The widows of the cane: migration and territorial trajectories of labor in the sugarcane hydroagricultural in Administrative Region of Presidente Prudente (SP)

Author(s)

Fredi dos Santos Bento

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Presidente Prudente. 2019-06-10.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Presidente Prudente
• Defense date: 2019-02-01
• Advisor: Antonio Thomaz Junior

Abstract

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the capital offensive on labor, driven by the insatiable need for accumulation / reproduction, is increasing. In Brazil, among the various forms of personification of this social model, we highlight the sugarcane agro-business which, under the prerogative of the fallacious discourse of national, sustainable development, etc., omitted several grievances regarding labor noncompliance, workers' health, sustainability, trade union, environmental, among others. The example of the configuration that is presented in the Pontal do Paranapanema (SP), which has been occupied in previous studies, with emphasis on the migration of workers from different regions of the Brazilian Northeast, for the manual cutting of the raw material, which has intensified since 2005, but that from 2014, the process of transition to mechanized cutting is experienced. These technical-occupational changes in the territory of the sugarcane agro-business require us to devote ourselves to the understanding of diversity in the stages of transition / consolidation from manual cutting to mechanization, now in the 10th Administrative Region of Presidente Prudente. In this way, cases of noncompliance with labor legislation, as well as the dismissal and sickness of migrant workers who, more than orphaned by sugarcane, have become widowers and widows of the same, in the face of intensified planting and cutting mechanized, and with no real possibilities of being employed in other sectors, given the disease process that marks the work in the sugarcane plantations over the years and that brings profound repercussions in the historical moment we studied, taking into account the expansion of the occupational discomforts that result in the continuous process of physical and psychic illness in the cane fields. Thus, the text in progress refers to the current moment experienced by the sugar-alcohol sector in the country, in a period in which the mechanization in the cane fields is extended. The technological / technical-occupational transition period of the sector allows a better visualization, given the conditions that such process occurs with the urgency of the protocols signed around the end of the burning (cancellation) of the sugarcane, which allows us , to question the meanings of the use of migrant labor as well as the impacts generated for the region as part of the migratory routes from work to capital and what are the reasons that have led the Presidente Prudente Administrative Region to be one of the routes of displacement of these workers. In this dissertation, similar cases occurred in the Administrative Region of Presidente Prudente (SP), especially when we call attention to the situation experienced in Mexico, specifically in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero, in which we were able to follow through a study mission that allowed us a greater interlocution with the agenda of the migrations and the territorial trajectories of the work in these localities. In respect to the redesign of the migratory routes of the workers that cross the Brazilian territory, we signal our understanding of them as "widows of the sugarcane", referring to the Folha de São Paulo newspaper article of July 2, 2017, in which the end of the traditional migratory routes for the manual cutting of sugarcane as a result of the technical-occupational transition process that the sector has been experiencing at the beginning of this century was reported. It is important to emphasize that we also seek to investigate the contradictory process engendered by capital, which, at the same time as it deterritorializes workers, also precarizes working conditions in sugarcane cutting, under the reference of overexploitation in sugarcane plantations of the Administrative Region of Presidente Prudente (10th RA), in the municipalities Teodoro Sampaio, Mirante do Paranapanema, Sandovalina, Junqueirópolis, Florida Paulista and Martinópolis-SP. Thus, throughout the development of this text, we have also been able to analyze how the discourse of professional qualification is constructed in the imaginary of migrant workers for the sugarcane plantations of the Administrative Region of Presidente Prudente (10th RA), considering the moment experienced by the hydroagricultural sugarcane plantations before the transition in the ways of harvesting the cane (manual-mechanized) and the social control of the workers during the sugarcane harvest and off-season. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/03984-0 - Labor migration in hydroagricultural business sugarcane in administrative region Presidente Prudente (SP)
• Grantee: Fredi dos Santos Bento
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master