ENTRE PARTIDAS, CHEGADAS E PERMANÊNCIAS UMA ANÁLISE DA MIGRAÇÃO E DAS REDES POMERANAS DO ESTADO DO ESPÍRITO SANTO PARA O ESTADO DE RONDÔNIA (1970-2020).

Abstract

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.