THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LEAVING LABOR: REVERSE MIGRATION, WELFARE CASH, AND THE SPECTER OF THE COMMODITY IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE ADMINISTRATION IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY GREGORY DUFF MORTON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2015 Copyright © Gregory Duff Morton, 2015. This dissertation is dedicated to Maria Silvani Vieira Ferraz, who taught me the most important lesson, a lesson about welcoming other people. Dedico essa tese a Maria Vieira Silvani Ferraz, que me ensinou a lição mais importante, uma lição sobre o acolhimento. Durante muitos dias e noites, eu escutei, assisti, sorri, comi, dormi, e melhorei ao lado dela. Aprendi que saber receber bem é saber amar. Espero mostrar para outras pessoas na vida pelo menos um pouquinho da generosidade que ela tem comigo—e com tantos seres humanos, de todos os tipos, todos bem-vindos na casa dela. Table of Contents List of tables……………………………………………………………………………………….v List of graphs …………..….………………………………..……………………………………vi List of figures……………………………………………………………………………………viii Acknowledgements……………………………………………..……………………………...…ix Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….…….1 Section 1—Labor and Time Chapter 1— How Work Counts: Time, Self-Labor, and Wagelessness in the Sertão…...63 Chapter 2— Not to Know the Hours: The Kinds of Time in the Sertão……………...…87 Chapter 3— Access to Permanence: Gender, Wealth, and Circulations in the Backland Home………………...149 Section 2—Value Chapter 4—Words Do the Work of Money……………………………………….……192 Chapter 5—Counterscaling: Acting against Value…………………………..…………230 Chapter 6-- Getting the Prices Right: Growth, Value, and the Outside……………...…267 Coda to Chapter 6………………………………………………………....340 Section 3—Ownership Chapter 7— The Act of Owning I: Property and the Speech of Memory……………...346 Chapter 8— The Act of Owning II: Premios, the Prize of Class……………………….391 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...435 Appendix 1: Survey results………………………………………………………….………….451 Appendix 2: Documents related to Fábio dos Santos Silva…………………………………….511 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………....562 Supplementary material 1: Video of MST march following Fábio’s death….in digital supplement Supplementary material 2: Video with Fábio speaking at MST event………in digital supplement iv List of Tables Table 1, Some deictics in Portuguese…………………………………………………….....….199 Table 2, Demographic overview of Maracujá and Rio Branco, 2011………………………….457 Table 3, Access to selected social programs in Maracujá and Rio Branco, 2011-12………..…462 v List of Graphs Graph 1, Income distribution by household in Maracujá, 2011………..…….156, repeated on 458 Graph 2, Income distribution by household in Rio Branco, 2011……………157, repeated on 458 Graph 3, Population pyramid for Maracujá, 2011……………………………….....…………..459 Graph 4, Population pyramid for Rio Branco, 2011…………..………………………….....….459 Graph 5, Mean value of goods by household, per capita, Rio Branco, 2011…………………..460 Graph 6, Mean value of goods by household, per capita, Maracujá, 2011……………………..460 Graph 7, Mean value of goods per household, Rio Branco, 2011…………………………….. 460 Graph 8, Mean value of goods per household, Maracujá, 2011…………………………….….460 Graph 9a, Inequality in the value of goods by household, per capita, Maracujá, 2011………...461 Graph 9b, Inequality in the value of goods by household, per capita, Rio Branco, 2011…...…461 Graph 10, Impact of Bolsa Família in Maracujá, 2011……………………………….....……...463 Graph 11, Impact of federal retirement benefits in Maracujá, 2011……………………………464 Graph 12, Impact of Bolsa Família in Rio Branco, 2011……………………………….....…...465 Graph 13, Impact of federal retirement benefits in Rio Branco, 2011…………………………466 Graph 14, Family A spending…………………………………………………………………..470 Graph 15, Family A income…………………………….………………………………………470 Graph 16, Family A spending with Bolsa Família…………………………….……………….471 Graph 17, Family A spending without Bolsa Família………………………………………….471 Graph 18, Family A income and expenditures by week………………………………………..472 Graph 19, Family A types of income by week…………………………….…………………...473 Graph 20, Family B spending…………………………….…………………………………….474 Graph 21, Family B income…………………………….………………………………………475 Graph 22, Family B income and expenses by week……………………………………………476 Graph 23, Family C income…………………………….………………………………………477 Graph 24, Family C spending…………………………….…………………………………….478 Graph 25, Family C income by week…………………………….…………………………….479 Graph 26, Family C debts and repayments by week………………………………………..….480 Graph 27, Family D spending…………………………….…………………………………….482 Graph 28, Family D income…………………………….………………………………………483 Graph 29, Family D spending without Bolsa Família..……………….