Brazil census to survey quilombola communities for first time

Quilombolas are the people from the nation’s remaining quilombos, communities formed by runaway slaves during the slavery period in Brazil.

«It is the first census in which the IBGE will be able to offer society official statistics about how many quilombolas there are, where they live, and how they live. It is very important that the quilombola population itself is prepared and aware that the census is providing this possibility for the first time,» said Marta Antunes, census coordinator for traditional peoples and communities.

Data collection in these territories starts with the question: is your color or race white, black, yellow, brown, indigenous? Regardless of the answer, the next question is: do you consider yourself quilombola? If the answer is yes, the questionnaire asks: what is your community called? Pre-registered community names are listed in the form used by the census taker, but new ones may be added.

To include a new group, census agents must know what questions they must ask. In the case of quilombolas, this was a major challenge for the agency, Marta Antunes noted.

«It has to be a question that works for everyone—elders, young people, those who are more active in the discussions, and those who are quilombolas but do not participate in the mobilization as much, in their own location as well as in the state or country. Another great challenge for the IBGE was to know what question to ask so that these people can understand the questionnaire.»

To ensure respect for the respondent’s stated ethnic identity as well as that of other members of the household, census takers or any other person from the collection team must not challenge the respondent or question their statement, which cannot be altered. «Even if respondents consider themselves a quilombola and do not know what the community is called, the answer to the question ‘are you a quilombola?’ must remain ‘yes.’ In this case, in the field dedicated to the name of the community, the census taker must write: 'does not now,’» he noted.

Mapping

Fernando Damasco, the IBGE’s manager for Traditional Territories and Protected Areas, said that although the right of quilombolas is established in the 1988 Constitution, the Brazilian state has had great difficulties in the last decades putting together a national registry with the communities and map their territories.

According to Damasco, the constant challenge in creating a technical and methodological approach to carry out a census for this population consists in understanding how they are organized from the spatial point of view. «The way it is distributed across the Brazilian territory, with a real socio-spatial representation, is no simple task. We went through a long process of gathering and surveying data, which initially included the administrative records available in the official agencies, in various spheres of administration,» he declared.

Community guides

When census agents are not quilombolas themselves, the survey in quilombola territories will also include the presence of community guides, whose job will be «to guide census takers safely through all households to be visited, indicating the best routes, the best times for the visit, and the codes of conduct to be adopted.»

Another major step in the preparation of the census for these communities was the training of census takers, Marta Antunes noted. «For the people to feel comfortable answering the census they must feel that their identity and social organization are respected. To meet this end, interviewers must be prepared to deal with diversity, starting with their arrival in a quilombola territory and including the gathering of data in a traditional territory.»

Photo: agenciabrasil.ebc.com