Ressignificações da antiga cidade empresa: olhares sobre Volta Redonda

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the transformation that occurred in Volta Redonda, in Rio de Janeiro countryside, after the privatization of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (National Steel Company), in 1993. In that sense, it enlightens such changes under two perspectives: the resignification that happens in the city’s places of memory, located in the public space of the former company town; and the transformation in the labor world, that took place in the process of neoliberal deregulation. The thesis that Volta Redonda is built – both architecturally and institutionally – as a disciplinary machine to transform its inhabitants in manpower (FOUCAULT, 2014), is defended. Therefore, with the privatization of the steel company and the drastic drop on the number of Usina Presidente Vargas’ employees, this dissertation analyses the disputes, reappropriation and resignification of the city’s apparatus, by old and new actors; as well as the emergence of a pro entrepreneurism discourse, as an alternative to an uncertain labor market. In this research, the actions of Memorial Zumbi dos Palmares (African Heritage Center), Volta Redonda’s City Hall, Sebrae and Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, are highlighted, sometimes aligning themselves, sometimes disputing the construction of the narrative of the city. Still in that sense, 3 stories of Volta Redonda residents, sons and daughters of former workers of the steel plant, who need to develop their labor experiences over the wreckage of fordism, are analyzed (TELLES and CABANES, 2006).