Abstract

The article introduces the concept of racialized land tenure to illuminate how colonial land governance systems in Brazil continue to shape dispossession and ecological degradation in post-colonial contexts. Drawing from historical and ethnographic research conducted in 2018, 2020, and 2021 in the Afro-Brazilian coastal communities of Cabo de Santo Agostinho and Ipojuca, we trace how residents—many of whom have lived as posseiros (squatters) on former plantation lands for generations—have been displaced by the expansion of the Suape Port Industrial Complex. While framed as development, the port's expansion has resulted in the forced removal of over 26,000 people, enclosure of the commons, and the criminalization of subsistence practices. This violence reflects the enduring logic of racialized land tenure: a territorial regime that prioritizes capital accumulation while excluding Afro-descendant communities from land rights, environmental access, and political recognition. Situating this case within Latin American political ecology, the article contributes to the field's historical and decolonial turn by showing how racialized land governance is foundational to contemporary environmental injustices. Understanding these dynamics is essential for analyzing postcolonial socio-environmental conflict, and for envisioning more reparative political ecologies grounded in Afro-descendant territorial epistemologies.

Keywords: Brazil, Pernambuco, race, land tenure, African Diaspora, development

How to Cite:

Biesel, S. A. & Mendonça, E. C., (2025) “Racialized land tenure and the colonial present: Political ecologies of dispossession in Northeast Brazil”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 6119. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.6119