Revista Brasileira de Educação do Campo
Brazilian Journal of Rural Education
ARTIGO/ARTICLE/ARTÍCULO
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e9695
Tocantinópolis/Brasil
v. 6
e9695
10.20873/uft.rbec.e9695
2021
ISSN: 2525-4863
1
Este conteúdo utiliza a Licença Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of
the Collective Map in Reading Peasant Reality
i
Alexandra Maria de Oliveira
1
, Antônia Sandra Honoria de Sousa
2
, Grasiele Ribeiro Gonçalves de Souza
3
1
Universidade Federal do Ceará - UFC. Departamento de Geografia. Centro de Ciências, Campus do Pici. Avenida Humberto
Monte, s/n. Bloco 911. Fortaleza - CE. Brasil.
2
Rede Particular de Educação do Município de Fortaleza.
3
Secretaria de
Educação do Ceará.
Author for correspondence: alexandra.oliveira@ufc.br
ABSTRACT. The conquest of rural settlements in the Brazilian
countryside has led to the certainty of new daily challenges for
the settlers, including the struggle for public policies that boost
production, income generation, and good quality education. The
article aims to analyze the use of social cartography in the
Antônio Conselheiro Settlement, located between Ocara and
Aracoiaba in Ceará, Brazil. The methodological procedure is
part of a research project carried out between 2016 and 2018 and
was developed based on pedagogical workshops conducted with
students of the Education Service for Youth and Adult Rural
Workers (EJA) at Raimundo Facó School. Additionally,
fieldwork, interviews, preliminary sketches, and the collective
map were used in the research. This Social cartography was
developed at a time when the communities were experiencing
conflict with public agencies and looking for ways to
demonstrate their work and autonomy in the management of
spaces for production, marketing, and leisure. The results show
a consolidated rural settlement with the production,
consumption, and commercialization of agricultural and
artisanal products. The introduction of social cartography to the
community through adult elementary education is a
differentiated approach to the dialogue between popular and
geographic knowledge and is fundamental for interpreting the
peasant reality.
Keywords: rural settlement, agrarian conflicts, social
cartography.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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Assentamento Antônio Conselheiro: A Importância do
Mapa Coletivo na Leitura da Realidade Camponesa
ii
RESUMO. A conquista dos assentamentos rurais no campo
brasileiro leva à certeza de que novos desafios estarão presentes
na vida de assentado, entre eles: a luta por políticas públicas
para dinamizar produção, a geração de renda e uma educação de
qualidade. O objetivo do artigo é analisar o uso da cartografia
social no Assentamento Antônio Conselheiro, localizado entre
Ocara e Aracoiaba no Ceará. O procedimento metodológico
parte de pesquisa realizada entre os anos de 2016 e 2018 e foi
desenvolvido com base em oficinas pedagógicas realizadas com
educandos da Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) do Campo,
na Escola Raimundo Facó. Contou, ainda, com trabalhos de
campo, entrevistas, elaboração de croquis e mapa coletivo. A
cartografia social foi desenvolvida quando as comunidades
estavam vivendo uma situação de conflito com órgãos públicos
e procurando caminhos para revelar trabalho e autonomia na
gestão dos espaços de produção, da comercialização e do lazer.
Os resultados revelam um assentamento rural consolidado com
produção, consumo e comercialização de produtos agrícolas e
artesanais. A introdução da cartografia social dentro da
comunidade (via escola básica) é um caminho diferenciado para
o diálogo entre os saberes populares e o conhecimento
geográfico, e é fundamental para interpretarmos a realidade
camponesa.
Palavras-chave: assentamento rural, conflitos no campo,
cartografia social.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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Asentamiento Antônio Conselheiro: La Importancia del
Mapa Colectivo en la Lectura de la Realidad Campesina
iii
RESUMEN. La conquista de los asentamientos rurales en el
campo brasileño lleva a la certeza de que nuevos desafíos
estarán presentes en la vida de los pobladores de los
asentamientos, entre ellos: la lucha por políticas públicas para
dinamizar la producción, la generación de ingresos y una
educación de calidad. El objetivo del artículo es analizar el uso
de la cartografía social en el Asentamiento Antônio Conselheiro,
ubicado entre Ocara y Aracoiaba en Ceará. El procedimiento
metodológico surge a través de una investigación realizada entre
los años 2016 y 2018 y se desarrolló a partir de talleres
pedagógicos realizados con estudiantes de Educación de Jóvenes
y Adultos (EJA) del Campo, en la Escuela Raimundo Facó.
