Para além do Business School: desvelando as muitas maneiras de fazer catira e as identidades de catireiros do Triângulo Mineiro e Alto Paranaíba

Abstract

This study aimed unveil the everyday practices of the common man in his ordinary business, being the subject focus of this research the rural merchant of the state of Minas Gerais, more specifically that of the Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaiba region, also known as catireiro. The specific objectives that guided this dissertation were: a) comprehend the make strategy and tactics in the art of catira; and b) based on the practices of these subjects, analyze the construction of the identities of catireiros as merchant, ordinary managers. The interest about the everyday practices was due to read two works of Certeau (1994, 1998), The practice of everyday life and The practice of everyday life II. In his works, the author describes the ways to make of the common man, not just one winner tells us traditional stories, on the contrary, one that is often not considered as the main persona in social life, unless the title resistance in relation to the socio-cultural production. Thus, to achieve the proposed goals, I used the qualitative research approach, of exploratory feature. The data collection was made through semi-structured interviews with 31 catireiros of Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaiba region, guided by a script with open questions, but that is not exhausted in the script. The catireiros could be found by snowball technique. The audio of the interviews were recorded and later transcribed, forming the corpus of the research. The analysis of the data was done by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It is possible to say that everyday business practices in the art of catira are multiple and diverse among catireiros Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaiba. In general, the catira can be characterized nowadays as continuous exchange ratios of goods that do not necessarily involve money. The catireiros barter various products and services - including, there is still an emphasis for the cattle - and the exchanges are of all sizes. In addition, the established relationships and bonds created between practitioners are based often on trust and honesty of these subjects, which are still (re)cognized largely by reputation and by the name that created when to do honest business with other catireiros. Practices such as honesty in business and trust bonds created between catireiros, conferring the (re)cognition of these subjects by the other practitioners, are also examples of strategies of these subjects so that they can continue doing catiras and to achieve new business. Therefore, the very identities of catireiros act and behave at certain moments, such as strategies in the catiras, and they are also (identities) manifested through own practices of the catireiros. Finally, the contribution of this study for the Administration is (re)value the common man and his knowledge that are marginalized by technicist knowledge preached by the mainstream, it's at appreciate the knowledge that is disqualified throughout history, the local, discontinuous and not legitimated knowledge towards the unit and universalizing discourse. To evidence the ordinary management of catira and its practitioners (catireiros) is not disqualify management as a field of knowledge-power, but question it, jeopardizing its universality and criticizing the business schools as the only or main management references in order to open spaces for researchers to work with new approaches and multiple meanings.