From migrant to industrial: the reconstruction of life in the city of Manaus

Abstract

This research addresses the process of migrants¿ life reconstruction in the city of Manaus who arrived in the capital from the 1960, when they developed activities in the Industrial Pole of Manaus (PIM). The intention of this work is, from the migrants’ narratives, to place the construction of the migratory project, the dilemmas involved in the act of migrating, the arrival in the capital, their entering in the market place, the construction of new spaces of sociability, among other questions, which help us identify if the project in its origin was consolidated at the end. To achieve that, the literature we used also includes newspaper articles and official reports of public institutions, as well as field research. For data collection, we conducted semi-structured interviews with workers who worked at the PIM, based on previously established criteria, in order to know what life was like at the beginning, what determined their decisions to migrate, how the displacement took place, the way their establishment in Manaus occurred, which were the main difficulties they faced, how they became industry workers, what was life like in the factory space and how they built their new workplace relationships. The study showed that not all of them created their own migration projects, since they were children and teenagers who had the decision made by their parents or guardians. The presence of family members and acquaintances in the capital was a key element to support the decision to migrate. Migrants have become industrial workers only after their arrival in Manaus, therefore, this research adopts the term migrant industrial workers. Comparing life in the origin and destination, we can infer that there was an improvement in the migrants¿ lives, and the main objectives of the migration project, which were the study, the work and the housing, were achieved by most of them, although the reports do not fail to reveal the hard life of an industrial worker, who has most of his/her time consumed by the job.