Mulheres, crochê e desenvolvimento local: um olhar para a sustentabilidade da vida

Abstract

This interdisciplinary research aims to analyze the relationship of women crocheters from Inconfidentes - MG with local development and crochet, through material and immaterial elements present in this craft practice. The craftwork in contemporary times is marked by various social relations, being an object endowed with social, cultural and economic value. Faced with hegemonic development, handcrafts have undergone several transformations in order to meet the national and global consumer market. In this scenario, the crochet handicraft in Inconfidentes has been transformed from an activity developed to meet domestic demands to a source of income. It also started to be produced and commercialized on a large scale, being a great driver of local economic, cultural and tourist development. Inconfidentes has been recognized as the "National Crochet Capital". The qualitative approach was used as methodology, and its research instruments were: the field diary, the life history method, semi-structured interviews and presentation through monads. The participants of the research are women crocheters from the group MOÇA (Organized Women Crocheting Autonomy) from the city of Inconfidentes. We believe that it is necessary to know in order to recognize and thus make visible and transform. About the results, the research identified the contradiction in which the crochet handicraft is exposed. On the one hand, social and cultural subsistence of crocheters and their families, on the other hand, it represents the invisibility and devaluation of labor, inequality and class and gender division. Crochet, is handmade in the home, predominantly produced by women and, like domestic and care work, is marked by relations of invisibility and devaluation. This research points to the need for alternatives to local development, which acts in the valorization of handicrafts in a feminist and life sustainability perspective.