“Da lama ao caos, do caos a lama, uma ‘uma mulher’ ‘violentada’ nunca se engana”: os territórios pesqueiros sã cristovenses em conflito

Abstract

The modern civilizational model, legitimized under a colonial, imperialist and capitalist logic, is based and structured on the basis of expropriation, violation of rights, exploitation and violence against subjects who have a way of life based on the natural economy.With this, we return to Chayanov's theory (1966) in order to delimit and differentiate the work of peasants and traditional peoples who, from the cultivation, fishing, collection and collection of shellfish in the land-mud-water, seek to satisfy the needs of their communities. families and communities.Therefore, these peoples are recognized for establishing in their territories a symbiotic relationship between the complex cycles of nature and their way of life permeated by ancestral knowledge and practices (Diegues, et. al., 2000).They also acquire a genderconditioning mark, as shellfish gathering work – central to this study – is carried out, in large part, by women. This is a characteristic that conforms historically, since there is greater proximity between the inner sea – rivers, estuaries and mangroves – with households, than with the outside sea – maritime – (Ramalho, 2006).This condition is necessary given that women reconcile their professional work, whether in fishing and shellfishing or in the elaboration of handcrafted products, with domestic chores (Álvares; Maneschy, 2011) and, due to this proximity, it is also possible for them to shellfish gatherers take their sons and daughters to occupy the shores of estuarine regions, mangroves or rivers.These, in addition to accompanying them, also learn and work in the craft of fishing and shellfish capture from a very early age. In Ilha Grande, São Cristóvão, the practice of shellfish extraction is predominantly female, with few men performing the activity sporadically.These women live and work in the nursery of biodiversity considered by many to be a mere source of resources: the mangroves. Based on infrastructure projects, agrohydrobusiness and capitalist development activities, these ecosystems become expensive gears for capital accumulation, promoting, through the appropriation of fractions of nature, violence, exploitation, expropriation and socio-environmental degradation against women, nature and their territories.Thus, this research aims to understand how conflicts over land and water, resulting from this scenario, also reaffirm the patriarchal logic that structurally and daily violates the bodies and territories of shellfish gatherers. For this, the study was based on the theoreticalmethodological assumptions of dialectical historical materialism and operationalized from bibliographic research and exploratory research using the instruments of semi-structured interviews (Triviños, 1987). In view of this, the studies carried out have shown that the structural knot of Patriarchy-Capitalism-Racism (Saffioti, 1987) sustains the contradiction that presides over each of these structures, which together, present their own dynamics, also permeating the conflicts that affect the bodies and territories of shellfish gatherers in a specific way.Then, through the situations of violence that result from territorial conflicts, the patriarchal condition of control that subordinates women – as reproducers, objectified bodies and workforce more susceptible to exploitation – and territories to the expansive and destructive logic intrinsic to the capitalist development.Once immersed in the mud and water, the shellfish gatherers experience direct contact with the mangrove, which continues to be increasingly poisoned by the greed of capital actors. The contamination of land and water, together with the exploration of oil and gas, the enclosure of waters and spaces historically designated for common use in fishing and shellfishing, the expansion of real estate speculation, construction of artificial tanks for the execution of shrimp farming activities , revealing the advance of agrohydrobusiness in traditional territories (Romero et al. 2018) represent, simultaneously, the imposition of the predatory logic of capital against nature and patriarchal on women shellfish gatherers and their territories.