Workers Who Produce Industrial Fabrics and Cultivate the Land: Textile Labor, Migrations and Connections between Rural and Factory Work

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of migrant workers, many from rural areas, who settled in a major center of the textile industry in Brazil, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro and which housed to four factories. Articulating several historical sources, we seek to understand both the agricultural practices maintained by migrants from the countryside, and the incentives to work in the fields fostered by employers in the factories. In contrast to studies guided by notions of modernization which have crudely linked the manufacturing world to progress as opposed to the agricultural, this article examines how rural and factory labor coexisted in multiple combinations. We argue that the term “roçado operário” (factory worker’s farm), used in many studies, is not enough to describe a far more varied and complex social phenomenon. Therefore, we propose a new framework for understanding the various forms of land use by these workers.