INCLUSIÓN EDUCATIVA Y EDUCADORA DIFERENCIAL

Although it is clear that the new urban-rural migrants are experiencing what they perceive to be greater freedom, dignity and capacity for agency in the new frontier, the sustainability over time of these achieved capabilities remains uncertain. It is mainly due to the

persistence of a differentiated citizenship condition in the newly colonised rural areas. Even though advances were made by the urban-rural migrants to change this situation, there is still a lot to be done to achieve fuller forms of citizenship. It makes us circle back to their urban lives returning to the question posed by chapter three - Would the new urban-rural migrants have been shifting from one set of deprived capabilities familiar to the city to another deprived set common to rural areas in the Amazon? The answer to this question as suggested in chapter three is likely to be yes.

Regarding their socioeconomic condition, moving to the ramais did little to improve it; actually, this movement initially happened towards a lower socioeconomic status. In other words, the new colonists apparently moved from a situation of improved standard of living and access to basic services (in the metropolis), but, poor in freedom and dignity to a condition of low standard of living and access to basic rights, but, richer in freedom and dignity (new frontier). However, all these aspects are very important for wellbeing, and they

rights and capabilities (typical of unequal societies (Koonings and Krujit 2007, Holston 2008)), experienced by the urban-rural migrants either in the new frontier either in the city, forces them to face difficult choices and make hard and unfair concessions on the pursuit of the life they have reason to value. In the case of this study, these rights and capabilities disparities were very well elaborated by the research participants when they accounted to the

differences they experience concerning "quality-of-life" and "wellbeing" (see chapter three) and to their desires and hopes to be able to realise both.

What the observed urban to rural movement is perhaps revealing to us is that the lack of freedom, dignity and safety in Amazonian metropolises is preventing its working class and poor urban dwellers from enjoying the capability improvements that would result from a moderately better standard of living. It echoes Amartya Sen's assumptions about the relative importance of rising incomes within society (Sen 1990). For this author, increases in income only make sense if it contributes to expanding one’s freedom and opportunities for beings and doings (Sen 1990). In the sense, the manauara urban working-class that is finding in rural hinterlands a greater wellbeing in despite of economic success is perhaps transmitting us a powerful message: a certain rejection of the socially unjust and predominant capitalist city-centred development model rooted in a kind of “awareness-by-experiencing” that this model is, actually, not life-enhancing (life in a beyond-to-survive sense). Thus, by focusing on the experiences, opportunities and capacities, individuals have to flourish; the capability approach can be an enlightening way to capture people’s responses to social disadvantages which can help to deepen the understanding of the potential and limitations for agency and changes of social conditions.

In general, the standard of living of the Amazonian urban poor might have got better in the last decades (Despres 1991b, Castilho et al. 2015), but, it has not improved their urban life experiences and capacities for beings and doings. On the contrary, they have increasingly been restricting their movements and social interactions to get a sense of security.

Psychologically and emotionally they have been experiencing high levels of fear and anxiety for their bodily integrity and also frustration for being working very hard, but, being unable to enjoy life better (e.g. through leisure activities, being outdoors without fear, etc.) and to live the life they have reason to value. All this combined seem to give an intense sensation of being "living in domestic prison”, as most of the research participants have said. As a result, little room is left for affiliation - which reinforces social segregation and stigmas.

The abovementioned situation seems to be very discouraging for the emergence of

insurgent citizenship movements and attitudes in Brazilian metropolises (Caldeira 2006, Silva and Leite 2007, Kerstenetzky and Santos 2009, Ferreira 2015). It is not to say that the working class and urban poor is not profoundly indignant about, for instance, what turns to be a major problem in low-income metropolitan areas, the high levels of violence (Silva and Leite, 2007). But, in general, they feel impotent, helpless and isolated to take action and intervene in their social reality (Silva and Leite, 2007). In this sense, the urban-rural migrants are perhaps corroborating Leite's point by showing that in a safer and less isolating social context they have been able to act (individually and collective) towards changing their own realities in opposition to the reduced agency they experienced in the city. It seems to be notably stronger for the women urban-rural migrants who have been playing a central role in social and political engagement in the rural communities. According to their narratives, they certainly feel more empowered in the ramais than they were used to feel in Manaus which appears, to some extent, to happen because of reduced threats to their bodily and sexual integrity. These factors have been strongly associated with women’s capacity for agency and participation in society (Hossain 2012).

