Quilombola education in nursing: aquilombamento, critical interculturality, and counter-colonization

Abstract Objective to analyze the potentialities of the education of quilombola nurses in confronting racism and promoting equity and racial equality. Method a theoretical-reflective study grounded in decolonial and counter-colonial epistemologies, articulated with the authors’ educational experiences and critical literature on health, education, and quilombola populations. The analysis was organized based on references from the Global South and on categories that problematize inequalities, territoriality, and knowledge production in nursing education. The study was conducted between January and October 2025. Results the text is structured around three main axes: aquilombamento as an educational practice and epistemic resistance; critical interculturality in nursing education; and the transformative potentialities of the presence of quilombola nurses within the structure of the Unified Health System. Final considerations and implications for practice the inclusion of quilombola peoples in undergraduate nursing programs represents an opportunity for implementing epistemological change within curricula. The incorporation of concepts developed by authors from the Global South, aligned with social resistance, politics, and the epistemology of quilombola populations, promotes structural mechanisms for confronting different forms of racism.