Maroon Socioterritorial Movements

Abstract

Maroon communities, or communities of descendants of fugitives from slavery, have been long-lasting examples of social movements pursuing political goals through the production and mobilization of space. They have been largely forgotten in academic analyses, however, which, in Latin America, are primarily focused on peasants and indigenous movements. Therefore, drawing on socioterritorial movements readings and maroon studies, this article analyzes how maroon-descendant communities have produced territory in both urban and rural spaces-including areas of forced displacement-locally and transnationally, to survive hegemonies deeply rooted in the legacy of slavery and to achieve political aims. These communities unsettle binary categories of rural and urban socioterritorial movements and monolithic visions of antistate struggle. This transterritorial, rural-urban appropriation of spaces resisting different powers follows the past logic of marronage to achieve freedom and security, re-creating in present times the political vision of historical maroon leaders regarding the construction of a grand Palenque in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

Questioning development from Black feminisms in Ecuador and moving towards a Black feminist political ecology in the Americas

“…A Black sense of place, particularly drawn from Black women's everyday struggles and bodies (Juárez Rodriguez, 2022;Zavala Guillen, 2022), is needed to depict a thorough picture of life in Esmeraldas. Among the Black and Afro women involved in this research, there is an acute understanding that Esmeraldas -as the province with the highest Black population in the country and that is home to Black understandings and praxis of territory (marronage territorial formations) -is purposely left out of national and regional development initiatives and programmes.…”

Territorial subjectivities. The missing link between political subjectivity and territorialization

“…To that end, there is strong potential in post- and decolonial as well as feminist and intersectional perspectives on urbanization and urban spaces that deal with subjectivities, subject positions, historical difference, and broader questions of space and power (e.g., Duplan et al, 2021; Kinkaid, 2021). We see productive connections between our approach and long-standing research on geographies of difference (e.g., Bondi, 1990; McDowell, 1993; McKittrick and Peake, 2005), post- and decolonial (e.g., Merrill, 2014), intersectional Black feminist (e.g., Noxolo, 2023) and queer/trans-feminist (e.g., Brice, 2023; Gieseking, 2016; Kinkaid et al, 2022), as well as anti-racist approaches (e.g., Lombard et al, 2021; Zavala Guillen, 2022). Territorial subjectivities, in the sense of the term presented here, invite a critical reflection on the essentializing politics of space and subjects.…”

Amplifying the Archive: Methodological Plurality and Geographies of the Black Atlantic

“…Recent studies by and with Brazilian quilombolas, for example, enrich our knowledge of botanical and ecological systems established and sustained by Black communities with profound histories of (semi)autonomy and resistance (e.g. Adams et al 2013;Ara ujo dos Anjos 2009;Bledsoe 2017;Bowen 2021;Campos Filho 2019;Carney 2004Carney , 2017Carney , 2021Carney and Voeks 2003;Farf an-Santos 2016;Jovelino 2018;Mattos 2008;Steward and Lima 2017;Watkins 2021;Zavala Guillen 2021). These studies reveal deep ancestral relationships between peoples, places, and plants.…”