Espaços divididos e silenciados: um estudo sobre as relações sociais entre nativos e os "de fora" de uma cidade do interior paulista
Abstract
This study aims at understanding, through the methodological perspective of Oral
history and making use of quantitative data, the construction and reproduction of multiple
identities and sociabilities present among the rural workers natural from the Minas Gerais
state and the Brazilian northeast region, and who have migrated to Guariba, a bedroom
community in the interior of the São Paulo state whose economy is based on the sugarcane
industry. In order to make this understanding possible, it has been necessary to determine
in which contexts these identities and sociabilities are built, that is, how the surrounding
community, with its ideas, thoughts and values, interferes in these social relations. It has
been made clear to us that, between the two groups, there is a dichotomic and dialectic
relation based on prejudice and symbolic violence, as well as a stereotyped connection
between immigrants-criminality, which is clearer in Guariba due to a rural workers strike
in 1984. This dichotomic relation is made possible by an ideology which permeates all the
social groups in Guariba, and which divides the city between those we have called the
natives (European descendants, downtown dwellers, middle class and white) and the
outsiders (migrants from Minas Gerais and the northeastern states of Brazil, living in the
suburbs, low class and black). When facing the stigma of the native group, the outsiders ,
being a heterogeneous group, have different and multi-faceted reactions, which can be
subdivided in three groups: the seasonal migrant outsiders , the Guariba long-time living
outsiders and the outsiders who belong to the second and third generations of migrants.
Men and women who migrate yearly, during the sugarcane harvest, play different social
roles in the cities where they are migrate to and their hometowns. When coming back to
their home land, if they have been successful in the sugarcane plantations of the São Paulo
interior, they are entitled to social and cultural differentiation according to their new
identities and wealth. On the other hand, in the modern world where they have migrated
to the relation is the opposite. The means of sociability are scarce and tense, with
discriminatory basis, since for the native community the migrants are representatives of a
traditional and undesirable world. The migrants that have lived in the city for more time are
able to widen their sociability bonds, which spread in the suburban neighborhoods where
they live. Nevertheless, they know there are places in the city where they are not welcome,
and at the same time they recollect and revive their home land, where they feel really at
home : the more often they migrate, the longer they stay in the same place. The
representatives of the second and third generations of migrants, on the other hand, consider
themselves (and in fact are) Guariba citizens, fruits of the modern relations in the São
Paulo state, and for this reason they believe that all the places in the city belong to them by
rights. However, because they are also considered outsiders , they easily notice the
stigmas they are submitted to, and end up being more susceptible to violence relations,
which makes us think that the natives symbolic violence is turned into real violence among
this group. Finally, the migrants not only experiment the reunion of the different, but they
live, above all, the inequalities and social differences of the cities and towns of the São
Paulo state. The relation the migrants have with the surrounding community disguises
color/race as well as social class prejudice against this group, which will never be us ; they will always be outsiders .