The habitat of autonomy: unusual ways of inhabiting on Brazilian peasantry

Abstract

This research project aims to investigate the habitat of autonomy, understood as the spatial arrangements resulting from the different ways of inhabiting on Brazilian peasant populations. From an universe to be discovered for the architects - that is, of the non-urban areas - we identify in the traditional populations the aspects of a potential autonomy - manifested in the daily practice of non capitalist relations of production, and also in the forms of common use of land. Based on this approach, we seek to understand how this autonomy is expressed, constitutes and is constituted, in the strategies of maintenance of life and work in the Brazilian non-urban areas.The concept of peasant habitat will form the core of the research. Formulated from the accumulation of the HABIS group (IAU/USP) in collective and individual surveys on rural housing, this concept will support the enunciation of field work strategies, as well as the interpretation of empirical data. In order to reach the breadth of the forms of life and work of non-urban populations in the country, the concept of peasant habitat integrates four axes: agrarian and land tenure; provision of infrastructure and services; the consolidation of peasant agriculture; and the housing issue. Each one of the axes will unfold in different dimensions of analysis, which in turn will be permeated by the idea that underlies this project: the different aspects of the permanent search of the Brazilian peasantry for autonomy. Ribeirinhos (AM), faxinalenses (PR) and catadores de flores (MG) will be the subjects of research and will constitute our empirical approach to this problem. (AU)