También contó con trabajo de campo, entrevistas, elaboración
de bocetos y un mapa colectivo. La cartografía social se
desarrolló cuando las comunidades vivían una situación de
conflicto con los organismos públicos y buscaban formas de
revelar el trabajo y la autonomía en la gestión de los espacios de
producción, comercialización y esparcimiento. Los resultados
revelan un asentamiento rural consolidado con producción,
consumo y comercialización de productos agrícolas y
artesanales. La introducción de la cartografía social en la
comunidad (vía escuela básica) es una vía diferente para el
diálogo entre los conocimientos populares y el conocimiento
geográfico, y es fundamental para interpretar la realidad
campesina.
Palabras clave: asentamiento rural, conflictos en el campo,
cartografía social.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
Tocantinópolis/Brasil
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ISSN: 2525-4863
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Introduction
In the process of fighting for land in
the Brazilian countryside, rural settlements
are the "fractions of territory" conquered
by rural workers during this struggle
(Fernandes, 1996, p. 17). In the state of
Ceará, the peasants' battle for land led to
the creation of rural settlements, especially
after the political opening that occurred in
the mid-1980s. The New Republic's first
national agrarian reform plan (1985)
allowed some peasants access to land and
consequently new actions to fight for the
right to housing, work, education, and
dignity in the countryside. For this reason,
for some scholars writing on the agrarian
issue, the rural settlement is "the arrival
point of the peasant struggle in the access
to land" (Feliciano, 2006, p. 113) and, at
the same time, its "departure point as a
conquest of a new level from which an
important set of policies can be accessed,
(credit, for example)" (Leite, 2012, p. 111).
In the struggle and conquest of rural
settlements in Ceará, the settler's peasant
organization's structuring reasons were
based on family work, land tenure,
freedom of work, kinship ties, and rural
religiosity (Oliveira, 2017). These
relationships established within the family,
with their neighbors, and with the land and
work allow the reproduction of culture,
techniques, and peasant identity. As a
result, reading the peasant reality in the
settlers' daily life involves bearing in mind
that the relationship between land, work,
family, and freedom identifies the social
and political subjects who are developing
actions and mobilizations in the struggle
for grassroots agrarian reform in the
Brazilian countryside. Furthermore,
through associations, these subjects build
ways to negotiate with the government via
public agencies to search for a life with
dignity in the countryside.
The proposal to use social
cartography in the Antônio Conselheiro
Settlement was a challenge that arose
during the research (Sousa, 2018) and the
unfolding of novelties in Ceará's rural
communities. During the dialogue with
settlers from the Umari community, the
conflict between the State government
through the National Department of
Infrastructure and Transport (DNIT) and
the peasants was evident. The issues
included redefining the location and
materials used in the shacks along the BR-
122 highway, which transects the
settlement. According to the DNIT,
masonry structures are prohibited close to
highways and should be a minimum
distance away to avoid accidents. The
peasants strongly contested this proposal
and felt cornered by the presence of the
agency's experts in the Settlement, who
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
Tocantinópolis/Brasil
v. 6
e9695
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ISSN: 2525-4863
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were set to intervene at the points of sale
for their goods. The conflict gained
recognition, and everyone wanted to see
the possible changes on paper, which is
why the proposal for the community to
produce a collective map arose.
Qualitative research was developed
together with the subjects involved in the
communities. The researchers'
participation in the daily life of the
Settlement was fundamental for a critical
reading of the social and local reality. The
methodology consisted first of academic
and technical readings on the agrarian
question in Ceará and rural settlements.
There was also fieldwork with semi-
structured interviews and didactic
workshops with methodological
procedures based on the social cartography
proposed by Batista (2014) and Santos
(2016). The research subjects are referred
to using letters, such as peasant A or
peasant B.
According to Santos (2016), social
cartography "is seen as a process of
collective construction that brings together,
in the same category of importance,
researchers and the mapped social agents"
(p. 274). Thus, we understand that social
cartography is carried out with the
community, revealing the subjects'
viewpoint as social actors, individuals of a
collectivity that, through social, political,
economic, and cultural relationships,
produce territories in agrarian reform
areas.
