Uma Fotoetnografia de masculinidades Quilombolas

Abstract

This dissertation examines Quilombola masculinities through a photoethnographic approach that brings together visual anthropology, gender studies, and reflections on territory, ancestry, spirituality, and embodiment. Conducted in Amazonian Quilombola communities and informed by Afro-diasporic experiences developed during a doctoral research fellowship in South Africa, the study understands masculinities as relational constructions shaped by community life, intergenerational ties, and territorial belonging. Photography is approached as an anthropological language and a mode of knowledge production, conceiving photoethnography not merely as a documentary technique but as a relational practice grounded in negotiation, trust, affect, and contested regimes of visibility. The findings demonstrate that Quilombola masculinities are constituted through the interplay of ancestral memory, collective practices, and movement across multiple social worlds, while also revealing ongoing processes of transformation in which models centered on virility, authority, and emotional restraint give way to masculinities informed by respect, responsibility, care, and relational maturity. By expanding the methodological scope of photoethnography through the incorporation of digital image circulation, transnational mobility, and the body as a site of symbolic production, this dissertation contributes both to the methodological development of visual anthropology and to a broader understanding of Black masculinities as situated, plural, and continuously produced through social relations.