Patriarchy and quilombola territoriality in Vale do Ribeira: a study on the relationship between gender and work in the community of Ribeirão Grande-Terra Seca

• Grant number: 23/04007-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2024
• End date: June 12, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Valeria de Marcos
• Grantee: Lucas Martines de Azevedo da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/19699-9 - The Ribeirão Grande-Terra Seca community: ethnogenesis and quilombola territoriality, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The black territories of Vale do Ribeira were formed in a period of transition from mining to rice farming in the region, in the mid-19th century, in which the widespread mobility of abandoned and escaped slaves stood out. The anthropological reports of the rural black communities that today occupy these territories point, on the one hand, to the protection they guaranteed against slavery and, on the other, to the formation of production relations mediated not only by bonds of reciprocity, but also by patriarchal relations (power relations between men and women). However, the transformations in the land structure of Vale do Ribeira, driven by the expansion of private land ownership since the 1930s and the implementation of environmental policies since the 1950s, together with the social mobilization of rural black communities, which began to self-identify as quilombola communities between the 1990s and 2000s, directly impacted gender relations within black territories and, consequently, power relations between men and women. The perspective of this research is that the investigation of these changes, the ways in which they were engendered in the lives of specific women and men, can contribute to the understanding of the role of patriarchy, its possibilities of reiteration and subversion, within the quilombola territorialities of the Vale do Ribeira. For this reason, it is proposed to analyze the relationship between gender and work in the production of territoriality in a quilombo of Vale do Ribeira, the community of Ribeirão Grande-Terra Seca, located in the municipality of Barra do Turvo, SP, in order to undertake a reflection of their patriarchal relationships.