The proposal was developed with
students from the Youth and Adult
Education class (EJA do Campo) at
Raimundo Facó School in Umari, in the
Antônio Conselheiro Settlement,
Aracoiaba, Ceará. The production of the
collective map is relevant due to the lack
of representations of the settlement's
social, economic, and cultural practices.
The results show that using social
cartography in the community (through the
elementary school) is a differentiated path
for dialogue between popular and
geographic knowledge. It is a fundamental
choice to interpret the actual conflicts in
the countryside from the peasants'
standpoint.
The Formation of the Antônio
Conselheiro Settlement
The origin of the Antônio
Conselheiro Settlement was the occupation
and expropriation of the Córrego de
Quinxinxé farm on May 20, 1995. The
settlement's name honors the messianic
leader Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel,
popularly known as Antônio Conselheiro,
who created the Canudos community in the
sertão of Bahia in the nineteenth century.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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From the beginning, the Antônio
Conselheiro Settlement was designed as a
welcoming place that offered the
possibility of land and work to peasant
families, as was recorded in the words of
Professor Zélia, director of the Francisca
Pinto da Silva Rural School: "... the
intention behind creating the settlement
was to form a new Canudos here in Ceará"
(Assentamento Antônio Conselheiro,
2017). The Córrego de Quinxinxé farm
was selected for occupation based on a
survey of unproductive properties in the
northern region of Ceará. As part of the
First National Plan for Agrarian Reform,
the survey was carried out by collectives
and the leaders of unions and social
movements.
Once the farm had been selected, the
peasants' representatives organized the
families of landless peasants for the
occupation: tenant farmers
iv
and squatters.
According to Sales (2003), most of them
lived on farms close to the target area,
were not landowners, and had problems
related to conflicts with landowners. The
author recalls an extensive preparation
with meetings, information exchanges, and
supervision of the groups in the lead-up to
the occupation of the farm.
The Antônio Conselheiro
Settlement's history began with the arrival
of the families who occupied the farm from
different cities and locations in the state.
The families started arriving here on
May 19, 1995, there were many
families from various municipalities
in Ceará, I think there were about 12
municipalities and localities, I
remember that families came from
Boa Viagem, Quixadá,
Quixeramobim, Canindé, Madalena,
Caucaia, Itapebussu, Ibaretama,
Ocara, Aracoiaba, Umirim and
Itapagé. About 400 families were
camping under tarpaulins; until the
possession of the land came out,
there was a lot of resistance (Peasant
A. Antônio Conselheiro Settlement,
2017).
According to Peasant B, the families
had experience with agriculture, despite
having worked in non-farming jobs.
The families that arrived lived off the
land; they were all farmers, planting
to support their family. I left the
community of Rufino in Aracoiaba
with my family and worked for four
years at Cione (Companhia Industrial
de Óleos do Nordeste), with the
cashew nut, because my husband and
I had no land to plant. When we
found out about the occupation, we
quit our jobs and started fighting,
resisting to guarantee our piece of
land to plant and live on (Peasant B.
Settlement Antônio Conselheiro,
2017).
The occupation generated fear and
discomfort among the tenants on the farm,
mainly due to fear of the Landless Rural
Workers Movement (MST)
v
, which was
often perceived as a movement formed by
troublemakers. As a former tenant stated,
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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We were afraid; we didn't know what
kind of people they were. The MST
we knew was the one we saw on the
television that showed that they
brought confusion. So, we were
afraid to do something or what they
would do to us. Over time we saw
that most came to live in dignity,
planting, and everything, but some
only came (sic) to mess about, they
were dishonest, they ate our animals,
and they made trouble on the farm,
but these were expelled, they didn't
stay (Peasant C. Settlement Antônio
Conselheiro, 2017).
In the case of unproductive land, the
land occupation movement is a complex
challenge, mobilized by the struggle for
rights and social justice. According to
Stédile and Fernandes (1999), "if we do
not occupy it ourselves, we do not prove
that the law is on our side. Therefore there
were only expropriations when there were
occupations" (p. 115).
