Conhecendo a vida das mulheres Xakriabá: gênero e participação

Abstract

The dissertation aims to analyze and describe womens life in the changing contemporary socio-cultural setting of Xakriabá Indigenous Territory, which is characterized by the establishment and putting into effect of a specific and differentiated indigenous school and health system, by the setting up and fixation of salaried work and by associative experiencing. The work arises from former researches results, which point out sexual divisions of work, knowledge and power; gender inequalities in the scholar system; and better female school achievement in Xakriabá Indigenous Territory. It is an ethnographic research, conducted in three Indian settlements of Xakriabá Indigenous Territory. Womens life is determined on the basis of three main cores: 1 local organization of power, with emphasis in the occurred main changes and womens access and participating possibilities; 2 daily life organization and womens role in traditional settings; 3 womens involvement with salaried working world and monetary resources, as well as this involvement's impact on domestic and family daily life. A scenery of male migration and restrictions to female migration were identified, thus enforcing womens position in the changing contemporary processes of the Xakriabá. Data suggest female leadership in the process of establishing and putting into effect the health system and the differentiated and specific schooling, and in the involvement with salaried work. The analyses point out the importance of the domain of reading and writing strategies in building their identity and ways of women participation in salaried work and among the spaces for discussion and decision, specially political reunions, assemblies and community associations. They traditionally play an important role in daily life organization and family maintenance, which justifies the existence of multiple spaces for acting and their major responsibility on taking care of the house and children. Women participation was observed in both more traditional activities acting as blessing invokers, faith healers, midwifes and medicine women and in farming work and in recently introduced daily life activities working as teachers and health agents, in reunions and community assemblies. It was possible to perceive how they match, everyday, activities in different spaces, by building female solidarity nets. Socio-cultural changes in the contemporary scene and, more precisely, womens achievements, are analyzed by Xakriabá women in an ambiguous way, as they are not accompanied by profound changes in relationships between genders. If, on one hand, they recognize the achievement of new knowledge and acting spaces, on the other, they call attention to a work and responsibilities overload and to the existence of restricted participating zones.