Protagonismo político e consciência de classe: o caso dos recicladores de materiais recicláveis do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

Abstract

This research resumes a problematic of social classes and explains how and why recyclable materials scavengers can be considered a class. Several studies have been demonstrating the importance of the political articulation of the workers for the battles required to pursuit their rights. In order to understand this dynamism, the theoretical framework adopted in this thesis involves Marxist authors who explain the topicality of the concept of social class from a structural conception, from relations and, from class consciousness. It is based on the assumption that the production and the market constitute the most precise elements of classification and social mobility as well as the fundamental conception of conflicts and exploitation. In other words, it means that social classes express the way in which inequalities are structured in capitalist society. A methodology used is a single case study based on documentary and bibliographic research, semi-structured interviews and participant research. The techniques chosen for data analysis were time series analysis and content analysis. The field study is the Fórum dos Recicladores do Vale dos Sinos (FRVS), in Rio Grande do Sul, which since 2002 has been articulating the region's scavengers around their activities, promoting a union of associations and cooperatives in the region, restructuring production relations on solidarity and collaboration principles. Based on the concept of class consciousness, which was composed, in the study, by class relations and by scavengers worldviews, this research aims to investigate the extent to which a collective articulation around the Fórum dos Recicladores do Vale dos Sinos (FRVS) constitute itself as a space for strengthening the class consciousness of the workers involved. Differently from measuring levels of consciousness, this study brings elements to comprehend the FRVS dynamics, which cannot be characterized by linear or evolutionary changes, but from processes of ruptures and continuities. The fact that workers gather around their cooperatives can be analyzed, in Marxist terms, in practice as a class in itself, that is, a class in relation to capital. A broader political articulation, such as occurs into FRVS, can be understood as the exercise for scavengers to become a class for itself, i.e., that the group elevates the economic necessity of its class to the level of conscious awareness, of an active class consciousness. Finally, the concept of class is understood not as a fixed datum, defined only by economic or income determinations, but composed by social, political and cultural actors who act, are constituted, interpret themselves and are transformed through the struggle and relations of classes, having a praxis - a historical doing - as a meaningful perspective.