Barracks, Huts, Camps and Stable Houses.
Mobilities and Economic Moralities in Transitory Sites
Abstract
My starting point in this paper is what my interlocutors have been describing as the “estabilization” of Minaçu (small city located in the North of the Brazilian state of Goiás, where I have been conducting my fieldwork in the last eight years): once considered an unstable and turbulent town, as its history has always been associated to transitory economic activities such as gold mining and the construction of dams, now it is becoming, in the words of those who have remained living there, a more “familiar” and “quieter” place. These changes are clearly expressed in the recent construction boom in the city, and by the way public works and domestic improvements are both oriented by the necessity to signal a disposition to invest and stay in the city. This context offers a privileged perspective to investigate native ideas about “stability”, “control” and “peace”, especially because the production of these states require settling in, building and/or reforming a house. What is at stake here is the counterpoint of these “proper” houses to the quite relevant experiences of these persons in less enduring or solid living places: small scale mining or landless social movements camps; single rooms for rent; accommodations in farms, mining company areas or construction sites; barracks and huts of all kinds, in Minaçu, other places of the interior of Brazil, large cities or even abroad. Following the stories that connect these different spaces I intend to show how “the question of the house” cannot be separated from the issue of mobility; and how this inseparability shape certain economic practices and moralities and orient my interlocutors’ relationship with large companies and the agencies of the State.
Bio
André Dumans Guedes. Bachelor in Economics (UFMG), Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning (IPPUR/UFRJ) and PhD in Social Anthropology (Museu Nacional/UFRJ), Postdoctoral FAPERJ Research Fellow at IPPUR/UFRJ. He is the author of the book O Trecho, As Mães e Os Papéis. Etnografia de Movimentos e Durações no Norte de Goiás (Editora Garamond, 2013; ANPOCS Best PhD Thesis in Social Sciences Award 2012); and of the article "Fever, Movements, Passions and Dead Cities in Northern Goias" (Vibrant, Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, v.11, n.1, 2014). He is interested in the social effects of large development projects, in social movements and mobilities, and in the anthropology of small and large scale mining.
[email protected]
My starting point in this paper is what my interlocutors have been describing as the “estabilization” of Minaçu (small city located in the North of the Brazilian state of Goiás, where I have been conducting my fieldwork in the last eight years): once considered an unstable and turbulent town, as its history has always been associated to transitory economic activities such as gold mining and the construction of dams, now it is becoming, in the words of those who have remained living there, a more “familiar” and “quieter” place. These changes are clearly expressed in the recent construction boom in the city, and by the way public works and domestic improvements are both oriented by the necessity to signal a disposition to invest and stay in the city. This context offers a privileged perspective to investigate native ideas about “stability”, “control” and “peace”, especially because the production of these states require settling in, building and/or reforming a house. What is at stake here is the counterpoint of these “proper” houses to the quite relevant experiences of these persons in less enduring or solid living places: small scale mining or landless social movements camps; single rooms for rent; accommodations in farms, mining company areas or construction sites; barracks and huts of all kinds, in Minaçu, other places of the interior of Brazil, large cities or even abroad. Following the stories that connect these different spaces I intend to show how “the question of the house” cannot be separated from the issue of mobility; and how this inseparability shape certain economic practices and moralities and orient my interlocutors’ relationship with large companies and the agencies of the State.
Bio
André Dumans Guedes. Bachelor in Economics (UFMG), Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning (IPPUR/UFRJ) and PhD in Social Anthropology (Museu Nacional/UFRJ), Postdoctoral FAPERJ Research Fellow at IPPUR/UFRJ. He is the author of the book O Trecho, As Mães e Os Papéis. Etnografia de Movimentos e Durações no Norte de Goiás (Editora Garamond, 2013; ANPOCS Best PhD Thesis in Social Sciences Award 2012); and of the article "Fever, Movements, Passions and Dead Cities in Northern Goias" (Vibrant, Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, v.11, n.1, 2014). He is interested in the social effects of large development projects, in social movements and mobilities, and in the anthropology of small and large scale mining.
[email protected]