COMPULSORY WORK, POWER AND TRANSGRESSION IN THE VALPARAÍSO RIVER - HIGH JURUÁ - BRAZILIAN AMAZON 1980-90

Abstract

This article presents discussions on the struggles of rubber tappers/agriculture workers from the Valparaiso river - Jurua Valley - in the acrean Amazonia, which mobilizations, in order to install a cooperative for buying and selling rubber and marketing of products needed for their métier daily from their cultural practices within the forest, came out to face a series of hostilities and acts of violence on the part of employers and landowners in the region. Tensions lived and practices of resistance of those workers earned an echo in urban spaces, causing a series of demonstrations and mobilization of various sectors and social institutions: Federal prosecutors, Rural Worker's Union, the National Council of Rubber Tappers and Legislative Assembly of the state of Acre. As part of the exploitation of women, men and children in rubber tree plantations in the Amazon region, it gained prominence the way how delegates from police, judges and other sectors of the judiciary were put at the service of large landowners to repress and to control the claims of workers who fight in defense of the rights of citizenship and of the human condition.