Transgressing gendered spaces? The impacts of energy in an indigenous village of the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

This paper investigates how gendered spaces are configured within local socio-cultural systems of beliefs and in what way energy interacts with cultural constructions in an Indigenous village of the Brazilian Amazon. Particularly, this paper explores the perceived changes brought by fuel availability and affordability on gendered division of space and local cosmologies. Ethnographic techniques were adopted in the collection of primary data, particularly participant observation and in-depth interviews were best suited to understand the lived experiences of these changes. This paper found that access to cooking gas and fuel for transportation can partially shift pre-existing gendered spaces and, in turn, gendered practices. However, this shift does not challenge pre-existing hierarchies of power which still limit women’s freedom of movement.

Keywords:

• Amazonian perspectives
• energy availability
• gender
• indigenous geographies
• indigenous people
• mechanised transport

Introduction

Mechanised transportation is key service in isolated communities for network-building between villages, productive activities, as well as health and safety reasons. In some societies of the Brazilian Amazon, space and gender are influenced by local cosmologies, i.e. the worldview that connects humans, non-humans, spirits, and the environment. Taking local cosmologies as cultural prism and gender as an analytical tool, this paper interrogates whether fuel availability and mechanised transportation can alter the ways in which people bridge and transgress these assigned gendered spaces and how gender relations change. By doing so, this paper contributes to the debate on whether energy access can bring social transformations and gender equality.

Narratives on the transformative power of energy for gender equality are particularly evident in early international development (grey) literature. In these studies energy/electricity access would promote gender equality through a reduction of women’s time spent in gendered division of labour (Köhlin et al. 2011). However, as the field of energy and gender gained more attention among scholars, studies on the limitations and gaps in the literature characterising energy and gender scholarship started to grow (Mazzone 2022). For example, there are still scarce studies applying post-colonial and critical geographies of gender and energy (Bell, Daggett, and Labuski 2020), or LGBTQI + and queer theory approaches (Cannon and Chu 2021). Even less studies attempt to pin down the origin of local-based gender norms (Listo 2018; Fathallah and Pyakurel 2020) in (Mazzone 2022).

Another important gap in the literature of energy and gender, which is relevant for this paper, is the analysis of gendered spaces and energy access in rural Indigenous geographies. In fact, only few papers engaged with Indigenous women, spaces, and energy research. Some authors emphasised the benefits brought by renewable electricity access in eight Indigenous communities in Venezuela and concluded that the renewable electrification programme was responsible for the ‘disappearance’ of gender inequality in education (López-González, Domenech, and Ferrer-Martí 2020), Another study (see Kelkar et al. 2017) investigates the impacts of energy access in two Indigenous societies of North India. The authors provide a detailed introduction of the villages’ systems of belief, symbolic interactions and relation with fire and food. Likewise, Mazzone et al (Mazzone, Cruz, and Bezerra 2021) explored the interplays between firewood use and food preparation and symbolic representation in the tradition of a Moura Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon.

This paper engages with three interlocking areas of research: feminist postcolonial studies, energy, and Indigenous geography. It connects with the emerging field of Indigenous geographies by discussing some understudied reflections on the intersections between Indigenous socio-spatial relations, gender, and energy. Indigenous geographies have engaged with and beyond the issues of resource conflicts and activism (see Coombes, Johnson, and Howitt 2012), body politics and coloniality (see Radcliffe 2018) and Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies (van Meijl 2019; Tsosie 2012; Kawaguchi and Guimarães 2019), but to my best knowledge, the issue of energy access and gender is currently a gap in the field. Secondly, it contributes to the growing literature of gender and energy from spatial point of view (see Petrova and Simcock 2021; Phillips and Petrova 2021).

I will bring the stories, lived experiences and cosmologies recounted by the people I met in the Amazon during fieldwork. By bringing local people’s knowledge and worldviews, as well as relying on the academic works of Brazilian, Amazonian, Indigenous women scholars, this paper adopts some practices of decolonising research (Smith 1999). Local people’s narratives often refer to a place-based worldview (cosmology) which is the baseline informing the construction of gender relations and the elements of nature. Moreover, decolonial practices recognise the importance of a pluralistic system of knowledge which departs from the mainstream Western/Eurocentric scholarship. In this sense, this paper is devoted to understanding local cosmologies and Indigenous ontologies of space. As local systems of thoughts and beliefs might generate asymmetries in the way people benefit from the spatial division, the use gender as analytical tool is pivotal in the identification of the structures and gendered stratification of power intrinsic to the cosmological organisation of society.

