WHEN THE HOE BECOMES HEAVY: MANAGING AGING IN RURAL CONTEXTS

CARMEN DE ALMEIDA ALVES; Braz José do Nascimento Júnior

Todos os Trabalhos

Trabalho

DOI

10.29327/9786527226680.1444544

Título do Trabalho

WHEN THE HOE BECOMES HEAVY: MANAGING AGING IN RURAL CONTEXTS

Autores

CARMEN DE ALMEIDA ALVES
Braz José do Nascimento Júnior

Modalidade

IRSA - Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (01/10/2025 a 20/01/2026)

Área temática

IRSA 02 - The Rural-Urban divide: living conditions, well-being, work and vital trajectories in rural areas

Data de Publicação

06/08/2026

País da Publicação

Brasil

Idioma da Publicação

pt-BR

Página do Trabalho

https://www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1444544-when-the-hoe-becomes-heavy--managing-aging-in-rural-contexts

ISBN

978-65-272-2668-0

Palavras-Chave

aging, rural women, agroecology, family farming, work and territory.

Resumo

This study addresses aging as a continuous, relational, and socially situated process in rural contexts, focusing on the experiences of women family farmers engaged in agroecological production. In rural territories marked by historical gender inequalities and the accumulation of physically demanding labor throughout the life course, aging is often naturalized, silenced, or interpreted through urban-centered or biomedical frameworks that fail to capture its lived, territorial, and productive dimensions. The research investigates how women farmers experience, perceive, and manage aging along their productive trajectories, considering bodily transformations, reorganization of work, intergenerational relations, and territorial conditions. It adopts a qualitative, participant-oriented approach, with phenomenological and dialectical inspiration, grounded in prolonged engagement in the field. The empirical context is located in agroecological cooperatives in the Baixada Cuiabana region, Mato Grosso, involving women from different age groups, with particular attention to those aged 60 years and older. Data production includes semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and thematic workshops, initially tested through a pilot study aimed at refining methodological and ethical procedures. Rather than treating aging as a process of decline or loss of productivity, the study approaches it as a dynamic process of adaptation, negotiation, and reorganization of work, time, and bodily limits within collective productive arrangements. Agroecology emerges as a privileged empirical field in which aging becomes visible through diversified production systems, networks of cooperation, and intergenerational practices that may support autonomy, health, and well-being. By centering women’s narratives and everyday experiences, the study contributes to academic debates on rural aging, gender, and work, while also informing institutional practices and public policies related to agroecology, rural development, and the management of aging in rural territories. The research is ongoing and seeks to open analytical and dialogical spaces for future discussions on aging, labor, and territory.

Título do Evento: 16th World Congress of Rural Sociology and 64th Congress of the Brazilian Society of Rural Economics, Management and Sociology
Cidade do Evento: Porto Alegre
Título dos Anais do Evento: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA)
Nome da Editora: Even3
Meio de Divulgação: Meio Digital
DOI

Como citar

ALVES, CARMEN DE ALMEIDA; JÚNIOR, Braz José do Nascimento. WHEN THE HOE BECOMES HEAVY: MANAGING AGING IN RURAL CONTEXTS.. In: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA). Anais...Porto Alegre(RS) UFRGS, 2026. Disponível em: https//www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1444544-WHEN-THE-HOE-BECOMES-HEAVY--MANAGING-AGING-IN-RURAL-CONTEXTS. Acesso em: 24/09/2026