"Vila de mulher só": o trabalho invisível das mulheres dos balateiros de Monte Alegre

Abstract

The research that originated this work was developed between 2015 and 2017, and was based on narratives of women married to balateiros (extractive of the balata) living in the community of Cuçaru, in the municipality of Monte Alegre / PA. Its objective was to understand, from the point of view of women, how the forms of organization and division of family labor contributed to the continuity of the balata extractivism sustained in the system of aviamento between the decades of 1930 to 1970, that corresponded to the peak of the Extraction and the commercialization of balata in western Pará. This research aimed to verify the way in which the productive activities carried out in the family's dwelling place or in its surroundings, often disregarded in the studies on the social practices and economic exchanges articulated around Of balata, imported in support of this extractivism regulated by the system of aviamento that prevailed in the economy of numerous Amazonian communities. Interest in women's reports has also rested on another aspect that is generally neglected in research on balata extractivism: female labor. This research dialogues with studies about the family organization of work in peasant societies, which compose a vast field of research in the sciences that focus on the rural world. It also discusses labor relations in the Balatais of Amazonia, where the role of women tends to be invisible. As a conclusion, she maintains that women played a very important role in the organization and division of labor, as well as in the arrangements and social exchanges experienced in Cuçaru, which ensured the survival of families during the period of balata extraction. Among the social arrangements focused on, cooperation and mutual assistance between neighbors and family members in the day-to-day life of the women of the balateiros stood out, in the absence of which they responded by organizing people and spaces in the house, in the countryside and in the community.