ARE THERE BORDERS IN THE GARDENS OF REASON? Work, drought and scourge in the subordinated incorporation of Ceará territory in to the logic of commodities (1877-1902)

• Grant number: 23/03972-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• End date: October 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Manoel Fernandes de Sousa Neto
• Grantee: Igor Carlos Feitosa Alencar
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/19913-0 - Science, Nature, Drought, and Labor: Aspects of Territorial Modernization in Ceará, Brazil, in the 19th Century Based on Portuguese Archives, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The research aims to understand how the cearense manor class exploited the climatic conditions of the province to, from the employment of the labor of the scourges in the droughts, intensify a process of subordinated incorporation of the cearense territory in to the logic of the commodities, given with the installation of rail-telegraph line. This process is related to the global context of the advance of imperialist capital over peripheral territories as a response to the overproduction crisis at the end of the 19th century, seeking to guarantee an expanding reproduction of the system. Methodologically, we combined the analysis of the theoretical contribution to documentary sources, especially official documents, which require understanding them critically as expressions of power and products of barbarism, in a perspective that seeks to reveal the traces of blood and barbarity in the processes of capitalist advancement. Therefore, the project points to the exploration of the work of the sertanejos in the droughts of 1877-1879, 1888-1891 and 1896-1902 as the foundation that guaranteed the capitalistic advance over the territory of Ceará, a process that submitted it to its logic, ensuring in the installations of circulation and communication systems, control over labor mobility, the allocation of credit capital, the establishment of a new work ethic, in addition to offering greater fluidity to goods and expanding the frontier of accumulation into the sertão.