This paper asks the following question: if men and women are allocated specific and differentiated spaces in nature (e.g. men on the river and women on the land; or men in the forest and women in the house), and these are hierarchically related to each other, how does energy availability and mechanised transport challenge the assigned gender roles within such boundaries? This paper analyses the ‘space of men and women’ in relation to activities (productive and reproductive) that require energy and technology, and analyses if and how these spaces and practices are challenged.

Does energy access shift pre-existing gender norms and roles?

In recent years, energy has been enshrined as a key development enabler in several academic (see Sovacool 2012b; Fuso Nerini et al. 2018) and grey literature discourses. While providing the main basic services for human wellbeing in material ways, some authors reinforce the idea that energy has a much deeper impact, because it is entwined with human thinking and social processes in an intangible way (White 1943; Cottrell 2009). With regards to gender, scholars in energy and technology are debating the extent to which energy can be transformative and have an impact on established gendered roles and norms with a particular focus on women. Early studies on energy and gender highlighted how energy policies tended to be gender neutral and how technologies are coproduced alongside gender, as the field has been (and still is) predominantly dominated by men (Clancy and Roehr 2003; Clancy, Skutsch, and Batchelor 2003; Clancy and Feenstra 2006; Wajcman 2007, 2010; Clancy and Mohlakoana 2020). Others argue that when energy influences existing societal interconnected processes, such as economic activities, education, healthcare and leisure activities, pre-gender norms can be challenged because of the increased participation and engagement of women in these activities (Kelkar and Nathan 2005; Mahat 2011). Several studies in the field of energy transition and rural development pointed out at the benefits of energy access for women, especially in rural settings (Mahat 2011; Sovacool 2012a; Sudhakara Reddy and Nathan 2013). On the other hand some are more sceptical on the positive transformations of energy transitions (see Stock and Birkenholtz 2020). In fact, access to energy per se does not challenge pre-established roles because gender constructions need much more than energy access to be challenged (de Groot et al. 2017; Fingleton-Smith 2018). In claiming so, they also suggest that more participatory mechanisms should be implemented to include women (gender mainstreaming) not only by increasing their access, but how they can be involved in energy decisions, policies, planning and implementation (Niethammer et al. 2012; Pueyo and Maestre 2019; Pueyo, Carreras, and Ngoo 2020). The assumption is that with gender mainstreaming in policies, practices and development practices women will have more leverage to challenge oppressive patriarchal mechanisms (Clancy and Feenstra 2006; Clancy and Mohlakoana 2020; Feenstra and Özerol 2021). However, caution should be also taken towards current models of gender mainstreaming, as in many cases, it can be used as an ‘empty signifier’ (see Alston 2009). It is not my purpose to discuss the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming in energy, and development in general; however, it suffices to note that scholars from different disciplines are not aligned.

The word transformative, when referred to social norms, is intended to delineate a process through which oppressive systems are challenged and people progressively improve their conditions of inequality, marginalisation, and disadvantages (Boesten and Wilding 2015). The same word in relation to energy; however, has predominantly been used in the context of economic growth, development, and betterment of human living standards (Rao and Pachauri 2017; Getie 2020). Access to energy has always been seen uncritically as ‘progress’ and a step forward for human evolution against the tyranny of darkness, weather change, decomposition of matter, famine and poverty (Price 1995; Sarewitz 2010). However, it remains an open question whether it can be also transformative in the realm of social norms, especially in culturally sensitive societies.

