To cultivate one’s autonomy? The agroecology of Brazilian women farmers

Abstract

Inheriting peasant struggles, agroecology has emerged in Brazil from the criticism of the social-environmental invalidity of agricultural modernization and the affirmation of practices allowing a more autonomous and sustainable organization of work and life. Rural women’s movements and feminist organizations are occupying this political field. To understand the meaning of “feminist agroecology” in Brazil and to evaluate its potential for social transformation requires us to return to the conflicts, related to the relations of production and gender, by which it was constituted and to analyse by which practices autonomy is (or is not) built. In this article, I develop this analysis from field research with the network of agroecological women farmers of Barra do Turvo, in the south-east of the country. On a theoretical level, I use a relational approach to autonomy, recognizing the need for interdependencies in the different spheres of social life. To this end, I rely on a substantive and feminist conception of the economy, drawing attention to all forms of work, particularly care work.