Feira livre de São Felipe-BA: espaço de (r)existências e lugar de resistências

Abstract

The free fair, also called traditional street fair, is a fair with specific characteristics, an event that takes place in public space with certain periodicity and the main goods are food, and may have a local and/or regional scale. The spatial focus of this research is the municipality of São Felipe-BA, located in the Recôncavo Identity Territory. The general objective of this research is to understand the spatial dynamics of production, distribution, exchange (circulation) and consumption in the open market in the municipality of São Felipe and how these dynamics and attending the fair guarantee the social reproduction of farming families. Therefore, a qualitative-quantitative research was adopted with the following methodological procedures: scientometric analysis, photographic records, documentary and statistical data, application of interviews, questionnaires, informal conversations, use of field diary and non-participant observations in locus. Data were systematized and treated by content analysis, according to Laurence Bardin's methodology. Examined from the geographic space and place categories, having as a guide the readings of Professor Milton Santos, the street fair of São Felipe (FLSF) showed that between different flows there are dynamics created by objects and actions, which offers latent possibilities and preexisting opportunities. The FLSF is a space and place that has traces of rural sociability and its socio-spatial configuration is permeated by personal relationships, although the fairgrounds revealed that the main motivation for participation was the supplementation of income. From day to day to “setting up the tents” there is a game of planning and actions giving rise to dynamics that combine existences, resistances, rationalities and counter-rationalities under the logic of capital differentiated in everyday life, bringing together and giving meaning to the activities of individuals in society, while ensuring the social reproduction of these families.