Intersectional analysis of strategies and resistances mobilized by Black women in an agrarian reform settlement in southern Minas Gerais

Abstract

Current rural settlement policy in Brazil reproduces a historical logic of marginalization that particularly affects Black women. This case study conducted at the Santo Dias Settlement in Guapé, Minas Gerais identified some of the various challenges experienced by Black women in their life stories, and also examined some of the strategies and resistance modes that settlers mobilized within a context of intersectional discrimination based on gender, race/ethnicity, and class. The main objective of this article was to analyze the strategies and resistance of settled Black women, utilizing intersectionality as an analytical and theoretical tool from an interdisciplinary perspective. The methodology is based on feminist and antiracist epistemologies from qualitative approaches to case studies, life stories, and participant observation. We noted the urgent agenda for economic autonomy, interwoven with issues related to gender and race/ethnicity; the need to develop intersectional public policies built with as well as for the different groups that comprise the rural population was also evident. We also found that in the short term, promoting ensured efficient and rapid access to land use contracts (CCU), installation credit, and the necessary structuring measures were also required to stress the vulnerable situation of women and their families.