Acroecology and feminism in Vale do Ribeira: contribution to the debate on social reproduction

Abstract

This article presents the results of an action-research carried out with a network of women farmers in the municipality of Barra do Turvo, in the region of Vale do Ribeira (SP), supported by the feminist NGO SOF, within the framework of a project to promote agroecology. We analyse the process of social transformation that this project drives, observing how certain dimensions of social reproduction are redefined and transformed. We question the conditions of the observed changes regarding the constitution of agroecology as a political subject at national and local level and the construction of solidarity between women in the midst of different conflicts. We consider this transformation as an ongoing process that starts from the re-signification of agricultural production and generates new value to women’s work, causing some renegotiations of gender relations and new commitment of women to political issues. The observed solidarities were strengthened on the basis of common goals within and among the groups of women whose nature and place in the neighbourhoods gradually changed. This dynamic was based on the experimentation and progressive affirmation of new practices and social relations that aim at a greater autonomy and ecologically and socially more sustainable forms of reproduction of life.