At the camp
vi
at Fazenda Córrego de
Quinxinxé, between 1995/96, there were
moments of tension between the squatters
and farm managers, who threatened to set
fire to the stalls, and conflict between the
peasants and the police force, which
threatened eviction orders
vii
. At that time,
the MST created action fronts to attract the
public authorities' attention to what was
happening at the farm. Among the
mobilizations, it is worth mentioning the
occupation of the BR-122 highway,
followed by a walk to the Aracoiaba
forum, ending with a dramatization by
children telling the story of life
experiences in the camp (Oliveira &
Sampaio, 2017).
The victory of the action fronts
mobilized by the peasants happened with
the eviction order being overturned in 1995
and the Farm's expropriation after being
deemed unproductive. Therefore, eleven
months later, on April 2, 1996, the
National Institute of Colonization and
Agrarian Reform (INCRA) issued the
possession to the Antônio Conselheiro
Settlement, and the settlement was formed
on May 20, 1995. More than five thousand
acres were divided between the families
from the camp and residents of the farm;
each family received about thirty-eight
hectares (Sales, 2003).
Antônio Conselheiro is located
between the municipalities of Aracoiaba
and Ocara in Ceará, about 101 kilometers
away from the capital Fortaleza. Access is
via the BR-122 highway, the main entry to
the Settlement, as it cuts it in half (Map 1).
The continuous flow of people and
vehicles inside the Settlement favors the
flow of production and the trade of
agricultural and artisanal products by the
settlers.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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Map 1 - Location of the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement, Ocara and Aracoiaba, Ceará.
Source: Sousa, 2017.
Once the land had been conquered,
the struggle for decent housing, living, and
working conditions in the countryside
began. It was a lengthy undertaking driven
by the mobilization of struggle and the
dialogue between the associations and the
State government. Associations, churches,
schools, dwellers, and their land
dynamized the socio-spatial ordering of the
Settlement as a whole. In the process, the
peasants prioritized the search for
government projects that made work,
education, and health viable.
The settlement is divided into four
agro-villages, which are also considered
communities: Córrego do Facó and Sede,
in the municipality of Ocara, and Furnas
and Umari, in the municipality of
Aracoiaba. They are deemed fundamental
for the social, political, and economic
development of the territory as a whole.
The communities are organized into
farmers' associations that find ways to
negotiate with the state government
through public agencies to discover
projects and public policies for the
settlement.
In the process of the families'
territorialization in the settlement, land
tenure and liberty at work are fundamental
conditions in developing "peasant
agriculture" (Carvalho & Costa, 2012, p.
26). It is a form of production and relating
to nature. A way of life based on family
farming in the following activities:
cultivating swiddens (maize, beans, and
manioc) and productive yards (pumpkin,
maxixe (Cucumis anguria), vegetable
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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gardens, and others); livestock (raising
small animals: pigs, birds, goats, and
cattle); artisanal production of sauces,
butter, and cakes; the products are sold in
stalls on the roadside of the BR-122.
Currently, the Settlement has two
priority projects: 1) the One Million
Cisterns (P1MC) project achieved through
the Semi-Arid Association (ASA), which
enables storage of potable water for
consumption and use in the productive
yards; and 2) the Campo Francisca Pinto
High School gained through the MST,
providing young people with a high school
with technical training in agriculture.
The cisterns project has boosted food
production in productive yards by peasant
families, especially women, both for the
families' diet and for sale. At the high
school, young people learn and teach
popular and scientific knowledge and
essential social technologies to work on the
land. In addition, these projects help young
people avoid migration to large urban
centers, thus guaranteeing their
permanence as a labor force in family
farming.
The Settlement's twenty-third
birthday in 2018 was celebrated with a
Mass (Figure 1), theater, folk poetry, and
reisado dances with presentations
produced and performed by the young
people.
Figure 1 - Thanksgiving Mass at the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement, Ceará.
Source: Sousa, 2018.
Thus, the Antônio Conselheiro
Settlement has renewed itself over the
years, persisting on the land conquered
through family work, the use of new social
technologies, and education, which
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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generate opportunities for the younger
generation.
