Migrantes maranhenses no contexto da colheita mecanizada do setor sucroalcooleiro em Guariba – SP

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is the result of a study carried out in 2014, using data from the harvests of previous and subsequent years, until the end of the 2023/2024 cycle. The aim was to analyse the impacts on migrants, sugarcane cutters at the Bonfim – Raízen – Guariba – SP mill, who come from Coroatá – MA, when they encounter work and production relations changed by the intensification of mechanization in the sugarcane sector. The methodological tools used to conduct the analysis were qualitative research, field diaries and interviews. In this context, we considered the historical developments that culminated in the technological transformations in the sector during the 1960s and intensified with the National Alcohol Program (Proálcool) in 1975/1985, which substantially altered the form and pace of work. From this legacy comes the threshold of the era of almost absolute mechanization and “hyper-productivity” in São Paulo's sugarcane fields, which was intensified by Law 11.241/02. It is against this backdrop of coexistence and rupture, with manual harvesting and the use of fire to strip the cane, that modern harvesters, business interests and the state amalgamate the socio-political differences of the social actors involved. In this arrangement, the objectivity of the context “imposes itself” on the subjectivity of the migrants who have to rethink their survival strategies in the municipality of Guariba and their family nucleus in Coroatá. Finally, it was found that mechanized harvesting - as part of the sector's productive restructuring - had an impact on labor relations, generating contractual instability, a decrease in monthly income despite the demand for greater quantity and quality in production, low self-esteem and, finally, unemployment.