MOTHERS’ CLUBS AND POPULAR EDUCATION: REFLECTIONS ON THE RESISTANCE WOVEN IN THE PERIPHERY(S)

Abstract

Over the decades, many women have gone unnoticed and hidden from much of geographic analysis, although these have always been present in spatial and territorial productions. In this article, we reflect on the popular education processes promoted by the mothers’ clubs (present in the periphery since the 1970s) and their impacts on the formation of territorialities and resistances existing in these neighborhoods. In order to do so, we made use of an extensive bibliographic survey on the subject, weaving reflections from an intersectional and feminist perspective. The article structured in three parts. First, we problematize which bodies resist in the peripheries, presenting these spatialities from an intersectional reading. Then, we surveyed and reflected on the emergence and establishment of mothers’ clubs in different Brazilian peripheries, highlighting their role in female and peripheral organization since the 1970s. Finally, we establish the relationship between the mothers’ clubs and popular education, demonstrating that bot were fundamental for the daily resistance woven by these women through different generations and for the socio-territorial formation of their neighborhoods.