Família, política e propriedade fundiária: os dilemas da herança entre membros da elite no município de Cuité (PB).

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the trajectories of elite families in the municipality of Cuité, Curimataú Paraibano, in a context marked by social and land transformations, problematizing the relationship between political power and large property in the Northeast. The families of Costa Pereira, Venâncio dos Santos, Fonseca, Furtado and Simões dominated local politics from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, while a gradual process of dissolution over the last four decades has taken place of large country estate. Therefore, the paper takes up a classic theme of sociological studies, illuminated by the social, economic and political transformations experienced since the 1950s. It seeks to analyze, thus, the relations between family, politics and land ownership, especially considering how the descendants of Cuiteense elite experienced the dilemmas of family inheritance, in a context of modernization of social and economic relations. The disintegration of property is not taken as a single causal factor, but was considered within a framework of economic opportunity, local political disputes and also the adoption of new strategies for social reproduction of the families of the local elite. Among alliances and political rivalries, which continue to this day, stands out the “diasporic movement” of most descendants of these lineages, a process that expresses the investments made by these families in the formal education of their children, directed towards the exercise. professions and public service in larger urban centers.