LUIZ CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA LOPES
Processes of territorialization, circulation, and ethnopolitical mobilization among the Guarani (Mbya) from the coast of Costa Verde

Date: 08/05/2019

Examination Board: Thereza Cristina Cardoso Menezes (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ), Debora Franco Lerrer (CPDA/UFRRJ), João Pacheco de Oliveira Filho (UFRJ), and Sidnei Clemente Peres (UFF).

Abstract: The term Guarani is a category that encompasses many a number of ethnically unique groups such as the Mbya, the Ava, the Nhandeva, the Tupi, and the Kaiowa, who occupy various territories in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This study addresses the Mbya who live in villages on the southern coast of Rio de Janeiro state and in one village on the northern coast of São Paulo, focusing on this group’s processes of territorialization during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. These processes took place amid profound political, economic, cultural, and social changes in the Costa Verde and northern São Paulo regions, especially with the construction of the Rio-Santos highway in the 1970s. The ongoing process of territorialization during the decades after 1970 is a starting point for reflection. We find that throughout their struggle for territory, the Guarani have built networks of alliances with white people and other indigenous peoples who face similar struggles involving land litigations in coveted Atlantic Forest areas. Today, the mobilization of the Guarani is marked by the circulation and activation of interethnic networks that take an active role in political struggles for land, health, education, sanitation, etc., as an indigenous ethnic group or as a traditional community within the framework of the Forum of Traditional Communities (FCT). We find that marches in the coastal region have become the driving force for ethnopolitical mobilizations, and act as vectors to promote diverse exchanges and intensify kinship relations.

Keywords: mobility; Guarani-Mbya; spatiality; territorialization; associativism.

THAIS HELENA MEDEIROS
Rivers of gifts and debts: exchanges, football matches, and parties between communities and villages on the Arapiuns and Tapajós-Pará Rivers

Date: 03/06/2019

Examination Board: Thereza Cristina Cardoso Menezes (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor),  Fátima Portilho (CPDA/UFRRJ – Co-Supervisor), Eli de Fátima Napoleão de Lima (CPDA/UFRRJ), Paula Mendes Lacerda (UERJ), and Dan Gabriel D’Onofre Andrade Silva Cordeiro (UFRRJ).

Abstract: This thesis examines practices and social meanings of the exchange relationships in game visits (“sair pra ganhar jogo e pagar visita”) by soccer clubs and teams in communities and villages in the region of the Tapajós and Arapiuns Rivers in Santarém, Pará. This social practice is based on mutual agreement and permeated by ostentation that focuses on the act of giving, receiving, and rewarding large parties for tournaments, trading in football games, cases of beer, and party invites. We find descriptions in comprehensive historical comparisons and include analyses of the permanences and social transformations, namely football games and parties, as lines that help construct understanding of singular relations. We identify exchanges that are and are not mediated by money, and examine the values and rules that guide social situations. Tournaments are social spaces for fun, and especially the flow of friendly relations. Revelers, metaphors for the clubs, make transactions based on credit and debt and guarantee the continuous flow of events, and also assimilate the temporal demarcations of being together, among allies and friendships. We investigate how mobility and circulation engage people and things in the social network, shaping intercultural processes.

Keywords: trade relations; “sair para ganhar jogo e pagar visita”; soccer tournaments and parties; Amazon-Pará.

RODRIGO KUMMER
Rural youth and permanence: ruralities and urbanities represented in the Far West of Santa Catarina

Date: 11/09/2019

Examination Board: Eli de Fátima Napoleão de Lima (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Thereza Cristina Cardoso Menezes (CPDA/UFRRJ), Ana Louise de Carvalho Fiuza (UFV),  Susana Cesco (UFF), and Clarice Cristine Ferreira Menezes (UFRRJ).

Abstract: This thesis discusses the processes of permanence among young people in rural areas in the Far West of Santa Catarina. The objective is to understand how the construction of social representations supports and impacts the decision-making processes of these social actors. Over the past decade, more young people are staying in rural areas, and analyzing representations related to these scenarios and reflecting on the imaginations and perceptions is useful to better understand which rurality and which society are present in modern times. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews, as well as ethnographic monitoring, and indicate that rural young people create a positive representation of the rural environment, founded on flattering perceptions of working conditions, income, and tranquility. When they consider urbanity, they format negative representations linked to the pace of life, lack of autonomy, and risk. These perspectives show that rurality is considered to be a life project, in which relationships of family, generation, gender, income, and protagonism are central elements. Discussions of youth-related issues are needed in families and society to improve life prospects in rural areas.

