As relações de gênero na agricultura urbana: o caso das zonas verdes de Maputo, 1980-2000

Abstract

In 1980, the late president Samora Machel defined the production strategy in green areas, to be implemented by the Cabinet of Green Areas created in the same year. These green areas were and continue to be of great importance in supplying the capital city with vegetables, fruits, eggs and small animals, and in absorbing part of the city's workforce, mostly female, for whom agricultural production is a survival strategy (such as single mothers, women with absent husbands working in South Africa, widows, separated and divorced). This dissertation studies gender relations in urban agriculture based on the green areas of Maputo, in the period from 1980 to 2000, with the objective of analyzing the articulation between the productive participation of women in the associations of producers in the green areas of the District. Urban N°5 and gender relations at the level of associations and households. To achieve this objective, bibliographic research, semi-structured interviews, life stories and participant observation were adopted as methods. From the analysis of the data collected orally and its crossing with the written sources, it can be affirmed that the productive participation of women in the associations of producers in the green areas of the DU5 allows them to access power at the level of the association, through participation in the decision-making process. of decisions and the occupation of positions with socially recognized value such as the presidency of the association, breaking with the social invisibility of women, characteristic of the patriarchal model, a fundamental aspect for the minimization of their social exclusion. At the household level, the productive participation of women in the associations of producers in the green areas of the DU5 contributed to initiating the process of building new gender relations. What can be seen is that, with this productive participation, women gradually gain access to monetary resources from the commercialization of their production. With these monetary resources, the woman contributes to the household on an equal footing or in a more important way than the man, in a way that is socially recognised, ceasing to be just a simple member of the family and acquiring a social existence. However, the unequal relations between women and men are not completely broken with the economic independence of women obtained through productive participation because there are other socio-cultural and political factors that contribute to their maintenance (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)