Times of colony: ethnography on movements, sufferings and carings among the German settlers of southern Brazil

Author(s)

Everton de Oliveira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2018-06-22

Examining board members

Ronaldo Almeida; John Cunha Comerford; Cynthia Andersen Sarti; Nashieli Rangel Loera; Emília Pietrafesa de Godoi

• Advisor: Ronaldo Almeida

Abstract

This thesis take us to the colônias. It take us to the Germans colonies of southern Brazil, in Encosta da Serra, state of Rio Grande do Sul. It bring us to São Martinho, where I lived through 16 months, between 2015 and 2016. Living in the colônia (also called comunidade [community]), used to bring with it the problem of the perception of time. Specifically, the relation between time, pain and movement, the elementary composition of colônia sociality. Talking about time among the colonos, was to talk about their relations to pain, about the ways they talk about pain, about how pain was lived, about their everyday relationship with their most closing friends, neighbors ans relatives. And talking about time and pain, they also talked about their places, about their movements, about their routine. For each of these times, there was a measure of pain and movement, which was presented by narratives, by experiences, by sharing afflictions, by the relations with places and its inhabitants. This thesis aims to analise these times. Specifically, it aims to analise the sharing of times in a German colony of southern Brazil, through its fundamental relations with pain and movement. Throughout the text, I present three main arguments: a) time presented itself as a conventional reality of the colônia sociality; b) it derives from its relation with the movement, called by inhabitants sair de casa (leaving the house), that is, ways of dedicating themselves to their everyday tasks and relations; c) and it also derives from its relation with pain, a categorical and substancial notion that instigates the community sociality, a common relation in German colonies of southern Brazil. Each chapter will describe the conventional way of sharing the times in São Martinho, namely: the villages; the work; the lands and their kins; the community; the bureaucratic-religious government; the political dispute. Each of these sharing times produces singular effects, such as: the everyday life, the community, and the government effects. In Introduction and in Final Considerations, I also argue that it is through the offering and sharing of the first of these effects, the everyday life, that an ethnography of a reality such as that lived in São Martinho was made possible (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/20963-0 - Public space and moral regulations in a formation of a community of Germans from Encosta da Serra, Southern Brazil
• Grantee: Everton de Oliveira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate