A política na CNA: organização, mobilizações e inserções no Estado
Date: 30/03/2020

Examination Board: Regina Bruno (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ – Coorientadora), Debora Franco Lerrer (CPDA/UFRRJ), Pedro Henrique Pedreira Campos (UFRRJ), Ana Cláudia Diogo Tavares (UFRJ), and Alessandra Gasparotto (UFPel).

Abstract: The research developed in this thesis has the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA), the Brazilian rural union that was legally foreseen in 1963 and recognized in 1964, and its relationship with the State from the moment of its constitution until the years of the military regime as its object of study. It analyzes the articulations and alliances constituted by the entity to guide agricultural policies during this period. Based on publications and corporate documents of the CNA, material from public and private archives, interviews with leaders and journalistic material from that time, it was possible to delimit and identify three phases of the Confederation: its conception and installation, together with the National Society of Agriculture (SNA), in the field of foreign policy for agriculture (1920s to 1940s), its refounding and officialisation (1950s) like Brazilian Rural Confederation (CRB); and its reconfiguration from a civil entity to a rural employers’ union (1960s). In these different times it was possible to map certain shades of political action and insertions with the State, especially when agricultural policy is more important than agrarian policy. The thesis is organized according to three levels of analysis of the relations between civil society and political society. The first refers to the rural employers’ organization based on the two logics of collective action, according to the approach given by Claus Offe. The second is the institutional one, in which the demands and arguments that give meaning to the operation of the CNA and the repertoire that highlights its interests are analysed. The third is that of networks and power relations, in which their political action with the State is analysed proposing agricultural policy mechanisms that favored sectors of the rural patronage. The thesis, therefore, contributes to broaden the debate about the forms of collective action of the dominant conservative groups and the strategies to pressure the State that characterize the political culture of the rural patronage.

Keyword: National Confederation of Agriculture, rural patronage, Brazilian State, military dictatorship.

RITA DE CÁSSIA FAGUNDES
O arranjo produtivo do milho em Sergipe e o cuscuz nosso de cada dia

Date: 09/04/2020

Examination Board: Debora Franco Lerrer (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ – Coorientadora), Fátima Portilho (CPDA/UFRRJ), Renato Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ), Valter Lucio de Oliveira (UFF), and Renata Menasche (UFPel).

Abstract: In recent years the productive arrangement of maize in Sergipe has undergone great transformations and the state has been highlighted both by the expansion of cultivated area and by the increase of productivity. There are a number of important works related to maize, however, the focus has always been on increasing productivity and the possible environmental implications. However, it must be recognized that any productive process involves other appropriate political, social, and institutional dimensions to be addressed and the presence of the food issue in development processes must be recognized. Based on this understanding, our objective with this research is to analyze the transformations that occurred during the last decades in the relations of coproduction established by the family-based farmers of the semi-arid sergipe with the corn and its repercussions, both with respect to the role played by this crop in the organization of their productive systems as well as in their food practices, seeking to identify the factors that converged to a reconfiguration of these relations in an environment marked by a growing expansion of corn monoculture. We will give special attention to couscous, considering that when we approach the characteristics and the relationship between material and symbolic food, we can broaden our understanding of the possible social consequences of a food that has become linked to the global circuits of commodities.

CLÁUDIA SOUSA ORIENTE DE FARIA
A criação do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia Goiano e sua circunstância social e política

Date: 23/04/2020

Examination Board: Raimundo Santos (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Iraci Balbina Gonçalves Silva (IFGoiano), Claudecir Gonçales (IFGoiano), Dora Vianna Vasconcellos (UFRRJ), and Ricardo José de Azevedo Marinho (Unigranrio).

LIDIANE FERNANDES DA LUZ
Cardápios, paisagens e políticas no semiárido baiano – o abastecimento alimentar sob a ótica das interações entre sistemas alimentares e do acesso a alimentos com qualidade diferenciada

Date: 12/05/2020

Examination Board: Renato Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Fátima Portilho (CPDA/UFRRJ), Maria José Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ), Rumi Regina Kubo (UFRGS), and Sandra Maria Chaves dos Santos (UFBA).

