Resistance Meaning-Making Process in a Brazilian Coco Music Group

This study addresses an investigation about how music and its elements (musical instruments) of a coco music group plays out in the cultural resistance process in remnants of a quilombola community. To that end, a survey was performed in the Castainho quilombola community, located in the rural area of the municipality of Garanhuns, belonging to the Agreste region of Pernambuco, Brazil, through a local coco music group named Castelo Branco. By adopting the theoretical-methodological assumptions of semiotic cultural psychology, a case study was conducted in line with the idiographic science, using combined research techniques to construct data, which would check the relevance of rituals and daily activities for the conservation of local customs through musical manifestation, with a special focus on the use of musical instruments and the lyrics of their songs. The research seeks to understand the identity elements of a quilombo, considering music as a point of preservation and strengthening of the maintenance of its culture.