Sementes do tempo, colheitas da vida: cultura e trabalho de feirantes no Recôncavo Baiano – Santo Antônio de Jesus (1950-1970)

Abstract

This research work presents a study of the daily life of men and women who traveled from various rural areas of the Bahia Recôncavo to work as tradesmen and tradeswomen in the free market of the city of Santo Antônio de Jesus, in Bahia, between the years of 1950 and 1970. During this period, the importance of the social function of this category in the small and medium-sized cities of Brazil, especially in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, is well known, since most of the goods consumed and used by the population were sold in the universe of the fairgrounds. Thus, this investigation entered the world of the experiences of these subjects, in the countryside and in the urban area, to show their struggles for the survival and defense of life. In this sense, the central question of this doctoral thesis discusses how the world of work and the culture of the marketers in the mentioned period was configured and if there are aspects of a "moral economy" in that culture. From the dialogue with the sources, it became possible to show the relations between the contryside areas and the city, and how these subjects managed the job, family and neighborhood relations, how they used to work in the countryside, in the streets, in the fairgrounds and beyond. Dimensions of religiosity, identity aspects, food and diet of the marketers were also addressed. The main focus of analysis was not the economic side. It focused on observing the aspects related to values, customs, traditions and, above all, showing the historical construction of a "hard life", as was evident in all the oral narratives that are part of this research. Emphasis is placed here on the acts of buying and selling goods, the ways of marketing, the life histories of men and women, the dreams, the disappointments, the frustrations, the joys, the difficulties in the world of work, migrations, the arrangements and improvisations for survival inside and outside the fairgrounds, the particular aesthetics of that environment, the evident conflicts, the leisure, the various types of subjects that shared the universe of the fairgrounds and the multiple experiences of the fairgrounds. The period analyzed was between 1950 (a time of great changes and transformations in the Recôncavo region of Bahia) and 1970 (when the secular fairgrounds were transferred from the heart of the city, that is, the Plaza Padre Matheus, the commercial center of that city). This temporal cut is justified by the fact that this was a time when the city of Santo Antônio de Jesus, in the midst of a strong discourse of progress and civility on the part of the local elites, went through a period of several transformations in the physical and spatial configuration. The study used, as a privileged source, the testimonies of fairground marketers, of ex-fairground marketers and of other residents of the city. In addition to oral sources, I used written sources such as newspapers, laws, minutes, decrees, and imagery sources such as photographs. My theoretical inspiration was the English social history, mainly the notions and concepts of E. P. Thompson, understanding culture as a way of life, which is also a process of tension, which takes place in a constant dialogue between creation and struggle. Therefore, culture and work of the fairground marketers were the guiding threads of my investigation.