NEW WAYS TO MAKE HANDICRAFT AND CHALLENGES TO ECONOMIC MAINTENANCE IN THE ALTO DO MOURA OF THE 21st CENTURY

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to analyze the changes in the work practices in the handicrafts of Alto do Moura, in Caruaru-PE, in view of the challenges faced for economic maintenance and ways of doing in the 21st century. It recovers the Bourdieusian notion of habits, such as building based on the perception of emerging tension, as a theoretical-empirical instrument to guide the observations and analyzes of permanencies and changes in the dispositions of the surveyed, relating to the way of working in the trade and economic maintenance. A research was qualitative and adopted a thematic content analysis of the 36 interviews conducted with artisan-owners, other business owners and opinion makers and other empirical materials. The emerging dispositional tensions in economies dimension were identified in the predatory competition among members of the community, in the ambivalence of the middleman’s role and in the different ways of managing the clay business. In the labor dimension, tensions were evidenced between the types of production (by copy, in series and authorial), in the invasion of dolls and in the feeling regarding the type of production.

Keywords:
Crafts; Artisan habitus; Economic maintenance; Ways of making; Alto do Moura