………………………..484 Graph 30, Family D spending with Bolsa Família……………………………………………..484 Graph 31, Family D income and expenses by week……………………………………………485 Graph 32, Family E spending…………………………….…………………………………….486 Graph 33, Family E income…………………………….………………………………………487 Graph 34, Family E spending without Bolsa Família…………………………………………..488 Graph 35, Family E spending with Bolsa Família…...…………….…………………………...488 Graph 36, Family E spending and income by week……………………………………………489 Graph 37, Family F income…………………………….………………………………………490 Graph 38, Family F spending…………………………….……………………………………..491 Graph 39, Family F spending without Bolsa Família…………………………………………..492 Graph 40, Family F spending with Bolsa Família……………………………………………...492 Graph 41, Family F income and expenditures by week………………………………………...493 Graph 42, Family G income…………………………….………………………………………494 vi Graph 43, Family G spending…………………………….…………………………………….495 Graph 44, Family G income and expenditures by week………………………………………..496 Graph 45, Family G spending before Bolsa Família…………………………………………...497 Graph 46, Family G spending after Bolsa Família……………………………………………..497 vii List of Figures Figure 1, Fábio assassination……………………………………………………………….…..513 Figure 2, Fábio at meeting……………………………………………………………………...514 Figure 3, MST members and PT mayor mourn Fábio……………………………………….…524 Figure 4, Fábio assassination……………………………………………………………..…….528 Figure 5, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………..….528 Figure 6, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………..….529 Figure 7, Fábio assassination……………………………………………………………..…….529 Figure 8, Fábio assassination……………………………………………………………..…….530 Figure 9, Fábio assassination……………………………………………………………..…….530 Figure 10, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….531 Figure 11, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….531 Figure 12, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….532 Figure 13, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….532 Figure 14, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….533 Figure 15, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….533 Figure 16, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….534 Figure 17, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….534 Figure 18, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….535 Figure 19, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………………….535 Figure 20, Fábio……………………………………………………………...…………………537 Figure 21, Fábio……………………………………………………………….………………..538 Figure 22, Fábio assassination………………………………………………………….………538 Figure 23, Iguaí city hall.……………………………………………………………………… 539 Figure 24, Fábio………….……………………………………………………………………..540 Figure 25, March for Fábio…….……………………………………………………………….541 Figure 26, Mourning for Fábio…..……………………………………………………………..542 Figure 27, March for Fábio... …………………………………………………………………..543 Figure 28, Fábio Santos Silva State March……………………………………………………..544 Figure 29, Father André Costa………………………………………………………………….546 Figure 30, Pereira pointing at MST…………………………………………………………….548 Figure 31, March for Fábio……………………………………………………………………..550 Figure 32, Press appearance after protest………………………………………………………552 Figure 33, Press appearance after protest………………………………………………………553 Figure 34, Pereira pointing at protesters…………………………………………………….… 554 Figure 35, Assassination of Fábio……………………………………………………………....560 viii Acknolwedgements Some sunny day in the middle of fieldwork, I realized that I was late for an interview. I had been talking to farmers who lived in a low valley, far from the main village, and I had quite some distance to travel if I wanted to reach the interviewee, whose house sat on the plain. No- one except me seemed to pay much attention to the times that I set for interviews, but nonetheless, taken with a sense of importance, I started to run along the footpaths that led towards the plain. Soon I overtook an older man I knew. He was walking the same direction on the same path. “Slow down,” he proposed to me, smiling, “And we’ll get there together.” I would like to suggest that graduate education has been a process of arriving together with fellow travelers, some of them unexpected. That suggestion would be accurate, in part. But – if the truth is to be told – on that day I did not slow down for the older man; instead I dashed ahead to my interview. During my graduate education, I have sometimes done that as well. The first person to acknowledge is my aunt Whitney McCauley. Whitney’s overwhelmingly brilliant poetry and art is only slowly being discovered by me. Sometimes I feel that she left her work as a gift for us to unwrap over time, and she also left a powerful and particular sense of justice and duty towards the world. If I am only gradually discovering Aunt Whitney, though, then it should be noted that she, as she once told me, knew me before