The experience of social cartography in
the community
The research's first stage involved
fieldwork and lived experience at the
Antônio Conselheiro Settlement, with the
support of leaders and teachers. Two points
emerged from the dialogue: first, the lack
of cartographic representations of the
Settlement; second, the conflict between
the state government via the DNIT and the
peasants. According to staff from DNIT,
the masonry stalls were too close to the
hard shoulder, which could impair drivers'
vision and cause accidents on the highway.
For this reason, the agency asked INCRA
to redefine the location and materials used
in the stalls selling the Settlement's
products along the BR-122. It was agreed
with some of the peasants that the stalls'
regulation would be made available in the
Terra Sol project (INCRA, CE). The
proposal was to replace the masonry stalls
with canvas-covered mobile stalls, which
were not always welcomed by the settlers,
mainly due to the heat caused by the
tarpaulin.
A valuable contribution to the
dialogue was the suggestion of using social
cartography with the group of EJA do
Campo
viii
of the Raimundo Facó School of
Infant and Elementary Education, located
in the community of Umari. This
community was chosen because it is the
most populous and most affected by the
conflict presented above. The school
teaches Infant Education, Elementary I and
II, and an evening group from the EJA do
Campo with about 40 adult students.
The survey used semi-structured
interviews conducted in the field that led to
a diagnosis of the Settlement (Sousa,
2018). After the diagnosis, we felt the need
to map the Settlement by tracing its
productive units and social and economic
practices. Contact was made with the EJA
teacher, MST leaders, and the students at
the school, presenting the proposed
procedure for the social cartography. With
the subjects' consent, we returned to
Fortaleza with the idea of creating a
didactic sequence.
The planning of this sequence
(Pernambuco, 1993) aimed to build a
spatial representation of the social
practices in the Settlement from the
students' viewpoint. The methodological
procedure was divided into three stages:
the production of sketches, feedback, and
socialization of the results at the school.
Next followed what can be described
as a study of reality. To this end, we chose
to organize a sequence of contents about
the rural settlement, its communities, and
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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its surroundings. The class was preceded
by a simple questionnaire that investigated
the students' reading of their community:
streets, the layout of houses, backyards,
gardens, and water resources, among other
elements. At this point, the comments
revolved around specific readings such as
"we have productive yards" or "we sell our
products in the shacks on BR-122, and
now DNIT wants to change that". For the
students, the income from agricultural and
artisanal production and the sale of
products is fundamental in the
community's reality, leading them to
emphasize the conflict caused by the state
government via DNIT. This information
was essential to organize the construction
of knowledge. This was the moment to
listen to and understand the research
subjects, be attentive to explain and build
the importance of our proposal and give it
meaning in the student's universe.
The next moment was the expository
and dialogued class (Figure 2), in which
we placed the Settlement in the context of
the world system, presenting the basic
elements of cartography: title, key, scale,
and orientation. We continued to talk about
official cartography and social cartography
and introduced the essential elements to
develop the sketches: roads, dwellings,
areas of gardens, and water resources.
Subsequently, each group was tasked with
making a drawing/sketch of the Settlement.
Figure 2 - Expositive class discussed at the Raimundo Facó School, Settlement Antônio Conselheiro, Ceará.
Source: Sousa, 2018.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
Reality…
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The scene shown in Figure 2 reveals
the class's activity, preceded by a broad
study of the local reality. From this initial
study, curiosities emerged about the
students' relationship with the social space
of the Settlement. In this context, we took
the next step: choosing strategies to
develop related content and
methodological procedures.
The second stage can be described as
the expectations phase. At this point, the
researchers looked for ways to overcome
the weaknesses identified, absorb
information, and develop the skills
required to address the issues posed. "Here,
the speech of the organizer predominates"
(Pernambuco, 1993, p. 34, emphasis
added). It is noteworthy that this stage was
guided by the discourse of the peasants,
which was an attempt to provide the leaps
that could not be made without the
scientific knowledge systematized in books
and the organizers' qualifications.
Therefore, this was to time to organize the
available knowledge while respecting the
contribution of the knowledge of the
students and teachers being trained.
The medium selected in this
organization process was the production of
sketches. Groups of students (an average
class size of 35 adults) were provided with
didactic materials: cardboard, A4 paper,
colored pencils, and colored pens. The
participants were challenged to apply
knowledge of their reality by creating
sketches of the Settlement (Figure 3).
