Brazilian Exodus: From the Countryside to the City

by Simran Dhokia

This poster was published on the front cover of one of the 'cadernos', or notebooks, of the Centro de Estudos do Trabalho (CET) - Centre for Labour Studies - based in Belo Horizonte in Brazil's state of Minas Gerais. The CET was an organisation that existed from the latter part of the 1970s to the late 1980s and their role was to provide professional qualifications and education to a large part of the Brazilian rural and illiterate population. This particular issue was published in March 1980, most likely referring to the mass exodus from the rural countryside to the cities that occurred in the 1970s. The cadernos had two famous cartoonists, Nilson and Lor, but unfortunately this poster is not annotated with the illustrator's name.

The CET's cadernos followed Paulo Freire’s (1921-1997) model of pedagogy that argued pedagogy should be developed with rather than for students and that students should be co-creators of knowledge, especially those who came from marginalised populations. The cadernos also had strong links with the Catholic Church, who assumed responsibility for providing educational services to the poor during Brazil's military regime from 1964 to 1985. Working primarily with the illiterate and poor, Freire's educational theory and methods influenced the Latin American Theology of Liberation movement of the 1970s.

Visuals

The poster’s headline, in Brazilian Portuguese, is ‘da roça para a cidade’, or ‘from the countryside to the city’, in English. At center stage, the image depicts a young, rural family of a father, mother, and young child heading towards the city. They are holding four bags of belongings between them, while the father is carrying a sleeping child on his left shoulder. Dressed in simple clothing, the young family are heading away from the countryside, symbolised by the barbed fences on both sides of the illustration, and towards Brazil's fast-growing cityscape illustrated here by tall, cuboid-shaped, concrete buildings. The poster represents the rural population of Brazil migrating to the urban towns and cities. Its ambiguous title and faceless illustration are both deliberate: it implies that the poster's target audience is any rural family migrating to the city, regardless of their reason of doing so. It shows that the migration was significant for the families affected, indicated by the ripped photograph of the family at the bottom of the poster. Moving to a new location certainly brought a mix of intense emotions for the rural dwellers, from anxiety to excitement to fatigue to apprehension. The lack of writing is also deliberate, because the cadernos were targeted to a large population of rural Brazil that was illiterate; using clear and uncomplicated illustrations would have appealed to most people.

Various push factors led to the rural to urban migration of Brazil in the 1970s, including low rural incomes, limited landownership, variable climatic and environmental conditions, large-scale commercial and industrial agriculture, and an increase in neoliberal reforms that decreased employment opportunities for rural labourers. Capital penetration into agriculture because of neoliberal reforms impacted the agricultural performance in the short- and medium-term. Whole families of poor sertanejos subsequently fled the countryside to seek economic opportunities in frontier areas or cities. Often facing oppression, many rural migrants were left with no other option than to leave.

Brazil's drive to industrialisation began mid-century, transforming Brazil's economy from rural to urban and acting as a major pull factor for rural migrants. The cities of the Southeast and South were pivotal in these transformations, with much of the rural population of other parts in Brazil heading for these areas to seek jobs, housing, and better standards of living. This reconfigured Brazil's rural-urban settlement patterns. As a consequence of the rural exodus, the urban population of Brazil accelerated: it is estimated that in 1980 it was 80.4 million, which grew to 108.1 million in 1991, a rise of 27.7 million. Cities became the core of economic activity, the hub of high levels of productivity and growth, and became ethnically and socially diversified. However, the road to such high levels of urbanisation was socially, economically, and politically disruptive and challenging.

Political Relevance Today

This poster is relevant today because it alludes to the continuation of Brazil's urban transformation, increasing rates of industrialisation, and neoliberal economic policies that affect migration and settlement patterns. On the one hand, economic and social development in Brazil has improved alongside sustained rates of GDP, GDP per capita, and employment. On the other hand, the migration of rural dwellers to urban cities and towns highlights the lack of or declining opportunities in rural areas. The front cover of this publication reveals the considerable decline in rural populations since the 1960s, as well as increading urban populations and the growth of urban cities and towns. It speaks to much wider trends relating to the Brazilian economy, society and political movements including settlement patterns, employment rates, social and economic opportunities available for Brazilians as well as the direct and indirect impacts on newly formed communities as a result of new migration trends. Rural migrants face several overlapping challenges that may hinder their quality of life, because many may not have had the necessary education or skills required for decent-paying jobs, forcing them into unstable or exploitative jobs. As a result, they often experience poorer living conditions, including inadequate water and energy supply, or even severe housing shortages. Many modern favelas in Brazilian cities appeared in the 1970s because of the rural exodus. .