The article analyses the issue of the rights of traditional quilombola communities in Brazil through a politico-anthropological perspective. The analysis is centered on the growing visibility of ethnic rights in the Brazilian public sphere and their thematic constitution in the triple dimension of justice: identity and rights recognition, material and symbolical redistribution, and political representation. The investigation focuses on the characteristics resulting from the fact that such identity appears rather as an outcome of the legislative right - for it is the article 68 of the "Temporary Constitutional Provisions" of the Constitution of 1988 that, looking back to the past, inaugurates this form of reintroducing the quilombola issue into present times - than as a consequence of the abilities of these groups in re-signifying their practices in face of the challenges and the contingencies imposed by the present socioeconomic context.
Quilombola communities; Recognition; Redistribution; Ethnic Rights; Justice