The relatively peaceful and safe characteristics of the new frontier that seem to contribute to the increased capacity for agency can perhaps change over time with the improvements in infrastructure, services and roads connecting the ramais to urban centres. It can attract more people from the city increasing the frontier's population density and the emergence of city-like social problems such as crime and violence (Thypin-bermeo and Godfrey 2016), the ones the new colonists had attempted to escape. Moreover, the slow land regularisation process can potentially contribute to conflicts between new arrivals and the ones already established in those rural areas, which can also disturb the current enjoyed peace and affiliation. Land conflicts in rural Amazon have accounted for several deaths (Campbell 2015a). The urban-rural migrants are quite aware of these possibilities, but, they also know the importance of some improvements for their capacity to generate income in the new frontier. For instance, by the time of my fieldwork, the colonists were pursuing better infrastructure for the ramais while simultaneously resisting attempts from the government to build more roads around their rural communities to better connect the interior to urban centres.

Would these urban-rural migrants be more able to simultaneously achieve both "quality-of- life" and "wellbeing" and sustain it over time in the new frontier? This is a question that will

(demanding rights as infrastructure and services) and to keep mobilising resources and social networks (Lohmann and Liefner 2009, Ludewigs and Brondízio 2009, Vanwey and Vithayathil 2013). However, this perhaps will not be enough as the possibilities for improving rural-life- conditions will, as well, likely depend on other socio-political, economic and environmental factors operating at regional, national and global levels (Guedes et al. 2012).

At an individual and community level, some aspects can work in favour of these urban-rural migrants in their search for a better "quality-of-life". First, they have a powerful shared motivation, resulted from a greater sense of wellbeing, freedom and dignity, to act towards improving their capacity to generate income. Most of them made clear that they do not want to move back to the city, even if it means to be materially poorer in the ramais than they were in Manaus. It has been stimulating them to find and join forces with others and keeping carrying on even in the face of setbacks along their fights. Second, they spent most of their lives in the metropolis. Thus, most of them were able to build a relatively robust social network of relatives and friends there with whom they still maintain regular contact and often help them with money or to sell their agriculture products in the city.

Social networks can also be beneficial in giving support to the urban-rural migrants' children in the case they move back to the metropolis to study. Third, some of them still have properties in Manaus (e.g. the house they left when they moved to the ramais) which turns into a source of money to invest in the new life due to the rents they get from it. Fourth, they also had more educational and formal jobs opportunities in life than Amazonian peasants normally have (Despres 1991b, Adams et al. 2003). As a result, they can be slightly more familiar with the language of rights (especially those that sound more tangible as social rights), which can help when they negotiate with public authorities. They also seem more open to innovations in agriculture than traditional peasants (Ludewigs and Brondízio 2009), which can offer less resistance to adopting new productive techniques or even to produce in more eco-friendly ways (e.g. by cultivating organic food, some of the research participants were very keen on that).

These abovementioned advantages can certainly make a difference in the search for a better “quality-of-life” in the new frontier. However, advances towards a more balanced rights’ distribution within the current national socio-political and economic situation can be particularly challenging. Since the unelected Michel Temer occupied the Brazilian’s presidency, he has been quick in favouring the privileged ones, retroceding the few social advances towards poverty reduction and increased opportunities for access to rights by the

poor achieved in previous governments. Thirteen years of left-wing governance by President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva (in office from 2003 to 2010) and President Dilma Rousseff (2011- 2016) was characterized by attempts by Brazil’s federal government to reduce poverty and social inequalities. Its success was remarkable, but, still partial (Hall 2008). Under the Workers’ Party (PT), national priorities included improved access to welfare and social rights through, for instance, conditional cash transfer programmes (IBGE 2000, 2010).

Going in quite the opposite direction of his predecessors regarding social priorities, Temer has proposed and approved projects and measures that have been heavily criticised for their anti-poor and sometimes unconstitutional approaches (Watts 2016a, Alessi 2016). Among these projects and measures are: a 20-year freeze on spending on social and welfare services and on raising the minimum salary above inflation (Watts 2016b); changes in the national labour law that legalize agreements between workers and employers that can reduce the labour’s rights and facilitate the payment of lower salaries by loosing employer’s obligations concerned to temporary contracts and subcontracts (Benites 2017). Moreover, the government has been pressing the Congress to approve significant changes on the National Pension law that makes almost impossible for the poor to retire before contributing for 50 years to the pension system (nowadays the contribution period is 30 years) (Jasper 2017).

Concerning agrarian policies, the actual government has not disappointed the rural elite. In the search for support for approving its projects, the new unelected president has not measured efforts to the make the Brazilian rural elite content, as their representatives account for nearly 40% of the total members of the National Congress. Last year, the federal government forgave an R$ 8.6 billion (~ $2.7 billion) pension-debt from large agribusiness companies (Prazeres and Rebello 2017). Moreover, since Temer assumed the presidency, resources made available by the federal government to support large-scale agriculture addended up to R$ 190 billion (~ $54.4 billion) while for small-scale agriculture resources were R$ 30 billion (~ $ 9.4). Significant differences in investments for small and large-scale agriculture is recurrent in Brazil, but, experts have been arguing that it has been made more prominent by the actual government (Equipe Parágrafo 2 2017, Daher 2018). Besides, the current national administration extinguished the department (The Ministry of Agrarian Development) previously created to support and represent, small-medium scale agriculture (Equipe Parágrafo 2 2017).

