Social Vulnerability and Contemporary Slavery in the EntreRios region of Piauí

Abstract

This article reflects on social vulnerability and widespread resistance grounded in family farming, in the face of agribusiness expansion that forces the peasant population into a constant struggle for survival and the maintenance of their livelihoods in the EntreRios region of Piauí. Drawing on accounts from women babassu coconut breakers of Zundão dos Camilos — a community located in the municipality of União, PI — and workers from agro-industries in Piauí, we cross-referenced these oral sources with other types of sources and identified the common threads linking them, particularly regarding the deterioration of living conditions. We analyze how one of these elements, hunger, grows more acute as rural labor becomes increasingly impoverished. We conclude that resistance takes shape in the daily struggle to remain on the land where people live, struggle, and plant, seeking to preserve the babassu groves increasingly threatened by the expansion of sugarcane plantations owned by the sugar-ethanol company COMVAP.