PERCEPÇÃO SOCIOECONÔMICA DE UMA COMUNIDADE QUILOMBOLA DO MUNICÍPIO DE BEQUIMÃO – MA, BRASIL

Maranhão is the Brazilian state with the largest number of remaining quilombo communities certified. These communities are rich in traditional knowledge, the main influencer of the social and economic aspects these communities. Aiming to know these aspects and how they constitute themselves, the present work aimed to make a socioeconomic diagnosis of the quilombola community Mafra, located in Bequimão city, state of Maranhão. The information was collected through ethnographic research with the application of 22 semi-structured questionnaires, formal conversations, interviews and nonparticipatory observation. Of the respondents, 50% were women and 50% men with an average age of 44 years, most of them from Bequimão. Socioeconomic data show that, overall, the quilombola population of this community started working very early, helping parents in farming activities, which contributed to the low schooling among the interviewees, as they had no opportunity to prioritize the studies. They live almost exclusively from agriculture, an activity that promotes food, serves as the family's main source of income and, in some cases, as a supplement to income. Among the activities developed in the community, we highlight the rearing of small animals, the cultivation of small vegetables, large crops and some fruit, as well as extraction of mangrove organisms present in the region. These activities are aimed at family consumption and, in some cases, when there is a surplus, it is sold in the center of Bequimão and in the community itself. .