Semeando resistência com agricultura urbana e periurbana: autonomia comunitária e soberania alimentar na comunidade da Cabrita, São Cristóvão/SE

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) in the Resistência da Cabrita Community, located in São Cristóvão/SE, analyzing it in its entirety as a vital strategy of terrexistence (land-based existence). This concept is employed to understand how the community affirms its permanence in the territory amidst the dynamics of urban planning. In a complex national scenario, marked by issues related to the Hunger Map and challenges regarding food sanitary quality, the study aims to analyze how UPA, grounded in Agroecology and Solidarity Economy, acts in strengthening community bonds and constructing food sovereignty. The research adopts a qualitative phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology, supported by prolonged immersion in the field. Instruments such as participant observation, field diaries, and narrative interviews with residents and leaders were used, with data interpreted through the lens of philosophical hermeneutics and the ecology of knowledges. The results demonstrate that the community resignifies the territory through practices of care and cultivation. The study highlights the emergence of Affective Juridical Solidarity, a singular mechanism by which land possession is legitimized by the network of trust and mutual testimony among neighbors, establishing an autonomous form of recognition. An epistemic sovereignty was also observed, where subjects value their ancestral knowledgein horizontal dialogue with academic knowledge. The investigation evidences that agroecological backyards function as promoters of health and autonomy amidst urban transformations and the installation of private enterprises in the area. It is concluded that UPA in Cabrita constitutes a decolonial pedagogy that regenerates the social fabric, transforming food into nutrition, a sacred element, and a political act of permanence and (re)existence in the territory.