The impacts of those changes have not been studied yet and can largely influence rural and urban life. The freeze on the spending of social and welfare services and benefits can restrict its access by the poor. Cash-transfer benefits have been an important alternative source of income for the urban and rural Amazonian poor (Caviglia-Harris and Sills 2005, Lui 2013, Dou et al. 2017). In fact, some of the urban-rural migrants have reported receiving this type of benefit which has been crucial for the maintenance of their livelihoods, as it has been the case of pensions as well. Freezing the raise of minimum salary above inflation can thwart the poor’s’ chances to climb the social ladder - aggravating inequality (Lupion 2017). Retirement is another relevant alternative source of income in rural and urban contexts (Costa et al. 2012, Oliveira and Silva 2012, Lui 2013). If changes that work unfavorably to the capacity of the poor to retire, get approved it is likely to contribute to accentuate rural and urban poverty. Besides, unfavorable modifications concerned to political representation within the federal government and investments for small-medium scale agriculture can hinder

smallholder farmers' (as the urban-rural migrants) access to credits, technical assistance, assets and spaces for political negotiations (Equipe Parágrafo 2 2017).

Therefore, the Brazilian current economic-socio-political context is one that is not aligned with poverty and inequality reduction, which becomes hard to envision significant

improvements on the differentiated citizenship for the urban and rural poor. In the case of the urban-rural migrants, this situation can impose even heavier obstacles for their capacity to generate income and diversify their livelihoods. Moreover, it can also limit the ability of their urban social networks to support them, because they will, as well, likely be negatively affected by the possible cut-offs of social benefits, potentially lower salaries (or reduced purchase power) and unemployment. For instance, unemployment in the country has reached elevated levels (average of 13% in 2016/2017). From 2015 to 2016, 2.2 million Brazilian citizens have lost their formal jobs (Trabalho Hoje 2016), major losses occurred in the “services” economic sector (Lis 2017), the one that mostly employs people in Amazonian metropolises.

The situation above can be particularly challenging for the urban-rural youth because it can accentuate the dilemma concerned to stay in the ramais or go back to the city as both prospects have serious implications for their futures. If they remain in the ramais, they can enjoy a more peaceful and safer life. However, it would perhaps mean fewer opportunities to go further on their studies and potentially become qualified professionals with better chances to have well-paid jobs and to be able to invest in their family's farm (VanWey et al.

not being able to succeed as expected due to uneven education and jobs opportunities, consequently being more exposed and vulnerable to be a perpetrator and/or victim of urban violence (Orellana et al. n.d.). For instance, a recent IBGE study indicated that nearly 40% and 60% of the urban population of Manaus and Belém respectively live under what they classified as "low life condition". The analysis took into account variables as sanitation, levels of education, household income, households with access to the internet, housing conditions and household density (Almeida and Zanlorenssi 2018).

Like this thesis (and other studies – Parry et al. (2010a,) Richards and VanWey (2015)) suggested earlier, the rural young would probably take the risk to go back to the city in other to be able to reach higher educational levels. If this happens, the continuity over generations of the current livelihoods on the new frontier will possibly depend on how the youth will experience the city in the future, their capacity or will to return to the countryside, and the ability of their parents to sustain their livelihoods without their children, which are all uncertain. Thus, the actual and near future scene for the rural and urban poor in Brazil does not look promising. In these conditions, the capacity to act as insurgent citizens becomes even more critical for achieving fuller forms of citizenship (Holston 2008).

It appears that the urban-rural migrants have had more opportunities to be insurgent citizens than the Manaura urban working-class. Collective action in the ramais has resulted in advances towards creating better living conditions and access to rights (e.g. land titles, credits, government projects). However, the possibilities to keep advancing in the same direction will likely depend as well on their capacity to join forces with other rural communities finding strategies to amplify their influence on local, regional and national decision-making spheres. It can be particularly important for them to be able to define what kind of development they envision for their rural communities. For example, if they want to be better connected by roads with urban centres (or not), possibly risking (or not) the perceived advantages related to peace and security that a degree of isolation might offer. Nevertheless, it is a challenging and slow process. Therefore, it seems that at least for the near future, the new colonists will probably keep facing hard choices and unfair “trade-offs” involving the countryside and the city.