Studies on energy access and development in low-income countries claim that access to energy per se does not bring the desired societal transformations, such as reduction of social inequalities, unless other preconditions are in place. For example, energy provision has to be not only accessible but also i) available; ii) reliable; iii) affordable; and iv) of good quality (which include appropriate duration and legality) (Broto et al. 2017; Urquiza et al. 2019). Moreover, the level of transformation depends on other preconditions, which can determine the effectiveness and degree of the desired societal changes. Such preconditions can be societal and infrastructural (among others). Societal preconditions depend on local cultures, systems of beliefs and norms. For example, in culturally charged societies where social hierarchies are particularly resistant to change, energy provision may find a short-lived or apparent transformation. Some examples may come from the short-lived success of some clean cooking programmes in traditional societies (Rhodes et al. 2014; Kumar, Kaushalendra Rao, and Reddy 2016). In many cases, the short-lived adoption of low-carbon technologies is due to local norms, beliefs and values (Mazzone, Cruz, and Bezerra 2021), while in others, it is mainly due to the lack of financial and political mechanisms sustaining residential energy expenses (such as energy safety nets; discounts in tariffs; incentives and so on) (Malakar 2018). With regards to gender, some energy access programmes can easily misinterpret women’s economic empowerment with women’s emancipation and liberation on a more structural level (Listo 2018).

For this reason, it is important to understand the local gendered and cultural context when attempting to analyse whether energy access can be transformative and if so, to what extent and for how long.

Indigeneity in the context of the Brazilian amazon

The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines Indigenous people as groups whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community; whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs and traditions; who descend from populations that inhabited a country at the time of conquest or colonization and self-identify as Indigenous or tribal as a fundamental criterion (Dhir et al. 2019). A second characteristics of indigeneity is also relational to the history of colonisation and spiritual interconnectedness with the land. As Radcliffe argues, this type of formulations creates a positioning (Indigenous) and a production of differences which is always political and embedded in power differentials (Radcliffe, 2017).

Indigeneity is part of a political action used by Indigenous populations to reclaim their rights to the territory unrightfully subtracted in the process of colonisation, occupation, and imperialism. However, it is still a vague and highly manipulated concept. Similarly, other actors are interested in defining indigeneity for political reasons, for example Brazilian authorities constructs and deconstruct indigeneity based on the political agenda of developing or protecting the Amazon. This multifaceted understanding of indigeneity ‘is always embedded in power differentials at multiple scales’ and indigeneity is therefore a shapeshifting production of differences and subjectivities, and it differs according to the defining actors and their agenda (Radcliffe 2017).

In Brazil, a vast number of ethno-cultural minorities have been officially recognised in the Brazilian Constitution as a result of social movements occurred in the 80 s (Porro, Veiga, and Mota 2011). Social policies and special organizations protect and support the distinctive socio-cultural identities of traditional groups (Ministerio da Cidadania 2020). Most of these traditional ethno-cultural groups live in the Legal Amazon, home to 420 different societies speaking 86 languages and 650 dialects (ISPN 2020). The Ministry puts under the umbrella ‘traditional people’ (populações tradicionais) not only the descendants of pre-colonial native group which are called in Brazil populações indigenas, but also rural communities of African descendants who settled in the Amazon escaping slavery (quilombolas) and groups of migrant workers who settled in the Amazon during the rubber boom in the 30 s (seringueiros). Livelihood-based identities were also considered culturally distinct groups such as castanheiros (nut collectors); quebradeiras de coco-de-babaçu (babassu coconut workers); caiçaras (artisanal fishermen); ribeirinhos (riverine people) among others (Schmink and Wood 2019). For Porro, Veiga and Mota, since the 1980s traditional place-based communities were not able to express their distinct demands and launched an identity politics of their own, reclaiming the distinctiveness of their collective memory, which still today adds complexity in the political and academic scene (Porro, Veiga, and Mota 2011).

Based on the definition of indigeneity by ILO provided above, which relies on cultural distinctiveness, also marginalised ethnocultural groups (populações tradicionais) of the Amazon should be considered ‘Indigenous’, but currently they are not. In Brazil, instead, indigeneity seems to be specific to the historical events that lead to the genocide of Indigenous populations by the Portuguese in the fourteenth century.

In light of what discussed in this section, this paper recognises McCormack’s (2012, 417) definition of Indigeneity as a process ‘intertwined with property struggles’ by which different actors and groups position and define themselves as distinct from the dominant society for a political purpose (i.e. land reassignment, political power, political economy, legal framework recognitions and so on). Recognising that ‘indigeneity’ is a construction imposed on Indigenous people by Western institutions (including academia) (Shaw, Herman, and Dobbs 2006; Radcliffe 2018).