Figure 3 - Production of the Collective Map at the Raimundo Facó School, Antônio Conselheiro Settlement,
Ceará.
Source: Sousa, 2018.
On that occasion, we had the
unconditional support of the Geography
teacher, who made our stay at the
Settlement possible and encouraged the
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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group to produce the drawings. That day
the student's sketches were presented, and
feedback was given, which provided the
spatial reading of researchers and students
about the Settlement.
The first sketch (Sketch 1) shows the
socio-spatial dynamics of the Settlement.
Sketch 1 - Spatial representation of the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement. Aracoiaba-CE.
Source: Paloma Group (2018).
In Croquis 1, the peasants
emphasized a specific feature of peasant
agriculture: the diversity found in the
productive backyards with the cultivation
of coriander, parsley, peppers, and beans
(Figure 4). The chickens in the drawing
indicate small animal husbandry. There
was also an emphasis on the trade stalls
located on the road that cuts through the
Settlement.
Figure 4 - Productive backyards: coriander and parsley. Antônio Conselheiro Settlement. Umari Community,
Aracoiaba-CE.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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Source: Gonçalves (2018).
In Figure 4, the productive backyard
filled with vegetables is the home of a
settler who highlighted the importance of
backyards in providing fresh and healthy
food, which helped his family's
development and livelihood.
According to Batista (2014), the
productive backyards in the sertão of
Ceará form "a system of polycultures,
preferably grown close to the residence,
often being an extension of the house" (p.
56). These backyards have become
increasingly important in the struggle for
food sovereignty. In the settlement in
question, the option of healthy eating also
involves the school through the didactic
garden described by Oliveira & Sampaio
(2017).
Another fascinating representation
can be seen in Sketch 2.
Sketch 2 - Spatialization of the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement. Ocara and Aracoiaba-CE.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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Source: Grupo da G.
In Croquis 2, the students highlighted
the productive areas of the yards and
swidden and, subsequently, the stalls on
the BR-122 and other facilities: churches,
sports courts, school, and health center. In
all the sketches, the students were careful
to show a productive settlement revolving
around the life and work in food
production for family consumption, animal
raising, and commercialization (the sale of
agricultural and artisanal products). It is
evident that the work of the peasant family
"supplies the dwelling house, feeds its
members, but it is also destined for places
and people outside this reality" (Moura,
1986, p.55). In our dialogue with the
settlers, the families' work structure was
apparent in the relationship between
productive yards, work in the fields, and
the sale of products. The State
government's interference in the dynamics
of this composition through the DNIT's
proposal has generated doubts and
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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conflicts involving the INCRA's
participation.
In the current conflict between the
state government and the peasants, the
solution outlined with INCRA was to
replace the masonry stalls with canvas
stalls that could be dismantled. During this
process, the canvas stalls were erected, but
the masonry stalls were not demolished
(Figure 5). Many peasants claimed the new
stalls were unhealthy due to the heat
trapped by the plastic sheeting.
Figure 5 - Commerce on BR-122 in the Umari Community, in the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement. Aracoiaba-
CE.
Source: Sousa (2018).
Figure 5 shows the community's
traditional masonry stalls on the left and on
the right, the canvas stall designed in the
INCRA project resulting from the conflict
mentioned above between the government
(via DNIT) and the peasants. From the
viewpoint of many peasants, the solution
was to aggregate the stalls. Thus, the "new
stalls" represent an achievement by yet
another Settlement project to preserve the
sale of agricultural and artisanal products
to contribute to the community's income.
The peasant option forged in the
conflict was instrumental in revealing the
dynamics and diversity of agricultural and
artisanal production in the Agrarian
Reform Settlement in Ceará. According to
peasant D. "who isn't in the fields, comes
to sell the products on the BR highway".
The stalls pictured in Figure 6 sell the
following goods: fruit (mango, soursop,
cashew nut, jackfruit, Barbados cherry, and
sugar apple); seasonings (chili peppers,
manteiga da terra
ix
, and cream); honey
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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(jandaíra and Italian bees); industrialized
products (snacks and candies).
Figure 6 - Products sold on BR-122. Umari Community. Antônio Conselheiro Settlement, Aracoiaba-CE.
Source: Gonçalves (2018).