Abstract: The thesis analyzes the way in which access to food with differentiated quality occurs in the locality of Juazeiro, as a social construction in which the relation between (i) the characteristics of the space (natural, cultural, socioeconomic and political), (ii) food choices (preferences, lifestyles, structural conditions), (iii) the intersection of dynamics with different natures and scales that make up the local food supply, and (iv) the very conceptions of access and quality. The scenario of food provisioning is treated as a complex system composed of interactions between coexisting food systems based on three guiding topics: landscapes, menus and politics. The dissertation seeks to identify, in the dynamics of local actors, the interactions between coexisting food systems: tensions, hybrid forms, complementarities, synergies and possibilities for cooperation. Finally, it is presented some arguments on access to food with differentiated quality, and on the construction of food politics at the local level, based on the logics of justice and food sovereignty. The main thesis is that social participation in political spaces, the valorization of local culture and the formation of networks between organizations are resources used by the actors in the locality of Juazeiro to promote access to food with differentiated quality. In this sense, the valorization of the cultural dimension, together with the environmental and health ones, expresses the fundamental aspects for a social change that increases access to food with differentiated quality, through its association with: a) a sense of belonging to a certain territory or territoriality; b) identification with familiar and historically performed practices; c) a sensitivity through music, traditional recipes, art, poetry, among other artistic-cultural manifestations. These elements, combined with the political engagement of the actors have a leading role in the availability of food with differentiated quality and in elucidating its value in a contextualized way, interconnecting aspects of history, culture and the environment.

RENATA BEZERRA MILANÊS
“Everyone here wants to be a boss”: entrepreneurship in the Textile Pole of Pernambuco

Date: 18/08/2020

Examination Board: John Wilkinson (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Fernando Rabossi (UFRJ – Co-Supervisor), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ), Maria José Teixeira Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ), Lúcia Helena Alves Müller (USP), and Renata Campos Motta (FU-Berlin, Alemanha).

Abstract: The entrepreneur has become one of the most enigmatic characters in the scenario of economic and social changes in the contemporary world. Its presence has been increasingly recurrent both in the academic debate and in the mass media, making us question: are we living in the era of entrepreneurship? Many scholars from different fields of knowledge have dedicated a large part of their studies in an attempt to understand the advance of this phenomenon. However, much of the literature on the subject has reinforced the standardization of this figure, through hegemonic perspectives that have the “perfect” entrepreneur from the global North as their standard model. Unlike these approaches, the research provided here does not focus on the classic models of entrepreneurship, but brings as an example what has been happening in the Agreste region of Pernambuco since the mid-1950s, when men and women started to produce and commercialize clothes with little pieces of fabrics and from there, they managed to build what is now considered the second largest textile second largest textile pole in Brazil. Given this context, through a theoretical dialogue with critical approaches to the economy and postcolonial studies on entrepreneurship, the present thesis has as its main objective to analyze the trajectory of a number of textile entrepreneurs of Polo de Confecções do Agreste Pernambucano and reflect on the different forms of insertion in that market. This is intended to understand, on the one hand, which paths are followed in the formation of enterprises and people as entrepreneurs; and on the other, to understand how they develop the learning and economic skills necessary to stay in the Polo market. This thesis, therefore, launches the following challenge: How to study this entrepreneur from the countryside of the Brazilian Northeast region who is on the margins of the European-American context of theories? Aiming to “pernambucanize” entrepreneurship to better understand the analyzed reality, the cases brought here focus on the life trajectories of people who own businesses (small, medium, and large) aimed at making and selling clothes. The research reveals that what we currently call “entrepreneurship”, in the local reality, can be defined as the culture of “working without a boss”. Being free from the authority of the other is one of Polo’s most characteristic elements. Thus, it is possible to see that this entrepreneurial “vocation” in the region has deep roots in the family context of the individuals who make up the Pole, as well as in the historical and previous experience of these people’s free peasantry. Analyzing in a wider context, the life trajectories of the interviewees bring to light some elements that will be addressed during the following chapters, such as work since childhood, lack of access to education, gender distinctions, the importance of personal relationship networks in business, failures, and the desire to get rich. Finally, in view of the need for alternative approaches to the predominant way of conceiving entrepreneurship, it is hoped that this thesis can contribute to the analysis of entrepreneurial activity in fluid institutional environments, with scarce resources and in the context of economies of the global South, as is the case of this research, and to think about contemporary Brazil.

