Work, migration and gender: the trajectory of Haitian women in the Brazilian meat industry

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the recent Haitian immigration to Brazil from the female experience; it aims to construct an analysis centered on agents that are often silenced and invisible, for whom the meaning of the migration project reinforces a work and family perspective, including both members who remain in the homeland and those who leave in search of alternatives. They accompany their parents or partners, but, whether independently or as heads of families, they manifest basic aspirations to work, to obtain sufficient income for their maintenance in Brazil and their families in Haiti. From the critical perspective of Sociology of Work, the approach of women in this process is constructed in dialogue with the multi located ethnography of itineraries of Haitians residing and working in the South region of Brazil, connected to the agribusiness meat network. In view of the modernization dependent on capitalism in a slave-based society, Haitian women - being an immigrant, a black and a socially vulnerable woman - faces an unequal and segregated labor market, in terms of employment and wages, according to nationality, race and the genre, which leads to more precarious and exploited jobs.