The result of the production and
socialization of the sketches, with feedback
and adjustments to create the collective
map, was energized by the exchange of
knowledge between the peasant students
and the field researchers. The production
of a "peasant cartography" (Batista, 2014)
was mobilized in the world of land reform.
As a result, the peasants, organized in the
school environment, went beyond mapping
the conflicts to reveal the potential in the
Settlement. In this context, the peasant E.
stressed: "It is easier for people to see that
we're working, that in addition to the
swiddens, we have other projects in the
communities that strengthen the peasant
struggle."
In the third stage, the didactic
sequence with the settlers, we opted to
digitize the collective map and, in
possession of the printed document (Map
2), disseminate it in the community.
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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Map 2 - Umari Community, in the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement. Ocara and Aracoiaba-CE.
Source: Farias (2018).
The collective map was handed over
to the EJA teacher at Escola Raimundo
Facó, who promised to share it with the
students (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - Delivery of the Collective Map. Umari Community, in the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement.
Aracoiaba-CE.
Source: Gonçalves (2018).
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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The use of social cartography was
very pertinent for the Settlement, as the
mapping was carried out when the leaders
were looking for ways to introduce a
survey on local activities to the community
and reorganize new spaces for production,
marketing, and leisure. According to
peasant F.,
This has been the time for decisions
about cultivation areas, changes in
the stalls' materials, and the
restructuring of floodplain areas.
With the map, the division of
communities and the location of the
houses, productive yards, schools,
and other facilities are materialized,
hence the importance of this simple
cartography (Camponesa F. Antônio
Conselheiro Settlement, 2018).
She continues
The good thing about the map was
the richness of the details. The
division that you made into agro-
villages was also very cool, as the
settlers can see the dimensions of
parts of the settlement. Because the
Settlement consists of four agro-
villages, it is very spatialized, and
this often means the settlers
themselves do not have a dimension
of their agro-village; this division is
clearer with the maps (Peasant F.
Antônio Conselheiro Settlement,
2018).
According to Batista (2014), "the
maps also contain the desire for autonomy,
freedom, people's control over their desires
and the meeting of their needs" (p. 66).
The collective production of the
representations rekindled the ideas of unity
and collaborative organization, which are
fundamental in overcoming the challenges
experienced in the Settlement, involving
the need to reveal the community's
autonomy in its decisions and life and
work choices.
The sketches created by the settlers
revealed the meaning given to some of
their social practices, memorably: 1) the
use of agroecology in the productive yards
to overcome the dependence on capitalist
logic that favors the sale of products using
pesticide in supermarkets. Peasant logic
involves providing poison-free food for
family consumption and society as a
whole; 2) the search for autonomy in the
commercialization and self-management of
the conquered land is an option to remain a
peasant; 3) the need to reveal the Antônio
Conselheiro Settlement as a productive and
consolidated social space with a diversity
of social, economic and political practices.
Collective maps are instruments full
of subjective and objective feelings,
fundamental to recognizing values and
interests regarding the territory. Therefore,
they act as instruments of the struggle for
autonomous management, emancipation,
and agrarian reform. Thus, we are
reminded of the need to consider the
settlement as more than an area of
expropriated land in compliance with the
legal provisions of agrarian reform
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021). The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the Collective Map in Reading Peasant
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destined to agricultural and / or extractive
production. It is also a heterogeneous
space composed of peasant families, who
organize themselves and struggle for a
rural development project that includes
land, work, education, and dignity, among
other rights, in favor of rural peoples.
Final considerations
Rural settlements are "fractions of
the [capitalist] territory" (Fernandes, 1996,
p. 17) conquered in the struggle for
agrarian reform in Brazil. Initially, this
land is a condition for the recreation of
family work and life in the countryside.
Therefore, it is evident that the struggle to
move into the land is only the beginning;
the conquest of the settlement happens
every day with creativity, dialogue, and
work. The struggle for productive projects,
education, the recognition of autonomy in
the territory's management occurs daily,
and public bodies often doubt their
competency.
The experience with the
methodological procedure of social
cartography with students from the EJA do
Campo of the Francisco Facó school,
located in the community of Umari, was a
challenge born in the dialogue with the
settlers, but which was fed by other
experiences described in the academic
literature. The dialogue at the school
between everyday knowledge and
scientific knowledge brought us closer to
social subjects concerned with and
committed to the struggle to restore
peasants through land reform.
