Quilombo Futurism: Translating Key Concepts in Afro-Brazilian Liberation

Abstract

As activists demanding racial justice also envision a free and just future more publicly and radically than ever before, the terms and concepts that shape the conversation around Black liberation in the U.S. often fail to translate, both literally and figuratively, across languages, histories, and cultures. This thesis asks what activists in the U.S. can learn from their counterparts in Brazil about the oppressive systems they are fighting, and the world they hope to build in its stead. Analyzing both seminal works of the 20th-century Afro-Brazilian radical tradition and current projects of the contemporary Black movement in Brazil, I explore recurrent themes of self-determination, Afro-centrism, and economic justice in both theory and practice, identifying commonly mistranslated terms and instances of speculative thinking that may be unfamiliar to a U.S.-based audience that could open up new approaches to the fight against racist state violence and the construction of a liberated world.