Family, land and labor: ways of living in the mountain coffee plantations in south of Minas Gerais

Abstract

: This text tries to understand the social and economic mobility of small coffee producers of the mountainous regions of Southern Minas Gerais, choosing as a guide analyzes the strong overlapping of family, land and labor in their life experiences.Using the strength of family labor, armed with the knowledge acquired in the permanent toils with the coffee crop, in the relations with the community and services of rural  extension,these social actors managed to overcome the original condition of lack of economic resources and raise some patrimony, expand their living conditions and be recognized in their social group. To this end, we make use of the participating observation, the host of life stories of three farmers in different municipalities of the region, indicators Agriculture Census and support of authors who are dedicated to the subject in an anthropological epistemology.