Far from being incoherent line
drawings, the sketches developed by the
peasant students reveal a productive
settlement. These illustrations of reality
used objective and subjective symbols to
link practices in the fields and productive
yards and alternative paths in
commercializing products, together with
other food sovereignty and quality
education projects. All of these are
fundamental in revealing the peasant's
autonomy in the management of the
conquered settlement.
During the production of the social
map, the peasants welcomed us with
sociability, collectivity, and organicity,
revealing a clear intention both to map
conflicts and uncover opportunities in the
Settlement. As a result, the map showed
the territorialization of the struggle for
work, rights, justice, education, food
sovereignty, and grassroots land reform.
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i
Article resulting from the deepening of the
complete summary entitled, “Social cartography
at the Antônio Conselheiro Settlement / Ceará”
published in 14th ENPEG
https://ocs.ige.unicamp.br/ojs/anais14enpeg/index,
in the year of 2019.
ii
Artigo resultado do aprofundamento de resumo
completo intitulado, “Cartografia social no
Assentamento Antônio Conselheiro/Ceará”
publicado no 14º
ENPEG https://ocs.ige.unicamp.br/ojs/anais14enpe
g/index, no ano de 2019.
iii
Artículo resultante de la profundización del
resumen completo titulado “Cartografia social no
Assentamento Antônio Conselheiro/Ceará”,
publicado en lo 14º
ENPEG https://ocs.ige.unicamp.br/ojs/anais14enpe
g/index, en el año 2019.
iv
A tenant farmers does not own any land but has
permission from the owner to live on and farm the
land. In many cases the payment for this permission
involves the exchange of days of service for their
dwelling.
v
The MST is a “socio-territorial movement that
brings together different categories of peasants
(squatters, sharecroppers, salaried workers called
landless people) and also several social activists to
develop the struggles for land and Agrarian
Reform” (Fernandes, 2012, p. 496).
vi
The camp “is a space of struggle and resistance. It
is the materialization of a collective action that
makes public the intention to claim the right to land
for production and housing ” (Fernandes, 2012, p.
21).
vii
Document signed by a judge authorizing “police
or private actions of forced removal of communities
or families from farms ... occupied by social
movements when these properties do not fulfill
their social function” (Escrivão Filho, 2012, p.
210).
viii
Youth and Adult Education (EJA) in the
countryside is a specific modality of basic
education, “aimed at subjects in the countryside and
in city who have been denied the right to access and
remain in basic school education throughout their
lives” (Araújo, 2012, p. 250).
ix
Manteiga da terra is a type of butter that stays
liquid at room temperature. Generally sold in glass
bottles, it is consumed with maize couscous or
cooked cassava.
Article Information
Received on June 18th, 2020
Accepted on March 13th, 2021
Published on August, 07th, 2021
Author Contributions: The author were responsible for
the designing, delineating, analyzing and interpreting the
data, production of the manuscript, critical revision of the
content and approval of the final version published.
Conflict of Interest: None reported.
Article Peer Review
Double review.
Funding
The authors thank the funding of the projects CAPES
PGPSE Proc. 88887.123947/2016-00: Coastal
Environmental Systems and economic occupation of the
Northeast; CAPES PRINT Proc. 88887.312019/2018-00:
Integrated socio-environmental technologies and methods
for territorial sustainability: alternatives for local
communities in the context of climate change; and
CAPES/FUNCAP Program Proc. 88887.165948/2018-00:
Support to Scientific Cooperation Strategies of the
Graduate Program in Geography - UFC.
How to cite this article
APA
Oliveira, A. M., Sousa, A. S. H., & Souza, G. R. G. (2021).
The Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of
the Collective Map in Reading Peasant Reality. Rev. Bras.
Educ. Camp., 6, e9695.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e9695
ABNT
OLIVEIRA, A. M.; SOUSA, A. S. H.; SOUZA, G. R. G. The
Antônio Conselheiro Settlement: The Importance of the
Collective Map in Reading Peasant Reality. Rev. Bras.
Educ. Camp., Tocantinópolis, v. 6, e9695, 2021.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e9695