Goma artesanal versus fécula industrial: substituição no consumo em Manacapuru-AM

Abstract

This thesis approaches the daily consumption of manioc gum and starch which may contain alterations and invisibilities not evident at first contact, but apparent. Manioc gum is consumed on a daily routine, but it also hides an alteration that may not noticeable at first sight. The consumption of manioc starch in Manacapuru, which was previously the consumption of manioc gum, constitutes an aspect of these alterations along the years. The objective is to analyze and discuss the changes in the consumption of handmade manioc gum and starch and how these hidden, almost invisible, alterations are inserted on our daily routine by enlarging the debate to the scope of federal, state and municipal development policies. For this purpose, we employed a methodology from the present to the past and returning to the present for deeper understanding, based on a Lefebvrian perspective, as well as a field research in Manacapuru, and secondary data from official bodies linked to the production of manioc gum and starch. The emergence of cities related to agricultural activities in the Amazon set the relationship between rural and urban, city and field, sometimes harmonious sometimes conflicting. The field supplies the cities with agricultural products, but at the same time, it acquires industrialized products from the cities. The industry changes this relationship, also reflecting on the commercialized manioc gum in the city of Manacapuru, which used to be produced locally through traditional processes and along the years resulted in an exogenous industrialized manioc starch, that is, produced in another Brazilian state, in this case, Paraná. This new product enters the local market in the fairs of Manacapuru covered with handmade gum and passing through a rehydration process. The differentiation between handmade manioc gum and industrialized manioc starch is based on the production process. While manioc gum is produced in an artisanal way, without employing much technology, the production of manioc starch follows an industrial process, with intensive use of technology. The starch industry in Brazil has been encouraged by a larger demand of this product since 2001, but its industrial process has been occurring since the 1950s, a period when it was employed in several industrial fields and the regions concentrating the starch already had a production tradition. Considering the substitution in the consumption of handmade manioc gum with exogenous industrialized manioc starch, some development policies were announced, studied and planned by federal, state and municipal public authorites, as a set or isolated. Among the empirical projects, the construction of a starch industry in the Amazon still has a long way to cover, since in the fairs of Manacapuru, as well as other cities in the Amazon, the commercialized manioc starch is clearly from another state, which implies that the policies inherent to this product did not reach or were not sufficient to enable its development in the state.