The life of torero: work dynamics and trajectories of peddlers in the margins of informality

• Grant number: 17/02638-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: May 01, 2017
• End date: November 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Urban Sociology
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Cibele Saliba Rizek
• Grantee: Tarcísio Perdigão Araújo Filho
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/21466-1 - The margins of informality: a multi-scalar analysis of the transformations of labor from the perspective of the street vendors in Belo Horizonte, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The aim of the research project is to understand how and under which rationalities, a specific group of street vendors in Belo Horizonte - the toreros - engage in their daily labor activities through typical conflicts of the margins of informality and State. The toreros don't have any kind of licenses or legal protections, and precisely elaborate their ways to transit and commerce in regard to social control: through surveillance gaps, negotiations and conflicts. In a relational way, this group is seen as one of the main opponents of the "urban order" ideal, which has changed since the 1990s. The research aims at reconstituing social trajectories of the toreros through in-depth interviews, in order to apprehend practical perceptions and subjective senses of their activities. The fieldwork will be complemented by the observational method, in order to apprehend the ongoing routines, from the modes of circulation and commerce to the tactics of negotiation and protection, and also to observe the modes of collective organization of this social group. Thus, it is necessary to comprehend the transformations and endurances among the universe of street vending and, more broadly, reflecting on the subjectivities towards the governmentality in a context of the margins of the informality. (AU)