The village presented in this study is situated in a protected Indigenous land, predominantly occupied by Moura people as well as caboclos, ribeirinhos and seringueiros and a small number of migrants (people whose identity is linked to other places and contexts, i.e. as the case of priests, nuns and missionaries who spend a limited amount of time – generally five years- in the villages to ‘evangelise’ local people). Unlike other ethno-cultural groups encountered in this study, only Moura define themselves as Indigenous people because of their ancestral connection to the land and their cosmology.

Methods

This paper adopts the case study as a method to understand complex realities in depth (Chaiklin 1991; Eisenhardt 1989). Ethnographic techniques, such as overt participant observation, in-depth interviews, unstructured conversations, and visual methods have been used. Primary data are mostly based on the author’s doctoral research in the Brazilian Amazon. The village has recently gained legal recognition as an Indigenous community from the National Indigenous Foundation. Primary data was collected between July and October 2015 in the selected village. A group of nomadic Moura settled in this land and formed a first nucleus of traditional houses in early 1950s. The local abundance of natural resources also allowed subsequent migrations of other people from nearby villages. In early 2000, the village received some services from local authorities with the establishment of an elementary school. Teachers and priests then moved to the village from nearby towns or cities such as Manaus. A total of 30 interviews (15 men and women) were carried out and a total of 20 households were assessed. Questions aimed at getting a comprehensive understanding of people’s personal view on energy use, local culture, and mobility. After the initial contact, I was invited to participate in the daily activity of the hosting household. This allowed a deeper understanding of people’s individual relation with energy uses and provision.

The interviews were carried in Portuguese language, which I speak fluently. The real names of the participants were substituted with pseudonyms to guarantee people’s anonymity. Thematic analysis has been applied. The qualitative data collected has been analysed through two main lenses: gender and local culture. Particularly, how local gendered norms are expressed and metaphorically represented through myths, religion, spiritual and philosophical ontologies were evaluated. While there are commonalities in which gender is reproduced across different cultures around the world, and in particular power relations, this paper recognises the uniqueness of each society and takes distance from any universalising definition of gender (see Mohanty 2003). For this reason, I situate people participating in this research in their specific multicultural and historical context, aware that multiple understanding of gender co-exists and are in constant mutations. The Amazon is a mosaic of cultures which have been consistently mutating over time (Nugent and Harris 2008), interlacing histories of colonisation, nomadism, rural-urban migration, and agricultural settlements. The progressive colonization of the Amazon by the Portuguese, as well as the subsequent internal migration of Brazilian Nordestinos (Northeasterns) in the 1930s and southern farmers in the 1960s and early 2000s, brought not only different gender ideologies and different sexual divisions of labour, but also farming technologies, which represent a fundamental departure from the cosmological division of labour and space assessed. The influence of these events in certain areas of the Amazon, and the miscegenation amongst groups has introduced new variations of gender ideologies, divisions of labour and spaces. These gender ideologies do not necessarily match the Moura’s conception of gender, but these ideologies can coexist and may be mutually reinforced.

Contemporary anthropological studies look at cosmology and the creation of myths and mythology to understand the Amazonian perspectives on life and living. Herzfeld (2010, 233) asserts, ‘Cosmology […] refers to the place we occupy in the universe and […] the crucial definition of the boundaries between nature and culture’. Amazonian anthropologist Iraildes Caldas Torres (2012) explains in the Amazonian cosmology women tend to be associated with the earth/land and therefore, their place in society is confined within this space (i.e. the household, garden, livestock care, and the care of children and the elderly). Meanwhile, men’s allocated space is the river/sea and the forest, in which they fish and hunt.

