Os novos espaços produtivos: relações sociais e vida econômica no Cariri Cearense

Abstract

This study evaluates how a “new productive space” was formed in the Cariri region in the hinterlands of the State do Ceara defined as a Local Productive Arrangement. In 1996 a huge industrial entrepreneur along with other investors installed themselves in the place. This enterprise is part of a political initiative directed towards industry as followed by several state governments that has been attracting industrial investments due to tax reductions and use of undeveloped local areas. Within the context of local productive arrangement here defined I tried to understand the effects of a new productive order as they mingle with the web of existing relations, and the implications and social processes that ensue from them. The afore-mentioned definition is based upon the argument that this new productive space is not the upshot of the investors’ invasion only. The Arrangement has characteristics of a production that shaped itself within a historical framework – not a brusque experience issuing from several relations that sprout from the interlacement of old local experience with new global influences. The winding course of social paths leads to unveiling the arrangement’s social build-up and perception of how the social relations among individuals and economic life interlace with the productive environment, mediating exchanges. This environment is characterized by local skills that have been incorporated to individuals as a result of a diffusion among them and their relatives. This practice created a clear social-productive environment in the area. I verified that the articulations established by local producers are decisive to the visibility and dynamics of the Arrangement, although the influx of outside investors was also an important factor due to the increase in production numbers and arrival of new technologies. Cultural and symbolic resources as well as forms of insertion in the new economy by means of expanding the circle of political, economic and social relations created the present productive process in the place. Changes occurred according to the engagement of forces that based themselves in change and permanence, tradition and modernization, preservation and reinvention.