Different meanings for “slave work” among professionals within the movement for the eradication of this practice in the state of Para

Abstract

Certain working practices that happen inside some farms in the Amazon Region have been denominated as “slave work” and they have been configured as crime, due to the terrible work conditions and the lack of freedom of the employees. These practices are backed up by the allegation of a growing and permanent debt that the employee have with the employer. It emerges as an event that involves processes of power’s games among the characters that participate in this plot. The objective of this research is to give visibility to different interpretations attributed to the notion of “slave work” by professionals that work in the “Campaign for the Eradication to Slave Work”. We emphasize that the discourse shared by these professionals addresses issues and practices that need to be “dealt with” or “opposed” on account of the situations faced by farmer workers who in turn are also crossed by different discourses that focus on them being victims or not. So, the effects produced by this variability of discourses are engendered in the practices of these professionals justifying the promotion of campaigns, creation of social movements, buildings, preparation of books, folders, posters, national and international legal documents, that support a set of relations that might make the emergence of “slave work” as an event.