The cosmological assignment of men and women in the Amazonian landscape is reiterated through the creation and transmission of myths and mythological oral histories, which often originated in the Amerindian tradition and survived the Portuguese colonisation. Brazilian anthropologists point out the existence of two recurrent myths which profoundly influence the assignment of men to the realm of river and explicitly denies access to women from this space (see Galvão 1976; Torres 2012; Reis Filho 2012). Such exclusion is embodied in the myth of ‘Panema’ or ‘bad luck’, which symbolises women’s ban from fishing and hunting in rural communities (Torres 2007). According to the myth, if a woman touches fishing or hunting tools or if she joins the fishing crew, it is believed that the boat will return empty to the village (Galvão 1976; Torres 2007).

The second most popular myth, brought to light by the participants of this research, and relevant to the spatial assignment of men and women, is the ‘Boto’ or ‘the pink river dolphin’ living in Amazonian rivers. Urban and rural communities perceive the ‘Boto’ as a mischievous and shameless spirit seducing the opposite sex (Slater 1994; Blanes and Santo 2013). This myth reinforces the concept that the river is a ‘male’ space, in which women are in ‘danger’ of being seduced (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The myth of pink river dolphin Boto.

Source: Author’s illustration

The legend goes that the Boto usually chases women who travel by the rivers and numerous river streams; sometimes the Boto tries to turn over the canoe they (women) are in, and their onslaughts against the boat are accentuated when they realise there are menstruating or even pregnant women. […] (Pereira 2001, 8)

In the forest, the only way to travel and move across different spaces is through waterways. Women, through the myth of Panema are denied access to certain geographical spaces (i.e. the river), hindering their ability to create, expand and cultivate their assets and socio-economic opportunities. The recurrent theme of the river as ‘dangerous’ for women is also embodied in the myth of the ‘Boto’, not only because the animal is believed to turn the canoes upside down, but also because it ‘hypnotises women’ to follow him into the river and disappear. It is important to focus on the element of the momentary loss of ‘rationality’, which only involves women, in the moment they are hypnotised by the river dolphin, as well as the emphasis on the extreme emotions again only experienced by women when the Boto disappears into the river. This fabric in which Indigenous cosmologies and gender ideologies are interlaced still heavily affects women’s mobility and freedom, while men’s cosmological assignment appears to be more fluid.

Space is intended here as the product of social relations and co-constitutive of socio-spatial identities (Lefebvre 1991; Massey 1994), which encapsulates the stories, discourses, and relations of the people who live in it. Whilst fluid, spaces are defined by social relations which can be manoeuvred by specific cultural gendered rules and power relations. Moura’s gendered spaces recall de Certeau (1984) definition of space as: ‘a bubble of panoptic and classifying power, a module of imprisonment that makes possible production of an order’(de Certeau 1984, 111). Transgressing these spaces means challenging the power that created it, and for women it means transgressing cosmologies and patriarchy.

Fuel availability and affordability in the Brazilian amazon

In Brazil, energy transition programmes aimed at substituting traditional fuels (e.g. firewood, dung, charcoal) with modern fuel (diesel, liquefied petroleum gas - LPG) were commercialised all over the country, but with high subsidies to make it affordable for low-income people. This resulted in the reduction of firewood in households by 22% in 2012 (Coelho and Goldemberg 2013). Bolsa Família (family benefit) has been one of the most successful social safety nets, which incorporate fuel subsidy for the purchase of LPG (Mazzone et al. 2020). Some authors remark the effectiveness of Bolsa Familia on households’ energy wellbeing (Da Silveira Bezerra et al. 2017); however, such programmes are ineffective in isolated areas due to the price inflation of goods and services in remote areas (Mazzone 2019). In fact, the price of diesel and LPG in isolated areas is augmented by additional costs due to remoteness and the associated transportation cost of bringing energy to those areas.

In the state of Amazonas these differences are remarkable. In the first quarter of 2019, average price of 13 kg LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) in Manaus, capital of Amazonas state, was BRL 71.46 or USD PPP₂₀₁₁ 33.84, the same product was sale outside Manaus for a price of BRL 82.33 or USD PPP₂₀₁₁ 38.98 (ANP/MME 2020). Such expenses with energy represent a huge portion of local people’s income. Considering that the average monthly income in rural areas ranges from 300 to 800 BRL, expenses with fuels (such as diesel oil and LPG, excluding electricity) can take up 50% of people’s earnings, especially if people depend on diesel oil for fishing and commercialise local products.