FERNANDO DA ROCHA RODRIGUES
A Festa e a Santa: ritual religioso e festivo no município de Aurilândia, Goiás

Date: 24/08/2020

Examination Board: Debora Franco Lerrer (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Alberto da Silva moreira(PUC-RS), Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ), Luzimar Paulo Pereira (UFJF), Rita Marcia Magalhães Furtado (UFG), and Jadir de Moraes Pessoa (UFG).

Abstract: Starting from the analysis that religious rituals and festivals demonstrate the models of life and social organization, the present proposal directs the gaze to the festival of Santa Luzia in the Municipality of Aurilândia, in view of the exercise of understanding the constitutive aspects of the festivity. and their interaction with local society. The study also proposes to understand the arrangements of living, feeling, acting and interpreting life in harmony with religious relations, that is, understanding from this festival, how it is constituted through the same social mechanisms of hierarchy perceived in this community.

Keyword: Party. Santa Luzia. Aurilândia. Abundance/scarcity. Memory.

CARLA MORSCH PORTO GOMES
A new global land market in BRAZIL: land grabbing and the “last agricultural frontier” – MATOPIBA

Date: 18/08/2020

Examination Board: Sergio Pereira Leite (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Jorge Osvaldo Romano (CPDA/UFRRJ), Karina Kato (CPDA/UFRRJ), Sergio Sauer (UnB), and Valdemar João Wesz Junior (Unila).

OLAVO BRANDAO CARNEIRO
Além do agro: ruralistas no Senado Federal

Date: 31/08/2020

Examination Board: Regina Bruno (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ), Sergio Pereira Leite (CPDA/UFRRJ), Marcos Botton Piccin (UFSM), and Sergio Sauer (UnB).

Abstract: Despite the recognition of the political strength of the rural and agro-industrial employers’ sectors in defending their interests in the Brazilian National Congress, the literature still lacks research on the action of these classes and social groups in the Federal Senate. We seek to problematize the issue of representation in the Federal Senate by articulating the approach from the notion of class and social group interests with the approach of legislative studies. Our hypothesis is that parliamentarians representing agribusiness have an influence on the decision-making process of the legislature by acting far beyond agrarian and agricultural issues. This broad insertion is based on the very origin and trajectory of these agribusiness spokespersons. We demonstrate that the senators of the Agricultural Parliamentary Front participate and control various spaces of power of the National Congress, such as the permanent, temporary and inquiry commissions, and the internal bodies and councils, interacting and positioning themselves on numerous themes of social life. In this way, they dispute politically and symbolically the federal legislature, the other Powers and society as a whole. We analyzed the indications of their individual amendments to the Union’s budget, focusing on public policies and prioritized beneficiaries. We believe that the research contributes to the opening of a research agenda to deepen the question of the representation of the dominant classes and groups of the field in the Brazilian upper chamber.

ALESSANDRA EDNA DE PAULA
The saffron production chain as an alternative for family farming in Mara Rosa (State of Goiás/Brazil)
Date: 18/09/2020

Examination Board: George Gerard Flexor (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), John Wilkinson (CPDA/UFRRJ), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ), Valdemar João Wesz Junior (UNILA), and Zina Angelica Caceres Benavides (UESC-BA).

