Mutirão

Mutirão, one of the most important spontaneous manifestations of solidarity in rural Brazilian society. It consists of mutual, free assistance among unskilled laborers through work meetings for purposes such as clearing land, planting, mixing and applying adobe, building houses, processing foodstuffs, harvesting pisciculture ponds, and fighting fires. Originally, the person being helped expressed surprise when the neighbors came "against his or her wishes." Now the participants are expected. They arrive very early with their tools and work in a festive atmosphere until nightfall. The person being helped provides food and spirits and organizes a party. The women prepare the food and distribute water and spirits to the workers. After work, everyone participates in a religious feast that can include litanies, the rosary, and pagan rituals. They may dance the pagode to the sound of the harmonica, the flute, or the violin. In recent years, some grass-roots public administrations rely on popular mobilization and direct participation of their constituents, who hold mutirãoes for the construction of community centers, health clinics, community gardens, and sewers.

Synonyms and variations for mutirão include: ademão, adjunto, adjutório, ajuri, arrelia, bandeira, batalhão, estalada, mutirom, mutirum, muxirão, muxirã, muxirom, muquirão, putirão, putirom, putirum, pixurum, ponxirão, punxirão, puxirum, and traição.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clovis Caldeira, Mutirão, formas de ajuda mútua no meio rural (1956).

Hélio Galvão, O mutirão no nordeste (1959).

Antônio Cândido, Os parceiros do Rio Bonito, 4th ed. (1977).

Edagard De Vasconcelos, Sociologia rural (1977).

Walney Moraes Sarmento, Sociologia rural: Seleção de textos, 2d ed. (1978).

Márcio Moreira Alves, A força do povo: Democracia participativa em Lages (1980).

Carlos Rodrigues Brandão, Campesinato goiano: Três estudos (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Freitas, Marcos Cezar de, and Dermeval Saviani. A reinvenção do futuro: Trabalho, educação, política na globalização do capitalismo, São Paulo: Cortez Editora, 1996.

Muçoucah, Paulo Sergio de C., and Marco Antônio de Almeida. Mutirão e autogestão em São Paulo: Uma experiência de construção de casas populares. São Paulo: POLIS-Instituto de Estudos, Formação e Assessoria em Políticas Sociais, 1991.

                                    Dalisia Martins Doles