From Intrepid Gauchos to the Responsible Blue-Collar Men: Morality, Sociability and Hierarchy in Agribusiness Society

Abstract

While there is objective data regarding the advancement of agribusiness in the Cerrado region and discourses that legitimize it, such a process does not occur in a cultural vacuum. Behind the structuring of what has been called the “agribusiness society” lie social regularities in the form of sociabilities, moralities, and hierarchies. Using the ethnographic method applied between 2018 and 2020 with actors representative of this society (in the Central Plateau Irrigation Zone, encompassing contiguous portions of the states of Goiás, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District), this article aims to explore social traits that mark the speech and appearance of those inhabiting this society. By shifting the attention to interests at play, we demonstrate how its members – as they reproduce aesthetic patterns and coherent narratives shared within their networks – reinforce a sense of group unity that creates common spaces and intersubjective bonds, fabricating a sense of belonging that motivates a particular way of acting and expressing.

agribusiness; blue-collar; discourses; rituals; gaucho