PEASANT COMMUNITIES AS TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES: SOCIO-LEGAL FOUNDATIONS IN CONTEXT OF THE BRAZILIAN NORTHEAST

Abstract

This article examines whether family-farming peasant communities can be legally framed as traditional peoples and communities in Brazil, using Brazil’s Northeast—especially the state of Alagoas—as an empirical reference. It starts from the National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities (PNPCT), which stresses self-identification, distinctive social organization, and territorial dependence for cultural and economic reproduction. On the normative level, the analysis draws on Articles 215 and 216 of the 1988 Constitution, the principles of ILO Convention169 (prior consultation and participation), and the link between the PNPCT and the Family Farming Law (Law Law No.11.326/2006, as amended) to protect culturally differentiated rural lifeways. On the theoretical level, it engages rural sociology and anthropology of peasantry (Wanderley, Shanin, Van der Ploeg, Diegues, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, and Scott), highlighting territoriality, traditional knowledge, moral economy, and community-based cooperation as convergent markers of traditionality. The discussion is illustrated by Northeastern cases such as fundo de pasto communities in the Caatinga and riverine fisher-farmers along the Lower São Francisco, who combine artisanal fishing, floodplain agriculture, and collective management of natural resources. It also argues that these collectivities safeguard socio-biodiversity and food security for local families, especially in semi-arid settings. Finally, the article assesses potential gains (collective land regularization, access to differentiated public policies, and stronger claims to prior consultation) and key challenges (criteria for legal classification, political resistance, and administrative effectiveness), concluding that recognition would not create a new subject from scratch but would safeguard long-standing sociocultural realities in the Northeastern countryside.