Work and overexploitation in peripheral regions: an analysis from the logging circuit in the municipality of Nova Esperança do Piriá, Pará, Brazil

Abstract

The logging circuit is a major ingredient in Amazon income. This sector, which has long been responsible for high levels of exploitation of natural and social resources, in recent years has faced a new production pattern on the periphery, the overexploitation of the workforce, an element present in the production structure of several productive circuits in the Amazon, as in the logger, our object of analysis. The overexploitation of the workforce has been responsible for the alarming levels of social marginalization in the region, and thus, in peripheral development. The article analyzes aspects of the overexploitation of the workforce observed in the logging circuit of the municipality of Nova Esperança do Piriá, located in the northeast of Pará. The logical-historical and dialectical method was used to understand the contradictions that involve production in this circuit. As methodological procedures, field research was used, with unstructured non-nominal dialogued interviews with former businessmen of the sector, photographic records, in addition to data analysis from CAGED and RAIS. The performance of this circuit, operating from the overexploitation of the strength of the working masses, does not allow for a better quality of local life, as it concentrates income and wealth, thus being rooted in regional peripheral development.

Keywords:
Precariousness of work; Amazon; Nova Esperança do Piriá.