From drought flagellates to agents of progress: The construction of national identities of the worker, the thoughts and actions of the metalworkers' union of Sao Paulo in 1950.

• Grant number: 12/04981-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2013
• End date: February 28, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Edilene Teresinha Toledo
• Grantee: Fabiana Ribeiro de Andrade Junqueira
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

During the 1950s, thousands of workers who came from various regions of the country like the Northeast and Minas Gerais came to the city of São Paulo, contributing to the staggering urban and industrial growth through which passed the state capital at that time. During this period, the press in São Paulo, entrepreneurial and political circles in the image of São Paulo built up based on the idea of a city of progress, in which the city was seen as a modern environment and the countryside was bound by various sectors of society to the notion delay. This contributed to this period, the image of the national worker, coming mostly from the field, were consistently associated with ignorance and apathy. Seeking to analyze and compare this construction, this proposed research project aims to understand the images to the metalworkers' union built on migrant workers, and especially as they relate to the images constructed by other sectors in this period, especially the mainstream media. The metalworkers' union of São Paulo had a great political activity in the city at this historic moment, participating in major strikes of the period. The metallurgical sector also expanded at the time, adding much of the labor migrant labor. Considering the recent debate in the history of research, the union in the 1950s, not as an organization "cupulista" or away from the bases, but as a place that served as an instrument of struggle for workers' rights and improvements, and may this so, having represented many of the aspirations and needs of workers at this time.