Work on edge: contemporary forms of estrangement in the sugarcane fields

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to shed new insights into the subjectivity of workers employed in the sugar cane fields in the States of São Paulo and Alagoas and in the flowers fields in the region of Holambra / SP. By bringing that element to the analysis, it is possible to understand two processes that intersect, namely the division of human beings and the process by which goods produced gradually gain life and wholeness. We followed Marx´s ideas on the process of estrangement and Arendt’s reflection on dismissal of the human condition as the main characteristic of modernity. Besides the empirical observation in the field, the methodology used was based on Oral History, which enables the profiling of the objective and subjective experiences which are sometimes ignored when people persist in only seeing the grandeur and beauty of certain sectors of Brazilian agribusiness.