Sertões “on the move”: velhas caminhonetes e a mobilidade de pessoas e mercadorias em Alagoas

Abstract

The mobility of people and goods between rural and urban areas of three villages in the high backlands of Alagoas is carried out by used pickup trucks that have been manufactured for over 30 years. They are the basis of a transportation market related to interstate trade in auto parts and engines. The transport of people and parcels used vehicle parts is intertwined with a network of small and medium-sized municipalities in different regions of Brazil through informal and illegal markets. In this dissertation, I investigate the mobility of trucks, parts, people and goods, their own market regulations, affective-political, alliances in addition to those made by city halls and state government. From an ethnography of movements based on field diaries and interviews, I pursue two analytical threads: (i) the relations of buying and selling a pickup truck and its parts (ii) the transport of people and students in rural areas, both phenomena typically involving a Chevrolet D-20. Dialogue with reflections and works inspired by the mobilities paradigm and actor-network, theory to understand plots that support and are supported by these “precarious” “on the move” agencies.