Procedural analysis of the representational meanings of umbuzeiro in the lives of elderly quilombolas

Aim: to understand the representational meanings of this plant in the daily lives of elderly quilombolas from rural communities in the municipality of Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil. Methods: A qualitative and descriptive study, based on the procedural approach of Social Representations about the meanings of the umbuzeiro tree in the daily lives of the elderly and its effects on their families. It was carried out using the Free Word Association Technique with elderly quilombola residents from twelve rural communities. The association data was systematized based on lexical analysis, made possible with the help of the IRAMUTEQ software, which produced four figures/graphs such as the Descending Hierarchical Classification Dendrogram, the Correspondence Factor Analysis, the Maximum Similarity Tree, and the Word Cloud. It was possible to learn that the umbuzeiro tree brings to mind moments of happiness, joy, and resistance for the elderly quilombolas.