The pains, dreams and ilusion of the northeastern migrants in the brazilian eastern Amazon: narratives of illness and enslavement (1990-2010)

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the expectations, lived experiences, and working conditions, emphasizing the health deterioration of men and women who repeatedly migrated from Piauí to the Amazon, where they were subjected to forms of labor analogous to slavery. The context encompasses the process of peasantry expropriation in Brazil’s Northeast and the displacement of rural workers to the Amazon region, as they sought to build a life and eventually return to their homeland. We focus in particular on return migrations. Material precariousness and hope emerge as the main motivations for this movement. The growing number of reports of contemporary slavery or forced labor, as internationally recognized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) especially in the migrants’ destination areas, allows us to identify and critically examine their living conditions, the pace of work imposed to meet production targets (which often leads to illness or even death), as well as the strategies of daily resistance. Oral history is used as a methodological approach to analyze these experiences.