Abstract
We discuss the place of mediators in acquiring and directing resources to comunidades remanescentes de quilombos in the case of two public calls, one by the European Union and the other by the Brazilian state, in which our participation was required by leaderships of Quilombo Sacopã, territory located in Rio de Janeiro city. Both the referred international funding agency and the Special Office for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Seppir) were aiming at propositions for the defense of human rights in Brazil. We discuss the way to give direction to these resources through projects, talking about the access to rights and the shaping of tradition through political relations with national states and its bureaucracies, which inform institutional relations with these groups. Shaping traditions through social bonds which make them possible also constitute a competition with the state for the definition beyond general standards, imposed by these processes.
Keywords:
bureaucracy; quilombos; social technologies; state