Precarious work conditions, public policy and social insecurity: subjective processes and ruralities in northeastern region of São Paulo State

Abstract

This research intends to undertake further investigation on the organizational process of rural settlements of SDP (Sustainable Development Project) type, having as object of study the relationship established between precarious employment, public policies for poverty control and subjective processes of settled rural workers in the Ribeirão Preto city region. Despite political and social gains of establishment of the settlements, there still remaining problems related to lack of productive infrastructure that, associated with workers' sociocultural characteristics, do not allow to think about them as ways of dealing with problems related to environmental degradation and poverty. If participation in institutional markets encouraged the creation of new economic organizations and have contributed to generate minimal income, the lack of title of land tenure prevents access to new credit for investing in infrastructure that will be produced in order to overcome poverty. Without the prospect of emancipation and driven by social insecurity, the settlers return to the urban job market in search of income, depending on government programs for poverty control. Is important to undertake further research on how that happens and in what senses the workers attribute the coexistence of casual, formal and / or informal precarious work in the city and the countryside, with the participation in these programs, particularly those that finance small family production, those who create institutional markets for disposing of small family farms and those of income transfer. This subject will be discussed within the scope of a conceptual framework to enable capturing the movements between social structure and process, the objective and subjective conditionings guiding the actions of individuals. The hypothesis is that the arrangements made by each family to ensure survival just keeps on its precarious conditions of social reproduction and, above all, may weaken the organizational process of individuals for real emancipation of the settlement project. The overall objective of research is to understand strategies and production arrangements developed by the rural worker settlers who move between countryside and town in search of survival and social security as well as their social representations on this condition. A case study will be conducted in Sepé Tiaraju Settlement, which has 79 families, intentionally chosen because they are the first SDP deployed in São Paulo, with ten years of official existence and not yet emancipated. Research will be conducted through: bibliographical and documentary research; semi-structured and unstructured interviews; seminars, workshops and discussion groups. Taken together, information from these various sources will be triangulated to: 1. Organize a general framework of public policies implemented in the territory; 2. Organize the mapping of work activities performed by households and 3. Identify representations about situations experienced in work performed in and out of the settlement and participation as beneficiaries of public policies. Such representations, in turn, will be systematized and analyzed to identify consensus, dissent and their respective anchorages. Contents of general systematization will be submitted for discussion with participants in the research process as a way of validating data and socialization of knowledge. A detailed, quantitative and qualitative picture of the survival strategies and of the social representations of settler families is expected, which is important to support the assessment of settlement projects and the formulation of appropriate public policies to promote their emancipation, in accordance with the current policy that advocates of rural settlements, especially those of SDP type. (AU)