Keywords: rural youth; permanence; migration; rurality; urbanity; social representations.

ARIANE DA SILVA FAVARETO
Contemporary rural dynamics and social configurations of gender

Date: 18/10/2019

Examination Board: Maria José Teixeira Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Elisa Guaraná de Castro (CPDA/UFRRJ), and Ana Louise de Carvalho Fiuza (UFV).

Abstract: This thesis analyzes how dimensions of women’s social lives are affected by the dynamics of contemporary rurality and how this is reflected in the social configurations of gender, and in turn, in women’s position in society. This work was inspired by that of Norbert Elias and the use of the term “configurations” rather than gender relations in order to encompass a greater complexity of social life, ranging from the initial processes of socialization to more recent interactions, without ignoring exogenous factors that affect social constructions. Way of life is used as a category to understand rurality, which when translated into identities and representations, guides strategies and use of past opportunities linked to agriculture and other more recent ones that involve the use and appreciation of natural resources. This was observed in the municipality of Cunha, located in the Vale do Paraíba, state of São Paulo. We analyze the life trajectory of women working in activities related to tourism, agroecology, and livestock through semi-structured interviews as well as participant observation, and find that the dynamics of contemporary rurality create new possibilities for women. It is not straightforward for women to take advantage of these opportunities; this usage varies according to unique life trajectories and the interdependencies that determine use or avoidance of opportunities that emerge and impact social position, especially with regard to work and income, education and training, and the use of time, dimensions of social life that affect women’s capacities.

Keywords: rural women; Cunha (SP); tourism; agroecology; livestock.

FABRICIO TELÓ
Armed organizations and peasants: communication, emotions, and political engagement (1968–1975)

Date: 16/12/2019

Examination Board: Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Debora Franco Lerrer (CPDA/UFRRJ), Jean Rodrigues Sales (UFRRJ), Daniel Aarão Reis Filho (UFF), and Marcelo Siqueira Ridenti (Unicamp).

Abstract: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brazilian revolutionary organizations (inspired by the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions) attempted to advance an opposition to the military dictatorship of the time by mobilizing peasants to engage in rural guerrilla groups. This project analyzes the relationship between the militants in these organizations and the peasants they attempted to mobilize. The questions that guide the research are how the militants communicated with the peasants, how the militants presented their plans for armed revolution, what role emotions played in the peasant decision to engage in the guerrilla project, how the clandestine nature of the militants impacted their interactions with local populations, and what effects the militants’ Leninist perspective had on their interaction with peasants and how landlessness affected this context. The main inspirations for this project include work by Paulo Freire and Jesus Martin-Barbero on communication, by James Jasper and Helena Flam on emotions, by Donatela Della Porta on clandestinity, by Oliver Fillieule, Julieta Quirós, Marcelo Kunrath Silva and Bianca Ruskowski on engagement, and Eric Wolf and James Scott on the relationship between peasantry and revolution. We explore the experiences of the National Liberation Command (Comando de Libertação Nacional – Colina) in Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, the Revolutionary Palmares Armed Vanguard (Vanguarda Armada Revolucionária Palmares – VAR-Palmares) in Imperatriz, Maranhão, the October 8 Revolutionary Movement (Movimento Revolucionário Oito de Outubro – MR-8) in Brotas de Macaúbas, Bahia, and Popular Action (Ação Popular – AP) in the region of Livramento de Nossa Senhora, Bahia. Oral history, bibliographic survey, and documentary analysis are used to compare and analyze selected cases. The results indicate that despite efforts by the militants to grow closer to the peasants, the cultural differences generally caused the peasants to distrust them. The various forms of assistance the militants provided contributed to the production of reciprocal emotions of friendship and loyalty, and also engaged some groups of peasants.

Keywords: peasantry; armed struggle; communication; emotions; engagement.