Migrante de pesca e a cidade

Abstract

Working for two years with fishing migrants, in an attempt to understand what actions the artisanal fishermen undertake in the migratory process to Belém, we identified that the migrants have the support of their relatives and friends from the time they leave their places of origin to their arrival in the State capital, as a strategy to minimize the costs of the trip and their initial stay in Belém. These strategies reveal cultural traits of their places of origin, where the social and environmental relations took place in a different way than in the city, such as reciprocity and mutual help at work. The neighborhood ties reinforce the social cohesion between relatives and distant neighbors, besides the use of medicinal plants, shamanism, and an imaginary populated by magical entities. In the city, some of these cultural traits are impacted. Against this background, we understand that migration, besides a geographical change, implies a cultural change. Our goal, therefore, is to verify what cultural traits remain and/or are redefined by migrants and what meaning they have in their daily lives. We used as methodology the field work with direct observation, formal and informal interviews. As a research instrument we used the migrants' accounts to understand the relations and processes in this field, which we will present in the final report. We verified that the migrant fishermen living in the "Cubatão" occupation in the district of Icoaraci, still use the relations of reciprocity, as a social principle that reinforces mutual help and solidarity in fishing work, in economic and emotional difficulties, as well as the use of medicinal plants and shamanism, although almost non-existent, but effective for the treatment of some diseases like fever, flu and evil eye.