Identity and quality of life in the “Territórios da Cidadania”

Abstract

The first decade of the 21st century was extremely promising for Brazil regarding the reduction of social inequalities and the improvement of the population’s quality of life. According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), after 30 years of high inertial inequality, the Gini Index starts to drop in 2001, going from 0.61 in that year to 0.527 in 2012. Researchers have defined this period as the “decade of inclusion”, since, in general, the income of traditionally excluded groups - black people, illiterate people and peasants, especially those from the northeastern rural - was the one that prospered the most. Working with the assumption that the social policies for rural development put into action since 2003 by the federal government were essential for this process, this work aims, firstly, to evaluate the current quality of life of the rural population in Brazil, analysing the Life Conditions Index (ICV) collected from a sample of 37 Territórios da Cidadania (Citizenship Territories), estimated through interviewers’ visits to 10.106 rural homes in 17 Federal states. Secondly, we seek, through statistical analysis, to correlate the ICV to territorial identity indicators, so as to determine if the “weight” of family agriculture in respondents’ feeling of belonging can explain in any way the evolution process of the quality of life in the Territórios da Cidadania.

Keywords:
Territorial development; Rural development; Family agriculture