De cleaner a waiter: trajetórias de trabalhadores brasileiros em Londres

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze a group of Brazilian workers who are in London doing some "unskilled job" in the service sector. It is intended to verify: the alleged reasons to migrate; how it developed throughout the process of displacement, arrival and adaptation in the new society; the working conditions that these immigrants are submitted; the social networks used to obtain and maintain the work; and the intra-Community relations. In a context of mobility of people between continents and region, social networks act as mediators that facilitate these movements, since the social contacts provide initial information to obtain access to housing, work and other material or symbolic goods. However, those individuals who "constitute social ties" are not always supportive and these links will not provide gains to all, and it may exclude some while includes others. Inserted into a new social logic and working on activities that they would not perform in their country of origin, these immigrants assume new values in relation to work, building new forms of social differentiation and justification. The research is the result of two distinct moments. First an exploratory study was conducted from an experience as student and casual worker for nine months in London, in which was developed ethnography of social relations and work in the "community" of informal Brazilian workers. Secondly, in-depth interviews were conducted in order to recover the trajectory of life of these migrant.