Whispered experiences: gender, public and private among rural populations in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Abstract

This article stems from fieldwork with rural populations living on what was once an enormous livestock and cotton plantation in the Agreste region of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Drawing on a study of a labor conflict surrounding the unionization of rural workers there in the 1960s, the article examines moments of fieldwork involving the region’s women. I am interested in focusing on the social universe I could see through these women’s statements and my interactions with them. During my fieldwork, men were usually the ones to talk to outsiders and discuss issues that interested me and of public knowledge. Women would not engage in such interactions and did not have the power to speak about issues of general interest. In more intimate settings, however, their voices emerged. With these women, I discovered a social dynamic different from that observed with the men, a dynamic I would not have been able to comprehend outside their daily sociability networks. In this article, I intend to show the public world that is constructed within the domestic realm, or in other spaces where familiarity is a condition for access. The goal is to contribute to a critical perspective on the public-private dichotomy from a gender perspective.