The Daily Life of Viticulture Female Workers in the Valley of the São Francisco River, Northeast of Brazil

This study presents the strategies and tactics used by the viticulture female workers in the valley of the São Francisco River, in the Notheast of Brazil, and the singularities of their daily lives revealed in the narrative of the images about their working activities in the grape farms. For that, as a theoretical basis, were used the studies by José de Souza Martins, Michel de Certeau, Karl Marx, Heleieth Saffioti, and Joan Scott. The research is based on the photoetnographic method, anchored in the approaches of qualitative research of ethnographic inspiration, built upon the studies of Luiz Eduardo Achutti, as well as the studies by Philippe Dubois and Roland Barthes, that expand on the correlation between photography, ethnography, and anthropology. For the analysis and interpretation of the data, the work is based on the method of Discourse Analysis (DA), of French inspiration, whose data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with the working women of a grape farm in the region and with other social actors. The results show that the work of the women in the viticulture of the Valley has a significant representation, although it is not revealed in the statistics of the grape production system. The data also reveal the empowerment of fruit female workers as they specialize in delicate fruit management, as required by international production protocols. This constitutes a space of power in the labor market in which the women manage to establish themselves in positions, sometimes of leadership, also disputed by men, resulting in frequent competition to remain in the activity.