Mães D'Água: Livro reportagem sobre a relação entre as águas e as mulheres ribeirinhas do Pantanal do Mato Grosso do Sul

Abstract

This experimental project, Mães D’Água, is a reportage book that explores the relationship developed over time between riverside women and the waters that shape the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, as well as the impacts of the climate crisis on this bond. The book comprises four chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion, each portraying an aspect of these women’s experiences and a dimension of their silent pact with the river, through the story of a different protagonist.

Interviews were conducted with riverside women from the Northern Stretch of the Pantanal, along the Paraguay River between Corumbá and the Paraguay-Mirim community. The first chapter, “Seen from the Riverbed,” narrates the biome’s functioning and the factors driving its degradation. “Halfway” recounts Lucinéia’s experience with forced displacement and territorial belonging; “Mothers on the Margins” presents Diva’s reflections on womanhood, erased histories, and care as a cultural and political practice; and “Exile on Dry Land” documents Dalvina’s suffering amid the scarcity caused by the 2020 and 2024 fires.

Written in a literary style, the book portrays how territory shapes the identity of riverside women and how its degradation violates their ways of living.