Poder e as artes de fazer no cotidiano circense

Abstract

In this thesis, knowledge was built on the circus organizations whose characteristics describe them as being small and family organizations. The main goal was to analyze the daily lives of these organizations in order to elucidate the compliance and resistance practices in relation to the powers which rule the investigated social contexts and maintain relationship with the ordinary management. For this, likewise analytical lenses, it was used the Foucault's perspective on power relationships and Certeauns on the "arts of doing". The conciliation of these two perspectives enabled the construction of a conceptual framework to represent how they complement each other and appear as a way to understand the mechanics of power. The methodology involved the participation of the researcher in the daily activities of five circuses, distributed among Minas Gerais State (MG) and Espírito Santo State (ES). Together with the subjects of these organizations active observations were performed during 55 days, following and participating in their daily activities. Also, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the circuses. The speaking which were performed in the interviews were analyzed by the Linguistics Discourse Analysis technique. The discussion of the data enabled this work to reveal how the owners of circuses and their families produce a speech that promotes control and domination over their employees behavior. However, inside this system of power, this work elucidates how employees create "spaces" to take actions which challenge the established order. The same is practiced by the owners of the circuses in relation to disciplinary practices exercised by municipal governments and institutions which regulate the circus activity. This thesis also reveals how the circus work is characterized by practices that affect employees working arrangements similar to slavery, many of them being exposed to degrading and inhuman conditions. Finally, this thesis shows how small circus organizations constitute an event "to" and "from" the periphery, mainly having in mind the disrespect for the law, accepted only in peripheral areas.