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Environment and health of working women: transformations in a community in the Brazilian Amazon1 1 This article formed part of the doctoral thesis Trabalho, ambiente e saúde: cotidiano dos fazeres da mulher rural na Amazônia defended before the Postgraduate program in Society and Culture in the Amazon in 2014 and is part of “Cidades amazônicas: dinâmicas espaciais, rede urbana local e regional” research project financed by the CNPq and FAPEAM.

The text results from the survey in the Novo Remanso community and in the Engenho Village located at the mouth of Preto da Eva River, tributary of the Amazonas River, in the Amazon, between 2011 to 2014 and emphasizes the analysis of environmental relationships, work, women and health in a place where they intertwine to complement the urban and the rural ways of an Amazonian community. The survey was constructed from fieldwork interviews and work in groups and reports the initial process of organization that gave rise to the Base Ecclesial Community movement, belonging to the Catholic Church, leading to the Sagrado Coração de Jesus Community. The community grew through the organization of farmers and in 1993 started the Farmers in Action movement, and then the formation of Associação Comunitária dos Trabalhadores Rurais do Paraná da Eva (ASCOPE), the first association of rural workers of the Amazon to be transformed into a cooperative and to get credit for growing agroindustry regional fruits. This process was the transformation of labor, especially women, who besides being housewives, are now working in agriculture and agribusiness and as political agents. They are different ways of working in an Amazonian environment linked to land, water and forest configuring the work, environment and health relationship with change and permanence in the lives of working women.

Amazon; Women’s Work; Environment and Health


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