O impacto das redes de suporte social e de cuidado no enfrentamento às violências através dos coletivos de mulheres em Fortaleza - Ceará

Abstract

This study stems from concern about the number of women who suffer various forms of violence on a daily basis, whether in their romantic relationships, in their work environment, on the streets, during their leisure time, and, above all, from the unacceptable fact that women die simply because they are women, specifically black, marginalized, and transgender women. According to the 17th Annual Report on Public Violence (FBSP, 2023), the state of Ceará was the sixth most violent in terms of domestic and family violence between 2021 and 2022. Governments and public policies need to act more effectively to protect women, and society needs to rethink the values that sustain gender coloniality, where racism, sexism, and the hierarchization of lives intersect. This historical system imposes subordination on cis and trans women, discredits their knowledge, and delegitimizes their forms of organization, sustaining isolation and silencing. In response, collective experiences affirm practices of solidarity, care, and resistance, in which political subjectivity is constructed on a daily basis. For decolonial and intersectional feminist theorists, in dialogue with Community Psychology, confronting violence happens collectively, horizontally, and dialogically, when subjects analyze their realities, become politically educated, and build networks of solidarity and care. Thus, women's collectives become spaces for mutual recognition and empowerment in the face of gender-based violence. Therefore, we ask the following question: How do women's groups/collectives act in the construction of social support networks and in the processes of political subjectivation to confront gender violence in peripheral contexts of the city of Fortaleza and the Cariri region? Therefore, our general objective is to understand how women's collectives act in the construction of social support networks and in the processes of political subjectivation to confront gender violence in peripheral contexts. For the specific objectives, we have aligned four objectives: 1) To evaluate the processes of violence experienced by women who are members of women's collectives; 2) To identify how the social support networks of women's collectives are organized; 3) To understand the meanings of social support networks in women's collectives based on women's experiences; 4) To understand how awareness-raising processes in women's collectives favor the emergence of political subjects and practices of empowerment in the face of different forms of violence. To achieve these results, we propose a critical feminist qualitative methodology inspired by decolonial and intersectional practices. This process was divided into three stages: first, we mapped women's collectives in the city of Fortaleza, identifying 34; in the second, after accepting participation, I met with members of five groups/collectives and conducted interviews with five representatives in order to bring to light the history of the collective; and, in the third stage, four thematic groups were formed with members of four groups/collectives, totaling 46 women. The interviews were conducted individually, by group. Subsequently, the interviews and thematic groups were systematized and analyzed based on a critical and situated reading, inspired by intersectional and decolonial feminist epistemologies, with the support of Atlas.ti software for organizing the narrative material. The results revealed that confronting gender-based violence and violence against women is not based solely on institutional responses, but is strengthened by social support networks and alliances between women who collectively transform their experiences of pain into political action. The collectives interviewed, Coletivo Vozes, Mulheres que se Amam, Sta. Terezinha do Tancredo Neves, Movimento Nacional das Cidadãs Posithivas/Ce, and Frente de Mulheres do Cariri, are configured as territories of political subjectivation, resistance, and creation, where strengthening, care, solidarity, and coalition are intertwined as practices of maintaining life and producing political subjects. It was observed that, in these spaces, the sharing of experiences of violence operates as a device for opposition consciousness and subjective reorganization. Through practices of mutual listening, circulation of knowledge, and collective action, suffering is reframed as a source of solidarity and mobilization. Women reinvent forms of political care, articulating affections, spiritualities, and community practices that go beyond the limits of state assistance. Concrete coping strategies also emerge, such as support among mothers in contexts of criminalization and poverty, welcoming women living with HIV, and creating safe spaces for coexistence and feminist training. It can be concluded that the experiences of these collectives affirm the centrality of solidarity networks and the construction of alternatives to institutional modes of coping, highlighting that social transformation occurs through relationships and coalitions. Collective strengthening thus reveals itself not only as a response to violence, but as a continuous form of reinvention of life and daily insurgency against the structures of coloniality and oppression.