Nature and Hegemony in the Ways of Living of Sempre-Vivas Pickers

Abstract

Traditional communities in Brazil are historically marked by situations of conflict, lack of autonomy and denial of rights. We address the issue of housing in the Mata dos Crioulos community, located in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, southeast Brazil, which identifies itself as a quilombola and sempre-vivas flower pickers. Amidst the territorial conflicts in which it is inserted, their ways of living are closely related to the ways of life and the “picking” of flowers, a characteristic that underlies its collective identity. During the “picking” period, the families live in caves, and when they tend the field, they live in houses built using traditional techniques, a practice that can be understood as counter-hegemonic because it is not guided by the socially accepted forms of the ideology of the capitalist mode of production. These practices were threatened by the implementation of Conservation Units of restricted use, which overlap the community's territory. This text reflects on why these ways of living are not considered legitimate by the western urban society, and whether counter-hegemony can be a key to understanding these ways of life. Based on the understanding of ideology as a form of specific social awareness and an investigation into the society/nature relationship, we conclude that the neglect of caves and houses that articulate the territoriality of flower pickers are directly linked to the hegemonic notions of external and universal nature.