Droughts: Reproduction of Power and Rebellion

Abstract

This is a direct relationship: the greater the degree of poverty among rural
workers, the greater their dependence on landowners. The drought, as it increases
the degree of poverty among thouse workers, strengthens relations of power
in the northeastern region of Brazil. The State constributes to this process
because, by seeking to avoid social convulsion, it strengthens archaic power
structures. But the drought is also the occasion when peasant rebelliousness is
manifested, in highly organized public concentrations and pillages in rural towns.
To their participants, these manifestations are fully legitimate, in that they come
not as beggars but as “unemployed peasants”. But the vicious circle of subordination
is installed by the State: the provider of jobs and food.
RESUME