Nas cores dos desenhos, as travessias (não travessuras) das crianças maranhenses

Abstract

The objective of this article is the analysis of drawings by Maranhão children, whose parents migrated to work in São Paulo sugarcane plantations. The drawings were collected in 2007 during a survey in Cocais Maranhenses cities - Timbiras, Codó, and Coroatá - where most of these migrants come from. The research aimed to analysze the factors responsible for the migration within the context of peasantry expropriation by big companies present there. In the case of a predominantly male migration, the objective was also to study the situation experienced by the people who were mainly women and children. The research methodology incorporated qualitative techniques, through oral history, as well as quantitative data on the agrarian structure of these municipalities and documents related to the legal processes involving conflicts over the appropriation of peasants’ lands. Another technique was the production of 51 drawings by children about family and migration. The interpretive analysis of the drawings reveals the children’s representations on the temporary migration of the two worlds, which, although geographically distant, are united by the same social determinations. The drawings are the children whispered voices about the migratory process that had been imposed upon them.