Urban Agriculture and Environmental Education: practices of the Periferia Feminista Colective in Porto Alegre, RS - Brazil

Abstract

This article presents an initial excerpt from the master’s research entitled “Narratives and Belonging: Environmental Education in the Periferia Feminista Collective, Morro da Cruz, Porto Alegre/RS”, which investigates the lived experiences and life narratives of women participating in the Periferia Feminista Collective, based on Environmental Education actions developed in the Collective’s Community Garden. The research understands that, in urban and peripheral areas marked by socio-environmental exclusion, there are Environmental Education practices built from the territory itself, articulating resistance, environmental care, food production, and the strengthening of women. It is grounded in a narrative research approach and in the (auto)biographical method, recognizing women’s narratives as central to understanding notions of belonging and their relationships with nature and territory. Even at an early stage, the results indicate that the practices developed by the Collective promote urban agriculture, food sovereignty, the production of pesticide-free food, and the strengthening of peripheral women, highlighting processes that break with decontextualized perspectives of Environmental Education. The actions of these women reveal the emergence of a Feminist, critical, and emancipatory Environmental Education, committed to social transformation from the territories and to the valorization of women’s knowledge. It is concluded that giving visibility to these narratives contributes to the recognition of powerful practices of social transformation and to the construction of new horizons of socio-environmental justice and the strengthening of women.