Voices of Sulanca

The main objective of this book is to analyse the socio-historical process of the establishment and development of the productive/commercial phenomenon known as Feira da Sulanca which took shape in the Agreste mesoregion of Pernambuco in the 1950s and 1960s. To this end we draw on resources from the sociology of development the sociology of work rural sociology and social anthropology. We focus on understanding the customs of the region which according to our hypothesis enabled the establishment and development of the phenomenon under study. These are: the family domestic and informal nature of work on the farm; the marked presence of migration for climatic reasons and strategies for social reproduction in the life trajectories of poor people in the region; and open-air markets as emblematic socio-economic practices of the Agreste region. We mainly used as a methodological resource the oral history of lives through free interviews with the pioneers of the Sulanca 'saga' and their descendants who continued in the family business.