Fuel availability, mobility and gender

Dona Silva (37), wife of a local pastor of the church Assembleia de Deus, who moved to the village from Manaus in 2012, complained that when she moved to the aldeia (Indigenous village), she could only visit her mother in Manaus once a year, during the annual visit made by the whole family.

When I moved to this village I was really scared […]. But, then, I became accustomed to it here, it is very calm […]. My mother is there (in Manaus). We only visit her once a year.

The long distances and the limited use of transport, whether because of cosmology, patriarchy, financial or safety reasons (as explained below), limit the opportunity for women to build and nurture their social network. In the case of Dona Silva, the impossibility to travel and visit her family and friends in Manaus made her feel isolated. During the interview she cried, and recounted multiple times about how much she missed her family and how she wanted to be able to visit them freely ‘It’s not that I do not like it here, I just want to be able to visit my family more often’. Dona Silva mentioned how important would be to be able to visit her family without her husband accompanying her. He is often hindering her from having friends and to confide with her relatives about her issues, but Dona Silva also mentioned that traveling alone would be unthinkable. As a former city dweller, she did not access the vernacular knowledge to navigate, recognise directions and ways to reach the nearest city. Women driving a boat unaccompanied has symbolic implications of freedom and independence, which are often assigned to masculine identity. Hence women driving a boat somehow ‘lose’ their femininity as they progressively acquire new skills on how to drive the boat, use the engine, and orient themselves in the space.

An example of a woman driving her mechanised boat, often on her own, is a senior chief (Cacique) of the community. The village chief, Cacique Wanda (67 years old) owned a motorised boat given to her by the nearest municipality. The municipality also provides a monthly donation of fuel for transportation to allow Cacique Wanda to reach the municipality, where she attends monthly meetings with local authorities.

I go to Borba and ask for more services for this community. I arrive there in just 5 hours by this boat, which is fast. I fought and fought and knocked at the secretary’s door until they finally recognised us. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have a space to celebrate our festivities […]. We are Moura; we love sport, and we have Indigenous sporting competitions. And finally, we have a Sports Centre, with electricity! As soon as electricity arrives, kids will be playing more at night.

The availability of a boat and free fuel to travel represented a unique opportunity for Cacique Wanda to fight for the needs of her community. A rare case in the village of a woman transgressing pre-assigned cosmological barriers. This was made possible thanks to her status as village’s chief and the fact that she owned a boat. Moreover, the availability of fuel for transportation donated by the municipality eliminates any financial barrier for mobility. A boat powered by outboard motor filled with available and affordable fuel represents the most significant opportunity to travel, reach the municipality, and fight for the rights of the community.

During the interview, a feeling of achievement pervaded Wanda’s eyes, who with pride showed me her conquests as a woman and as a chief of the village. She brought me to the sport centre, which soon was about to receive electric energy. She mentioned that her biggest conquest was to be able to provide better services for her community and a leisure centre, which was the results of endless negotiations: ‘you do not know how many times I had to go to the town and talk to Zeno (the mayor of Borba) to get this. I travelled on my own sometimes – I fear nothing- I go and get things done!’. I then asked Wanda what she thought about the legend of Boto, and she replied that the animal is only interested in young girls, not senior people like her. Wanda did not challenge the truthfulness of the myth, but she did appear not to be affected by it.

She mentioned that recently her trips by boat became more frequent because of a fight in the community occurred about five years earlier. Since then, ten families moved out of the village and started their own small community a few kilometres away from the village. The main reason for such separation in the community was linked to the arrival of a new protestant priest who founded a Baptist church. Some villagers were converted and left their homes to establish a new village nearby. As a result of this separation, Wanda frequently travels to the newly founded community to bring her services as Cacique. Wanda multiple times mentioned that if the municipality didn’t buy the diesel for her boat, she would not be able to afford such frequent travels.

