OKUDA Wakana

Abstract:

This study examines the geographic and social mobility of the poor in Brazil by using cases of informal sector laborers who migrate to the city to improve their lives. The migration/movement of the poor can be categorized into three groups: 1) permanent migration to the city, 2) seasonal migration, including the peddling of hometown specialties, and 3) movement to other countries as rural migrant workers and in order to engage in itinerant trading (peddling). This migration/movement of the poor affects dynamic trends of the population and the economy. From the early 1960s, low-income workers began migrating as construction workers to Brasilia from the North and Northeast of Brazil with the hope to grasp a chance of experiencing better life conditions. While these migrants’ absolute income levels improved in Brasilia, they remained informal-sector laborers and remained poor in terms of social class. Additionally, by living in the city, they became more conscious of their condition in poverty than when they were living in rural hometowns. So in this sense also, their own perception of their own poverty conditions did not allow them to think that their social stature had improved. However, since they recognized that their children’s and grandchildren’s education levels and occupational status did seem to improve when compared with that of their own, the first generation of migrants? became convinced that their choice to migrate was correct. Related to this analysis, this study examines the differences between the poor in urban areas and those in rural areas regarding their strategies to obtain food.

Dr. Okuda is a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS). Doctor of Cultural Anthropology from Osaka University. Author of Poverty and Solidarity: Unilateral gifts in street markets in Brazil (In Japanese,  Shumpusha Publishing, 2017.02).