Photo courtesy of Marcela Varconte Marcela Varconte
Marcela Varconte is an Afro-Indigenous researcher born in São Paulo. She is a social scientist and activist against environmental racism and for climate justice. She has extensive experience in social research, affective mappings, conflict mediation and cultural interventions in affected areas. Her research Rupturas e continuidades de uma comunidade Negra led her to projects focusing on peripheral black youth, gender studies, Quilombola population and reparation movements.
Marcela has documented the immaterial and ancestral damages suffered by Quilombola and Indigenous populations affected by major disasters in Brazil. An example of this is the Mariana disaster — the largest river destruction in the world caused by the collapse of a mining dam. She was part of the research team for the Rio Doce Project, conducting diagnostics, impact assessments and evaluating damages caused to communities by the Fundão dam collapse in Mariana, Minais Gerais, Brazil.