Assentamentos rurais e qualidade de vida: um estudo de caso no PA Santa Verônica município de Damião-PB

Abstract

This research aims to understand the elements that contribute to the definition of life‟s quality of the settled families in Settlement Project Santa Verônica, located in the town of Damião-PB. Thinking in the hypothesis that the settlement is a strategy able to provoke changes that,

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bigger or in smaller degree, contribute to the realization of life‟s quality of the farmers families historically excluded, we try to understand in what extent the quality of life perceived by them may indicate some degree of development, besides in what extent it is possible to think the settlement experience as an important dimension for the development and the overcoming of the poverty and social exclusion in a semiarid region. To attend the proposed aims we adopted the qualitative research, although it has been essential the usage of the quantitatives resources like the questionnaires, which the usage initially allow us to know the different social, economics and environmentals aspects of the local study. Subsequently were carried out semi-structured interviews based on oral history of the informants, which combined with the direct observation and recording of information in a field diary contributed to the construction and comprehension of the group‟s social history. With these methodological resources we could identify the defining aspects of life‟s quality of the settled families on SP Santa Verônica, aspects that converge, specially, for the occasioned changes from the creation of the settlement. This suggest us that this public policy is an important strategy for the development, in the extent that make possible the enlargement of certain freedoms and capabilities that families did not have before becoming settled. The history told by the group allows us to understand that even though they realize that the settled life is characterized by problems and challenges still unmet - what is the problems involved in how the settlement policy is held in Brazil - the SP Santa Verônica was the opportunity to materialize the necessary conditions for the definition of what is a good life: having land, home, food and access to social services such as education.