Na Terra, na Letra e na Voz: a luta de agricultores e agricultoras por terra e água, no Apodi (RN)

Abstract

This work aims to highlight the debate on the impacts of the arrival of agribusiness in the city of Apodi, Rio Grande do Norte, mainly from the axes of land, water, dignity and autonomy. Since the beginning of the 21st century, many monoculture companies have started to establish themselves on the Potiguar side of Chapada do Apodi, as they had done years before in their portion of Ceará. All these transformations had a direct impact on the lives of small farmers. In this sense, we seek to discuss the importance of the narratives constructed by peasant communities directly impacted by the arrival and installation of these agro-export companies. All narratives established by social agents contain political intentions and, in the case of peasants, they also have the character of affirming a way of living and resisting, persisting in their experiences and knowledge. These narratives are built in defense of a traditional way of life and production compared to the capitalist model; who claim crafts and knowledge not always recognized by the technical standard. It was from these narratives that we adopted the definitions of Life Projects, for family and peasant production models; and Projects of death for the monoculture and agro-export model