Nas tramas da colonização: uma História Social dos colonos e da colonização agrícola em Santa Cruz (Estado do Rio de Janeiro /1930-1968)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the experiences of settlers during the colonization of Núcleo Colonial de Santa Cruz (NCSC), in the state of Rio de Janeiro, between 1930 and 1960. As we were eager to comprehend how the project of colonization has turned into a process, our analysis is dedicated to discuss the social and political aspects of the colonists’ lives in Santa Cruz, looking forward to explain the various kinds of reception, rendition and transformation of federal orders on those lands. As the settlers’ dialogic relations with the different agents of the Núcleo, such as administrators and employees, stand out, we investigate the relations of these peasants with political buffers, such as the newspapers, the congressmen and the presidents. Each of these groups with different understandings and ends for the colonization have leaded intense debates about it and its aspects as a guarantee of social and technical assistance and for the right of land property. We will focus on the analysis of these social conflicts through Thompson’s perspective of Theater and Counter Theater. Then, we investigate the types of domination and the State and its agents’ impositions that conducted the project of colonization, as well as the struggles and processes of resistance of the settlers on the path of their personal projects of colonization, highlighting the diversity of kinds of mobilization and pressure they made. Hence, we also look forward to comprehend the peasants’ struggles in their specific nature through their reality and forms of organization (personal or in-group) on the lands of Santa Cruz and Itaguaí. Lastly, we discuss the elements that generated the rupture of this politics and these relations, which resulted in social economical processes of transformation of the region and of its inhabitants. We used official documents, newspapers, letters and interviews as sources for this research.