Name: DÉBORA HOLZ
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 15/12/2021
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| IGOR MARTINS MEDEIROS ROBAINA | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| CARLO EUGENIO NOGUEIRA | Internal Examiner * |
| ERINEU FOERSTE | External Examiner * |
| IGOR MARTINS MEDEIROS ROBAINA | Advisor * |
| LUIS CARLOS TOSTA DOS REIS | Internal Alternate * |
Summary: The main objective of this dissertation was to analyze and understand the factors that led
Pomeranians residing in the state of Espírito Santo to migrate towards the state of Rondônia,
as well as the networks of social relationships that were established and ensured their
permanence in this state. The Pomeranian people immigrated from Europe to Brazil in the
19th century and are currently present in different regions of the country and reproducing
sociocultural practices like those pioneers who arrived on the American continent. Thus, even
in the face of adverse conditions, they sought to strengthen themselves as an ethnic-identity
group in Brazil, including in the Amazon region in recent decades. Theoretically, the research
was inserted from a qualitative perspective and methodologically oriented, based on in-depth
interviews. One of the challenges of this process was that it was faced with the impossibility
of conducting fieldwork in person in the spatial area of analysis, due to the circulation limits
that the New Coronavirus pandemic imposed on health, as of March 2020. Thus, the
interviews were operated through the online modality, more specifically, through calls via the
WhatsApp application between the months of December 2020 and February 2021, with
fifteen migrant Pomeranians who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s in the state of Rondônia.
Still regarding the theoretical-methodological dimension, the interviews followed the
orientation of a set of themes related to migration, networks and permanence. In addition,
each of the interviewees was asked to indicate a possible new interviewee, following a
technique called snowball. As a complement, sources directly from the internet and
photographs of the interviewees and their families were also raised and analyzed. As a result
of the research, a direct relationship was identified between the same factors that expelled the
Pomeranians from the state of Espírito Santo and what attracted them to Rondônia. These
were centrally constituted in the possibility of acquiring private property, that is, in the access
to land. For all those who made the decision to migrate, Espírito Santo was no longer a
possibility, due to the growth of large estates and expansion of industrialization. With the
expansion of the agricultural frontier towards the north of the country from the 1970s
onwards, the distribution of land promoted by INCRA generated a feeling of hope among the
Pomeranians in relation to the acquisition of private property. However, the mass emigration
of Pomeranians from different municipalities in the state of Espírito Santo happened, above
all, linked to the networks of social relations of this ethnic group that ensured information and
support, enabling the migration to take place. Finally, the networks, especially in the direct
relationship between the ethnic and family component, ensured the permanence of
Pomeranians in Rondônia based on ties of protection and solidarity. Furthermore, they
provided the phenomenon of connection between the states of Rondônia and Espírito Santo,
present in different regions and with a significant geographic distance, thus forming territories
and networks of Pomeranians throughout Brazil.
Keywords: Pomeranian migrations, Rondônia, social relations networks.
