Matria

MATRIA is the recognition of the land as our only homeland, the land where my mother, my father, my grandmothers and all my ancestors sank their hands into the soil to feed us, just as 1.2 billion small-scale farmers around the world continue to do today. It is also a tribute to peasant women, the heart and driving force of family farming, who across the planet guarantee food sovereignty and security.

MATRIA is a cry of alarm in the face of the aggressions suffered by Mother Earth at the hands of agribusiness and large-scale mining, pillars of a speculative economy that sees food and the ruthless exploitation of natural resources as sources of immense profit. It is also a cry for help against the human rights violations endured by peasant communities worldwide.

At the centre of this situation is the woman, who faces additional challenges such as limited access to land, a decisive issue that fuels structural discrimination within the family, society and the economy, and gives rise to specific forms of violence.

Such is the importance of the peasantry’s struggle that in December 2018, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

This photographic project offers a visual narrative of the reality that the Declaration seeks to protect, developing four of its most relevant rights and documenting situations where these rights are violated across five different regions of the planet. It also provides visual traces of the alternatives proposed within rural communities, with special attention to women-led ones.