Abstract: The research that generated this dissertation aimed to carry out a descriptive evaluation of the productive cluster of saffron (tumeric or Curcuma Longa L) in the Brazilian municipality of Mara Rosa (State of Goiás). The purpose was to understand, as a central research question, which factors were determinant for this municipality to become the largest saffron production hub on the state’s land. And as a secondary issue, to map the context of saffron production and its production chain as a complex and real whole, which involves several actors and links around the activity, which are interconnected, and typify the production chain of Mara Rosa saffron. The conception was adopted that the productive clusters and the actions of the economic, political and social agents involved in this process are focused on a specific economic activity that encourages the collective relations between the actors, in a given location, the starting point being the social organization, especially of rural producers, in a cooperative enterprise. The following hypotheses guided the research: 1) both the productive agglomeration installed in the Northern Region of Goiás, mainly in Mara Rosa, and the original proposal for the establishment of a productive arrangement have relevance in the state’s saffron offer; and 2) despite the efforts of public and private institutions in order to articulate and consolidate the production chain and the APL, there are still aspects to be developed so that the original proposal is effectively leveraged. Taking the historical trajectory of this saffron productive cluster, in Mara Rosa (GO), as a starting point, we sought to understand how this municipality has been organizing itself over the years and becoming known as the “capital of saffron”. In addition, we sought to reach the perception of a portion of saffron producers and representatives of public and private institutions regarding the phenomenon that occurred in the municipality, as well as their conceptions concerning participation in the Cooperative and the actions that were developed in order to structure and subsidize the production chain. As for methodological procedures, the study consisted of a qualitative research of exploratory nature, using a thorough bibliographic review, as well as secondary data collection through research institutions, and primary data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The case study was also adopted, so that real situations in the productive cluster of Mara Rosa could be analyzed.

MARIO NEY RODRIGUES SALVADOR
Urbanization and Forms of Indigenous Resistance in the City of Campo Grande-MS: industrialization, labor relations and ethnic territorialization

Date: 16/10/2020

Examination Board: Andrey Cordeiro Ferreira (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Sergio Pereira Leite (CPDA/UFRRJ), Izabel Missagia de Mattos (UFRRJ), Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado (EHESS, França), and Tonico Benites (UFRR).

Abstract: This thesis is a study of indigenous people in the urban context of Campo Grande, capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The objective is to analyze a relationship between urbanization / indigenous proletarianization and the formation of urban villages, understood here as expressions of a process of ethnic territorialization of the city, that is, the occupation of the various spaces of the city by the indigenous people. In the final decades of the twentieth century, Campo Grande witnessed a significant growth in its indigenous population, which went in search of work and housing in the city. In this context, an industrialization of the capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, driven by the PRODES Law (Complementary Law No. 29, of October 25, 1999, instituted the Incentive Program for Economic and Social Development of Campo Grande which resulted in the creation of the Business Centers and the revitalization of the Industrial Nucleus and the Ring Road), met the indigenous demand, creating jobs and employment opportunities. However, the precarious and marginal insertion in the peripheries of the city, and especially the lack of housing, led the indigenous people to organize themselves and to make “occupations” in urban areas, thus consolidating the “camps”. The categories of better living conditions for staying in the city with the public authorities resulted in the formation of “urban villages”, the first being opened in 1999 and another three in the following decade. From this movement, considered here as an “ethnic awakening”, there was a process of “ethnicization” of urban spaces, that is, the indigenous presence in the political, economic, social, cultural and symbolic spaces, which translate into changes in the balance power relations.

JUANITA CUÉLLAR BENAVIDES
Neoliberalismo e transformações na agricultura colombiana: Rumo à construção hegemônica do agronegócio?

Date: 26/10/2020

Examination Board: Jorge Osvaldo Romano (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Karina Yoshie Martins Kato (CPDA/UFRRJ), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ), Carla Silvina Gras (UNSAM, Argentina), and Andrés García Trujillo (Universidad Externado de Colombia).

SIMONE CRISTINA CONTENTE PADILHA
Estado, território e mineração no Brasil: o caso do projeto S11D/Vale em Canaã dos Carajás-PA
Date: 10/12/2020

Examination Board: Sergio Pereira Leite (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Karina Yoshie Martins Kato (CPDA/UFRRJ), Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ), Bruno Milanez (UFJF), and Gilberto de Souza Marques (UFPA).