines the historical dynamics of racial capitalism in and around Brazil’s quilombos, the diverse economies that have undergirded quilombo world making, and the authors’ attempts to engage in decolonial solidarity as White allies from the Global North. These reflections focus on three strategies that have seemed particularly important for solidarity work: (1) engaging in decolonial dialogues based on listening, responding, and acting to ensure that decolonization is more than a metaphor; (2) building terra firme, a form of institutionalization grounded in quilombo institutions rather than NGO-ization; and (3) operating as a weak current, a form of development practice analogous to J. K. Gibson-Graham’s vision of a “weak theory” that is humble, contingent, and yielding.