A different case was brought by Katia (40), who recounted the episode where in the absence of her husband and local support of fast mechanised boats she was forced to take a canoe to reach the nearest city to save her daughter’s life:

…sometimes it’s a snake bite, sometimes you get cut, sometimes there’s a fever or something complicated, and there’s no medicine here, then you must go to the city. Then my daughter was sick, I gave her our medicine but nothing…. She was no longer able to walk. In a hurry I left for the nearest city. My husband was not there, so I took the canoe, the trip is very bad. We reached the hospital where my daughter was treated

Katia’s case shows us how women in case of emergency do not think twice on breaking the spatial cosmological barriers. Especially when children’s lives are in danger. However, she mentioned that was the only time she had to break through her assigned space. She mentioned she feared the journey, but bigger was the fear of losing her child, so she put in place her knowledge of the river, its waters and navigation skills acquired when she travelled with other people. When women travel with their partners, they also learn how orient themselves in the surrounding space. Katia mentioned she wished she had had a faster boat to reach the nearest town because she could have lost her child. She said that access to modern fuel and a fast boat is becoming a lifesaving necessity.

However, even when diesel and boats are available, men find their way to establish their dominance over such resources with different narratives. The men interviewed in the village engage with persistent discouraging discourses to their partners or daughters. Rafael (26) said that: ‘if she takes the boat, she will waste all the diesel […] and it’s too expensive’. While Diego (35), a local fisherman said: ‘It’s not that I don’t want her to travel, it’s just because it’s very dangerous out there. Wild animals such as crocodiles attack our boats sometimes, so you need a man to defend the boat. Women cannot do that’. Similar stories were reported by fisherwomen from the community, Lago in Careiro da Varzea (AM). Some women expressed fear when navigating the river, as the water is populated with piranhas, jacares and other dangerous animals, such as sucuri (python) (see Soares Moreira 2012). However, security, financial or cosmological boundaries are not the only justifications. Arnaldo (60), a farmer gave his own version as to why women should not travel alone: ‘Women don’t travel on their own. They can cheat on you, and you would be called a “horn”. This is what my father taught me, and this is it. I don’t know what they do when they are out there.’ Arnaldo’s argument is clearly about control over women (and their body and sexuality). This indicates that men alternate different explanations to justify their control over women’s freedom of movement and gendered spaces.

Cosmologies and gender ideologies

As seen in this paper, the life of men and women in the Brazilian Amazon is shaped by local cosmologies and gender ideologies. Despite the symbology of riverine water which help building the collective identity around ‘being ribeirinho’ (riverside dweller), women are rarely allowed to be in the element. Ribeirinho people are also known in Brazil as ‘povo da agua’ – people of the water – showing how this element pervades people’s identity and imaginary. However, even with such bond with water, women are forbidden to fish or travel alone. The river, as a gendered space, links with energy through mechanical energy (the sum of kinetic/energy of motion and the potential energy/stored energy). Energy availability and affordability for transportation enables people’s pursuit of training, health and education and the commercialisation of local products. However, the supply of diesel in remote communities of the Brazilian Amazon is particularly challenging because of its geography (Mazzone, Cruz, and Bezerra 2021). The state of Amazonas where the village is located also registered the highest average increase of diesel (more than five times the national average cost) mainly because of the reintroduction of tariffs on the circulation of goods and services and the higher distribution margin costs (Mazzone, Cruz, and Bezerra 2021).

Two women stands out for challenging the cosmological and patriarchal assignment of gendered spaces, Cacique Wanda and Katia. Wanda appears to be empowered by her position and the availability of mechanised transport and fuel, while Katia was forced to face an emergency. In other cases, such as medical conditions or giving birth, women found strategies to cope with the events by moving into villages and create a network of support, which is not always available for other medical conditions.

In the village, only Cacique Wanda was able to renegotiate her spatial assignment because of her social position and seniority might have given her an advantage in negotiating local cosmological barriers. I argue that also fuel availability and affordability (municipality regular donation) and the ownership of the boat intersect with the transformation of gendered spaces. In fact, men tend to own boats and retain the financial management of the household. Most women in this study stated that they wished to be able to travel, but do not overtly contest their gendered spaces to men. They suffer for their lack of mobility, particularly the ability to reach the nearest town to visit family and friends and hospitals. The interviews with men (Diego and Arnaldo) shed some light on how patriarchy works its way in generating multiple narratives and discourses of fear to limit women’s spatial mobility.

