Memory cultivators: gender, labor, and transmission in the peasantry in Nord-Pas-de-Calais

Abstract

This article investigates how peasant women from Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France) reconfigure their relationships with memory, land, and family within a space structured by the sexual division of labor, in a setting where the sociology of labor and the sociology of family intertwine. It is from an articulation between materialist feminism and situated epistemologies that this article proposes the concept of memory cultivators: that is, the dual role performed by these women's labor, which combines the reappropriation of peasant values and the invisible work they carry out without remuneration or due recognition. The methodology is based on fieldwork and semi-structured interviews conducted with peasant women. The findings show that, although frequently excluded from the formal transmission of land inheritance, these women build other forms of inheritance, of a symbolic and collective character, ensuring the continuity of agricultural practices and rural identities. The article also establishes a brief comparison with the Brazilian context, showing how different Latin American and European epistemological traditions illuminate, in distinct ways, the dynamics of gender, power, and symbolic violence in the peasant world. It concludes that peasant memory emerges as a living heritage, transmitted daily and reinvented through agroecological practices, linking recognition and resistance.