Tecnologias sociais para a convivência com o semiárido: caso do assentamento Juazeiro, Independência, Ceará

Abstract

Because it is located in a semi-arid area, the Brazilian Northeast region is the area that suffers most from water shortages. It presents irregular pluviometric and climatological regimes, implying directly on the hydrography of the region. In the past, the Brazilian State characterized the semi-arid as an obstacle to the necessary social, economic and environmental changes in the region, fomenting Public Policies that had as a principle the fight against droughts, not observing the social, cultural and environmental aspects that constituted its ecosystem. Practices of living with the semi-arid region, based not only on technologies but also on the experience gained from the peasants' contact with the local reality, can serve as a model for other rural communities. The objective of this research is to identify and analyze the practices and technologies of coexistence with the semiarid, developed in the Juazeiro Settlement, located in the Municipality of Independência, State of Ceará. This research focuses on the knowledge developed by the settlers and the social technologies inserted in the community, aligning themselves with the concepts of Agroecology, Permaculture and Family Agriculture. The Juazeiro Settlement detains a set of knowledge and technologies that permit the community to live productively, with quality of life during critical climatic periods. The social practices and technologies aimed at living with the semi-arid region must be part of a learning and experimentation process by the peasants whose result will be the construction of a knowledge that does not dissociate popular knowledge from scientific knowledge. However, the union of this knowledge makes possible the construction of a network of information and technologies that is formed from the idea of coexistence and local experimentation.