Andanças e territorialidades: As contradições da questão da moradia na comunidade da Mata dos Crioulos

Abstract

Numerous conflicts permeate the context of tradicional communities in Brazil, from their formation to their recognition by society and the State. Their rights and autonomy are often denied. In this research, we will deal with the housing issue in the Mata dos Crioulos community, located in the southern portion of Serra do Espinhaço in the municipality of Diamantina in Minas Gerais: they recognize themselfs as quilombolas and as “apanhadores de flores sempre-vivas”, or evergreen flower catchers. Amid the intense territorial conflicts in which the community is inserted, their dwelling are intimately related to their ways of life and to their tradicional activity, which is an important part of their collective identity. The implementation of restricted-use Conservation Units that overlaps the community territory has brought significant changes to the livelihoods of families. Transhumance was characteristic of their ways of living: in the time of flower catching, they lived in lapas, and in the time of farming, they lived in houses built with traditional techniques in raw clay. The lapa area and flowers fields were taken by a Conservation Unit, which confirms the State's non-recognition of their ways of life, by denying that these families could occupy that part of the territory. Notwithstanding the invisibility of these lapas as legitimate forms of housing, the houses of raw clay are also considerably devalued towards the state and society in general. Based on a fieldwork structured in participant observation and ethnographic reporting, this research pursuit some reflections on why these ways of living are not considered legitimate by urban western society and the State and its agents. From the understanding of ideology as a specific form of social consciousness and an deepening into the society and nature relation, we understand that the devaluation of the lapas and clay houses that articulate the evergreen flowers catchers territoriality are directly linked to the conceptions of external and universal nature, the depreciation of traditional constructive techniques and to its logic that does not follow the principles of private property. It is thus concluded that any housing that fulfills its function of shelter, independently of the relations of production and reproduction of capital, are authentic, for they fulfill their function in the community’s territoriality.