Research on the nexus gender equality-energy access in rural geographies is divided between the energy enthusiasts (see Oparaocha and Dutta 2011; Sovacool et al. 2013; Chikulo 2014; Jagoe et al. 2020), and the sceptical (Standal and Winther 2016; Kim and Standal 2019; Winther et al. 2017). Especially in rural areas of the Global South, an overwhelming amount of evidence can be collected on women’s time poverty because of the pre-established gendered role in energy provision and preparation of meals (Clancy and Roehr 2003; Blackden, Wodon, and Shetty 2006; Kes and Swaminathan 2006). The former instead, while realising the benefits of energy access for water provision and health, focus more on the actual lack of changes in the power dynamics, and in some cases, studies found that electricity access can worsen women’s conditions (Winther et al. 2017; Stock and Birkenholtz 2020; 2019). The aforementioned literature, however, underplayed how energy can also shift gendered spaces and cosmologies and the encapsulated gender practices.

Conclusions

Feminist scholars have long argued that places and spaces are gendered and most of research is focused on the built environment (Massey 1994; Sultana 2009). However, there is a gap in feminist debates around the creation of socio-spatial subjectivities in the ‘natural’ environment and that ecological components also influence people’s understanding of the self and others (Sultana 2009). This paper attempted to contribute to the fields of energy, gender, and Indigenous geographies by bringing two interrelated discussions. The first is whether and how access to modern energy for transportation could challenge existing cosmological gendered spaces, practices, as well as inequalities. The second discusses the dynamics between multiple sociocultural determinants and cosmologies informing gendered socio-spatial identities within the natural environment. The case study shows some interesting insights on how gendered spaces for both men and women are renegotiated depending on the context and practices, and this paper argues that these renegotiations also occur with the introduction of new forms of energy such as diesel oil. This is not to suggest that a change in sharing reproductive or power relations between men and women. Men still have the power over energy and technological resource while weaving multiple narratives of fear and imaginaries of dangerous rivers populated by deadly animals and enchanting creatures such as Boto.

Affordable mechanical energy is entwined with mobility and gender as being a practical and strategic interest for women (see Clancy, Skutsch, and Batchelor 2003). Spatial mobility would allow an increase in commercial and social opportunities. In fact, one of women’s main bargaining power with men lies in their interpersonal network, or ‘social capital’(Quisumbing and Pandolfelli 2010). Women are denied spatial mobility for two main reasons, cosmology, and fuel unavailability. This is corroborated by the case of Cacique Wanda, who was able to travel to the nearest city and the newly founded village because of her social position (as Chief of the village) and monthly fuel donation. This is not to say that these types of ‘transgressions’ necessarily bring any change in the local gender ideologies. Hierarchies of power persist despite these fluctuations in spaces. In the cases where women enter men/public spaces it happens without a substantial challenge on men’s dominance of local resources. In some cases, energy and mechanised transport can reinforce men’s ownership and monopoly while leaving women’s agency largely unchallenged.

More research is needed to unpack the relationship between energy access and affordability with gendered spaces, particularly in the context of Indigenous geographies. The case presented here is not representative of all Indigenous societies, which each have differentiated and unique gendered cosmologies and cultures. Nonetheless, my paper paves the way for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding on how Indigenous societies interact with energy and the gendered effects deriving from it.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank firstly the participants of this research. My gratitude also goes to Adson Bulhões for his philosophical insights on myths and myth creation and Iraildes Caldas Torres for her work on Gender in the Amazon Forest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is part of the doctoral fieldwork, which was funded by King’s College London.

Notes on contributors

Antonella Mazzone

Antonella Mazzone is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for the Environment (University of Oxford) and a fellow at Oxford Martin School. She holds a PhD in ‘Energy Transition in the Brazilian Amazon. A Gender Perspective’ from King’s College London. In her thesis she explored the impacts of energy access on local productive activities, health and gender relations in ethno-cultural communities in the Brazilian Amazon. Her current work focuses on the interplay between gender, cultures, and indigenous knowledge in energy studies. Her work is influenced by post-colonial feminism, Amerindian perspectivism and critical theory. She is also an illustrator and uses drawings and digital paintings as a visual and embodied research methodology. Antonella holds a BA in Philosophy and Languages from the University of Bari.