Teçumes e Teçumeiras: etnografia da construção de identidade política das artesãs da Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Amanã - AM

Abstract

"Teçumes and Teçumeiras: an ethnography of the construction of political identity of women artisans of the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve - Amazonas State, Brazil" has the objective of reconstituting the political and social processes that involve the formation and trajectory of the Coraci Sector Women's Group. We propose to analyze how the engagement of a women's collective in the cauaçu (Calathea lutea) handicraft production activity establishes a political and economic process of re-signification of traditional knowledge and practices and how it disseminates a technique and promotes the political empowerment of the women from the Coraci Sector. The social networks around the production of cauaçu handicrafts were essential to establish political and economic changes and to create a mobilization process of women in different acting levels in the context of the Amanã Reserve. This mobilization involves the practices of management of the cauaçu, the management of a feminine economic enterprise and the women's political action. To analyze this process, the ethnography was used as the main research method, involving interviews, participant observation, photographic records and the observation of the entire operative chain of the cauaçu handicraft production. Thus, in this study, we have identified the nets of relationships established by the women-artisans, we have investigated "disputes" resulting from this activity, and we describe a political trajectory permeated by confrontations, limits overcoming and the artisans' political identity building, as well as the repositioning of women's places in local communities. The study also points to the changes in gender social relations, especially in the family context, in the agricultural activity and in the political relationship of the artisan group with the Coraci Sector's Producers Association and others local agents