"Margaridas" em jardins sem terra: um estudo sobre a liderança feminina na prática política do MST na Paraíba.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand which negotiation strategies were used by some women, MST activists in the state of Paraíba, to exercise leadership positions and political projection, in a context of rural life, which still perceive certain marks from a feeling of male chauvinism. The relevance of our work is to identify the objectivity / subjectivity of the social actors / actresses inserted in the MST, the different spaces of private or public action, the places of political participation conquered by women and the strategies in which they built their history of political leadership and social recognition. In the same way, we seek to highlight important elements of the historical, anthropological and sociological debate to understand the women's emancipation processes, in order to figure out how to articulate gender issues within the MST. With that goal, we base our research on some contributions of sociology and empirical data from women identified as recognized leaders from the MST in Paraiba. From the sociological thought we highlight the analytical clues provided by authors such as Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Manuel Castells, among others, as well as the contributions of debates concerning to gender issues. The nature of this research is qualitative since our intention is to address the life course of women who stand out in the MST for their political practices, which reversed the traditional order of distribution of the social roles, from supporting to protagonists of important processes in social transformation. Consequently, it was necessary to analyze documents and apply semistructured interviews with the intention to reconstruct the trajectory of these women's lives and live the experience with a participant observation in collective practices which they exercise leadership roles.