New urban occupations, punk, and blackness: articulations for re-existence in the far south of Brazil

Abstract

This article investigates the relationships between the punk scene, Blackness, and urban occupations in the far south of Brazil, a region marked by the legacy of slavery in the charqueadas. Despite its contestatory approach, local punk reproduces racial exclusions, with low Black participation, reflecting a "decolonial excess" (Woods, 2020): the aesthetic appropriation of Black elements without effective inclusion, naturalizing whiteness. Alternatively, occupations like the Kilombo Urbano Ocupação Canto de Conexão emerge as spaces of "reexistence," resignifying abandoned territories through Afro-diasporic epistemologies. Kilombo articulates punk culture with anti-racist struggles, promoting collective actions and shifting anarchist symbologies toward a decolonial perspective. Based on interviews and participant observation, the study concludes that overcoming racial barriers requires more than symbolic inclusion: it demands the deconstruction of cultural hierarchies (Quijano, 2022) and the reinvention of everyday practices, transforming contradictions into tools for effective social transformation.