Política desenvolvimentista e mundo dos trabalhadores: hegemonia e contra-hegemonia às margens do rio Gorutuba-MG (1950-2016)

Abstract

This study deals with the construction process of the Bico da Pedra dam in Janaúba and the Gorutuba irrigation project in the current municipality of Nova Porteirinha, both located in northern Minas Gerais, in order to understand how rural producers lived and interpreted the establishment of a new hegemony in the region through countryside modernization and capitalization. Thousands of people were expropriated from their lands due to these developments, built in the 1970s, resulting in the disruption of social, economic and cultural reproduction historical forms. The analyses centered on the struggles for spaces and rights, tensions and disputes, domination and resistance elements, sociability and reciprocity networks, value composition and reordering, and customs and memories forged within the historical movement of conflicts and tensions involving workers, government agents and rural entrepreneurs. To do so, we scrutinized several documents (oral narratives, newspapers, magazines, reports produced by government agencies, judicial processes and decrees, maps and photographs) understood as languages that constitute meanings which are part of world dynamics in establishing memories and seeking the articulation of social experiences around a particular society project.