Researcher: Dr. Gillian McGillivray, Department of History, Glendon, York University.
Research Questions: (1) Why did sugar workers and cane farmers in early-twentieth-century Brazil keep making sugar when their counterparts in Mexico and Cuba formed the backbone of revolutionary insurgencies? (2) How did Brazilian sugar mill owners manage to keep rural workers and farmers out of President Getúlio Vargas’s populist reforms that benefitted urban workers in mid-twentieth century Brazil?
Methodology: Dr. McGillivray is seeking to identify company archives from one case study from the important sugar region of Campos, Rio de Janeiro, in Southern Brazil, and another from the equally important Catênde, Pernambuco, in Northeastern Brazil. She is also trying to get at the perspective of workers and cane farmers through letters to Getúlio Vargas contained in the Secretary of the President and Ministry of Agriculture files at Brazil’s National Archive in Rio de Janeiro, and through worker and cane farmer legal cases filed through Brazil’s Institute of Sugar and Alcohol.
Results and Conclusions: This new research, begun in 2009, builds upon the same questions and methodologies professor McGillivray used for her first book on Cuban cane farmers and workers: ‘Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959’ (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009). At present, it looks like cane farmers played an important role in mid-twentieth century politics in Campos, Rio de Janeiro, as did the cane farmers of Cuba; in fact, the legislation defending cane farmers in Brazil borrowed language from Cuba’s most important cane farmer advocate, Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez. In contrast, the cane farmers of Northeastern Brazil seem to have been more hesitant about defining themselves as a separate class from mill owners.
Dissemination of Results:Professor McGillivray shared some preliminary research impressions at the Brazilian American Studies Association conference in Brasilia in July 2010 with a presentation entitled ‘Brazilian Sugar Communities in Comparative Perspective.’ She intends to continue research during the spring 2011 and sabbatical year 2011-2012 to begin to write this new book manuscript on rural Brazil. She is also collaborating with professor Marc McLeod of the University of Seattle to produce an edited volume or special issue of a journal comparing sugar and cane farmers in twentieth-century Latin America. She is writing a journal article on cane farmers in Las Villas, Cuba for this project. This same article may be published in Spanish as part of professor Steven Palmer and Amparo Sánchez Cobo Después de las intervenciones: cultura cívica, sociabilidad y ciencia aplicada en la Nueva Cuba, 1895-1933 [After the interventions: civic culture, society, and applied science in the New Cuba, 1895-1933]. She also plans to present her post-doctoral research on workers and revolution in the Los Mochis, Mexico sugar community (1900-1940) at the Latin American Studies Association meeting in Toronto in October, 2010.
Impact on the Discipline: Latin American history is still a small field in Canada’s history departments, and professor McGillivray was honoured that her first book, ‘Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959’ was one of four finalists for the Canadian Historical Association’s annual prize in non-Canadian history in 2010. Latin American history as a field is paying more attention to culture, urban areas, and racial and cultural identities. Professor McGillivray’s continued focus on class in the rural areas of Latin America (sugar production regions, in particular) promises to contribute a clearer understanding of how the rural and the urban were linked, and how rural classes tapped into populist or revolutionary state-building efforts in twentieth-century Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba.
Impact on Society and Potential Users: ‘Globalization’ is not a new phenomenon, and histories of the local, national, and international links surrounding commodity production, (among other things) help us to build a better understanding of its origins and changing nature. Narrowing the lens onto workers and cane farmers and then zooming out to the merchants selling sugar on international markets and the consumers buying sugar across the world from where it is produced helps us to get a sense of the larger picture while not losing sight of worker and farmer agency.
Other Involved Parties: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Key Words: sugar, cane farmers, populism, revolution, state-formation, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico