ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ethnogenesis of those 'remaining from quilombos' since 1988 in parallel with the ethnogenesis of those 'remaining from indigenous groups' in Brazil's Northeast region since the c.1920s. It argues that the Sacopa community's success in remaining in Lagoa derives from their ability to prove that they are not 'mere' Afro-descendants, but instead an ethnic community in the anthropological sense community. In addition, the 'ethnicisation' has been a process of becoming 'like indigenous', which approximates race, ethnicity, blackness and indigeneity. Expectations on authenticity regulate the difference between descendants and ethnic groups. The communities' claims to ethnic collective rights and citizenship necessitate claims to authenticity, which is in turn tied to notions of ancestral land and cultural alterity. Expectations on authenticity renew the museum model of culture and its static notions of history, tradition and purity.
