Nas entranhas da terra: quintais produtivos cultivados por mulheres negras do Arizona-RN

Abstract

Based on the identification of the absence of racial debate in productive backyards, we elaborated the following research question: how does the intersectionality between gender-race-class-territory interact with the dimensions of productive backyards cultivated by women farmers in Rio Grande do Norte? Through an “intersectional-consubstantial” analysis and the concepts of Experience of Scarcity (Milton Santos) and Countercoloniality (Nêgo Bispo), we carried out a Content Analysis of 55 newsletters from the Brazilian Semiarid Articulation (ASA) on productive backyards in Potiguar and qualitative field research with face-to-face and semi-structured interviews, carried out with 10 black women settled in the agricultural village of Arizona/RN. We identify that the myth of racial democracy, racism and machismo contribute to minimizing the potential of black women's productive backyards in Arizona/RN, backyards whose materiality carries political and countercolonial potential, but also scarcity and violence. Furthermore, a phenomenon was noticed in the field that was called “diluted racism”, which is the materialization of racism in organic and inorganic materials. Thus, the gender-race-class-territory quartet dynamizes and influences the flourishing (or not) of agrobiodiversity, the guarantee (or not) of food and nutritional security and the processes of adaptation and experimentation, as well as influencing the subjective construction of farmers , in the knowledge that is reproduced daily and in the meaning that their experience with the territory attributes to the organic and inorganic materials that surround them.