The web of gender, race and class solidarity in the experience of the Popular Collective of Women from the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The Teia de Solidariedade da Zona Oeste is a praxis created by the Coletiva Popular de Mulheres da Zona Oeste, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, as a form of re-existence within a pandemic context marked by extreme food and nutritional insecurity and the weakening of food sovereignty. As a fighting strategy, in a territory with a black people majority and greater food production in the city, we defended the idea of “living and planting”, articulating struggles for land, housing, adequate food, Good Living, self-care and radical care and integral health. In a hostile and militarized environment, emphasizing the perspective of the black population, it was possible to raise other care and healing practices. Even in a bleak scenario from a social, economic and political point of view, it was possible to strengthen the self-organization of women, mainly black women, with expressive results: between 2021 and 2022, more than four tons of food were distributed, bought directly from local agriculture. It should be emphasized that this scenario was only possible because there was already a process of self-organization in the territories and also because of the
conditions for producing food and water in this region of the city.