BAMBURRISTA DA TERRA DA OPALA: (MINHA TESE DE MESTRADO)

ABSTRACT


Bamburristas of opal gem from Pedro II (Piauí state, Brazil), a social group that for sixty years makes up the base of the productive chain of opal gem, build and renegotiate their sociocultural identity, as small opal miners, into a historical process of social invisibility. On this dissertation, approach mechanisms and factors that contribute for the invisibility of these social actors, aim at understand how they are seen and see themselves in the sphere of the Local Production System - LPS Opal, established in 2005. In fact, the drawing of that policy of production insertion seems to lack legitimacy to the bamburristas, before their financial and symbolic benefit face to the other links that articulate themselves into the sphere of the activities related to the production of that gem. On an approach of imprint quality, the fieldwork was based on the direct observation and, from thirteen semi-structure interviews, covering the various segments from the productive chain of opal gem, in Pedro II, it was made use of the content analysis enriched by documentary and bibliographic researches. Despite the historical process of social invisibility of the subjects researched, it was found that they talk and negotiate with other segments of the LPS Opal, in the reconstruction of identity process, from their opal miner practices and the opal mining as a physical and symbolic space. Thus, they anchor themselves in their own experience and collective memory to face the pressure from the other groups that claim the role in the history of opal in Pedro II.


KEY-WORDS: Bamburristas, Sociocultural identity, social invisibility, opal mining, opal.