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 .