THE CRISIS OF COCOA REGION SOUTH OF BAHIA / BRAZIL AND IDENTITY OF THE RECONSTRUCTION IN CONTEXT CACAO FARMERS ADVERSITY

Abstract

The cocoa region of southern Bahia was conformed based on the concentration of land, in the socioeconomic precariousness of workers, and in the political power of the cocoa Colonels. This tripod development was maintained with the Brazilian State contribution between 1930-1980, when, after this period, the State broke this traditional form of intervention in times of crisis. Our goal is to contextualize the process of transmutation identity of cocoa farmers in crisis, to show the unifying characteristics, the identity as power relations and instrument of power, internal conflicts, the differentiations, and the hierarchization. We analyzed 301 emails between February 27, 2009 and November 19, 2010, available on the List of Cocoa; 34 interviews based on thematic oral history, statistical data collected from official websites, and bibliographic references about territory, identity and regional history. In this discursive material, we select: self-identity traits of cocoa farmers; traits attributed to them by "others", they say, and the traits that they attribute to "others". We refer to Woodward (2011), Silva (2011) and Hall (2006) to support the discussion about identity. The analysis of the construction and use of identity as an instrument of power was based in Foucault (2009, 1979 and 2000).