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Sociology of Agriculture and Food (SAFRIG)

Ancestrality and Spirituality in the Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais, Brazil: Breaking Coloniality with Agroecology Alexandria Wilson*, Alexandria Wilson,

Monocultures promoted by industrialized agriculture have disconnected ancestral and spiritual ties to the land. In recent decades, agroecology and peasant farming have encouraged the diversification of cosmovisions and the valorization of agricultural practices that have ancestral or spiritual influence. This study aimed to understand how the peasant ancestrality and spirituality contribute to breaking structures of coloniality. A secondary data analysis was performed using bulletins created through collective writing with agroecological farmers in the Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in order to analyze if themes related to ancestrality and spirituality are also related to resistance and break with coloniality and identify if this resistance could constitute a decolonial action. A matrix of systematization was created with three key themes, ancestrality, spirituality, and religiosity, and six transversal themes to facilitate the secondary data analysis, followed by an additional analysis utilizing ATLAS.ti 9, a qualitative analysis software. It was analyzed that agroecological farmers in the Zona da Mata incorporate their ancestrality, spirituality, and religiosity into their agricultural practices, allowing them to resist colonial structures such as the pressure to utilize agrochemicals and modern perceptions of nature. Peasants are thinking outside the Eurocentric episteme and reconnecting with non- anthropocentric cosmologies and ontologies that were previously devalued during colonization. Through these actions and cosmovision, agroecological farmers in the Zona da Mata resist against and break down structures of coloniality. With these physical and epistemological acts, agroecological farmers are sowing the seeds of resistance and nurturing their own pluriverses.