Ecos de vozes sobre o rio Uruguai: a formação do sujeito balseiro na região oeste de Santa Catarina (1920-1960)

Abstract

The logging in the west of Santa Catarina between 1920 and 1960, moved the region and resulted in a significant socioeconomic change. The involvement of historical agents, the contact with the forest and the onslaught on logging were factors that favored trade near the Uruguay River to the ports of Brazil's border with Argentina. The work done by the rafters became fundamental in this socioeconomic process, besides helping in the dynamics of colonization and occupation of the spaces where the forests were removed. Aware of this, the process that involved the ferry and the raft becomes the object of study of this research, investigating the raft in its sociocultural root, that is, in the relationships that are implicitly formed in the daily life of these subjects and the representations that are formed about the office of the ferryman. It is because of this uneasiness that problems were built on the subject, seeking to investigate the forces, conjunctures and movements that made the rafter become a rafter. The general objective is to analyze the movements and processes that contributed to the formation and representation of the raft subject in the western region of Santa Catarina from 1920 to 1960. The research methodology is related to the Oral History, where former rafters and relatives of these were interviewed and contributed their experiences, memories and life stories. These interviews, along with iconographic sources and journalistic clippings became sources of historiographical analysis of the research. Thus, this work, in addition to enabling studies on the subject through the use of oral sources, ponders on the importance of logging for the period and problematizes the representations of historical agents involved in the construction and conduction of ferries.