As armas dos não tão fracos: as ressignificações dos valores morais pelos arrendatários participantes das ligas camponesas e sindicatos de trabalhadores rurais na Paraíba e em Pernambuco (1954-1964).

Abstract

This thesis seeks to compare the social experiences of rural workers who participated in the mobilization in the countryside in Paraíba and Pernambuco between 1954 and 1964. The research uses a hermeneutic approach to relate statistical data with the agents' narratives based on J. B. Thompson's depth hermeneutics (2010). From the 1960 agricultural censuses and the newspaper A Liga, we observed the relationship between groups of workers who had greater work autonomy – particularly the tenants (parceiros and foreiros), which we classify as intermediate layers – and collective actions that presented, simultaneously, characteristics of traditional revolts and modern social movements. To explain these actions, we propose the category of hybrid collective actions, based on a dialogue with Tilly's theory (1993;2005). Our main hypothesis was that the intermediate layers, amidst the crisis of the traditional organization, were fundamental for the mobilization studied, and the morality of these agents was investigated based on researches such as those by Rangel (2000), Novaes (1997) , Bastos (1984), Sigaud (1980;1979) and our own research (GENARO, 2019). To understand the relationship between morality and revolt, we debated the works of Wolf (1984), Scott (2000), Barrington Moore Jr. (1987), Queiroz (1973) and E. Thompson (1981), in order to conclude that the Intermediate layers are central to the resignification of traditional moral values in contexts of political mobilization, in order to exercise moral agency, which influences the other layers of rural workers.