"Pegando feira": trocas, reciprocidade e mercado no feirão colonial em Santa Maria, RS

Abstract

The reflections resented in this thesis come from an ethnographic research conducted in 2013 and 2014, with peasants selling food in an urban colonial fair, located in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul (RS). The study was based on the following question: How do peasants who market their production in Feirão Colonial (Colonial Fair) in Santa Maria, RS, dialogue with market practices? . Thus, the research aimed to analyze the development, which is gradual and full of cultural components, of knowledge related to business at the Fair, as well as the practices and tactics employed by farmers in selling their items. Thus, the specific objectives were: to verify the negotiations that take place between merchants and consumers, as well as between the fairground; to observe the social relationships; and to identify the knowledge circulating in the Fair. We observed that the way peasants are entered into the market accepts its logic, which is learned from the experience at the Fair but does not mean, however, the transformation of the peasant into a capitalist, since attitudes are differentiated. That means many fairgrounds has a familiar mode of production and works in the Fair to meet the needs of their families, using the gain for this purpose. In addition, we observed that peasantry or the ethos of settler influence on economic behavior. We also noticed how the fair is an important space for sociability and for obtaining knowledge about the urban world, the market and also their condition as peasants.