The linkage between rural people and agroecology: feminine and masculine spaces

Abstract

Agroecology can be defined as a multidisciplinar field of study. Its main objective is to articulate the scientific know-how to the rural communities know-how, as a way to potentate agricultural sustainable practices. This new conception rose as an opposition movement against the “modernization of agriculture”, looking to rescue sustainable agricultural roots from country and indigenous people. The modernization of agriculture has as one of its effects the perturbation of the organizational logic of the family production units, conducted by the country culture. One characteristic of this logic is the linkage between feminine and masculine spaces inside the farm work. The modern agriculture intensified an agricultural masculine process that linked the agricultural production to the acquisition of hybrid seeds, agricultural supplies and machinery, produced by the industry. In this sense, the aim of this paper is to reflect on the potentialities of the (re) articulation of feminine and masculine spaces and the appreciation of the country culture to contribute to the construction of a plenty agroecology. This is why, here it is intended: 1) to resume some existing discussions about the destiny of the country culture since the early XX century, and to reflect about some peculiarities of this social organization; 2) to analyze, from a a gender perspective, the transformations lived by these groups in the period of the “modernization of agriculture”; 3) to reflect about the Agriculture concept and it correspondence to the agricultural praxis; and, finally, 4) to suggest the way in which the country culture organization and agroecology can be fortified nowadays. It is proposed that the effectiveness of agriculture be linked to the production of two fundamental principles of the country culture, as family hierarchy and gender complementarity.