A luta pela autonomia e a participação política dos camponeses: um estudo nas microrregiões de Feira de Santana e Serrinha, no Estado da Bahia.

Abstract

The aim of this Dissertation is to analyse the economic organization of family units of production, taking into account their autonomous and subordinate character, according to which their political participation is understood. Data come from a research carried out in six Municipalities of Feira de Santana and Serrinha, micro-regions of the Brazilian Northeast State of Bahia, during the years of 1985 and 1986. As research techniques questionnaires, non-structured interviews, key informants and participant observation were used. The study reveal that those peasant units get their living on agriculture, cattle raising and wage labour, being cattle raising the main source of monetary income. The preponderance of one source of income over the other is. related to the amount of land and labour available to the units of production. The shortage of land and labour, as well as the subordination of these units, to the capitalist mode of production determinate survival strategies such as, hiring out labour, by poor peasants, or more effective political participation, by better - off peasants. The findings demonstrate the forms of political participation, according to the internal differentiation of the peasant class and, somehow, the inability of peasants to act for themselves against external forces of powers unless they have political support of individuals and organization from outside. Furthermore, the results make clear a growing political participation of peasants in the economic life of the micro-regions, side by side modernization of the economic life of their units of production.