Access to positions of power by the ranchers elite in Rio Grande do Sul: social trajectories and educational investments

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the meanings of the investments in social relations and school titles of the large landowners, ranchers elite, in Rio Grande do Sul, between 1930 and 1980. Unlike the main agrarian elites in the country, the ranchers have a collective journey of both economic and political rise during the period in question. In this context, these investments constituted a strategy to increase the symbolic capital, and not a strategy to escape the social decline and reconvert trajectories due to the economic crisis of the landed domains of their families. In this investigation direct observation was used to generate ethnographic data, interviews and documentary and genealogical research.

Keywords:
Rural elites; Rural employers; Ranchers; Rio Grande do Sul