Rural women and their mediated uses of ICTs: tensions and continuities in genderinequalities¹

The paper explores the map of communicative mediations of culture (MARTIN-BARBERO, 2003) for the analysis of daily practices of women farmers in relation to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Thus, we have adopted also a gender perspective in the analysis. The investigated group consists of farming families living in a rural municipality in Rio Grande do Sul and with an economy structured in tobacco production. Regarding the use of Martín-Barbero’s map, this has provided conditions to note that the use of ICTs is affected by different dimensions, specifically, the Este artigo traz uma versão revista e ampliada de trabalho apresentado no XIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Investigadores de la Comunicación. Grupo Temático 7 – Estudios de Recepción, institutionality, sociality, technicality and rituality. Although this study has identified tensioning spaces, it is necessary to recognize the predominance of continuities in gender relations when observing the habits, routines and use of ICT from women investigated.

Keywords
Mediations; Martin-Barbero; Rural context; Gender relations; ICT