Caminhos de gênero nas feras de Bissau: resiliência e desafios de mulheres guineenses em contextos de vulnerabilidade diante dos impactos sociais e econômicos da COVID-19

Abstract

In Guinea Bissau, the feras - Crioulo word for “fairs” - play a significant role in the country's economic, social and cultural life. They are places of intense buying and selling of goods, encompassing issues of female emancipation, meeting and reunion points, historical narratives, experiences, and shared living. Therefore, they are configured as plural public spaces, and privileged contexts for ethnographic fieldwork, where a series of complex sociocultural relationships develop. This thesis aims to understand, through a female-centered and anthropological perspective, the socioeconomic dynamics of Guinean women, who sometimes are bideras (official fair female vendors), fassiduris di bida (women who make a living by selling), sumiaduris (women who own orchards), and bindiduris (female sellers in general) who played active roles - before, during and after the pandemics - in the three main local feras: Bande, Caracol, and Bairro Militar, all in Bissau city, capital of Guinea-Bissau. This study is the result of ethnographic research, whose methodological process combined online research and in-person fieldwork. For this, oral narratives from digital platforms were used, such as social networks, through messages and audios interchanged with di mindjeris di fera (the fair female vendors). During the research period, the main ethnographic strategies included informal conversations, transcriptions, and ethnographic data analysis. The last stages of research took place in Bissau, with a focus in the bideras and fassiduris di bida. In conclusion, the analysis focused on the problematization of gender relations and work, and how they were affected by the pandemics. The results indicate that my research interlocutors are responsible for a large part of the country's material and symbolic subsistence, which was evidenced and intensified with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemics.