Book by Unicamp historian is launched in Germany

The issues that surround the world of work, especially labor rights and Labor Justice, are always sources of discussions across the planet and, specifically in Brazil, where these discussions gained new chapters with the recent Labor Reform and also with the procedures for approval of the Pension Reform, the topic is a daily topic in study groups and round table debates. The History of Labor in Brazil has many chapters on the struggle for labor rights and Fernando Teixeira da Silva, professor in the History department, at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Unicamp, analyzed the organizational and demanding capacity of Brazilian workers and their access to the Labor Court in his book Workers in the Court – Conflicts and Labor Justice in São Paulo in the context of the 1964 Coup (editor Alameda, 2016).

As interest in the topic is not restricted to the Brazilian public, and in view of the importance of Teixeira da Silva's work, the book was recently published in Germany by the publisher By Gruyter Oldenbourg, where it gained an English version, which was based on the second Brazilian edition, also released in 2019 and which was revised and expanded by the author.

titled Workers before the Court: Conflicts and Labor Justice in the Context of the 1964 Coup D'Etat in Brazil, the German edition was designed so that foreign readers, who are not familiar with the history of workers in Brazil, could also contextualize the events. “Writing for a foreign audience made me aware of certain passages in the first edition that no longer seemed to me to sufficiently clarify some central arguments of the study”, explains the author.

The work also acts as an important tool for disseminating the historiography that has been produced in Brazil. Even though it is published in Germany, the fact that the editors chose English as the book's language is important because it can help in its dissemination, as it covers readers all over the world, in addition to contributing to the international debate. “Except for foreign specialists in the History of Brazil, the Portuguese language remains ignored and insurmountable for many readers and researchers from other countries... As we have studies translated into other languages, especially English, the international possibilities for dialogue increase institutional and intellectual”, assesses Teixeira da Silva.

In this interview, Teixeira da Silva talks about the process of creating the book for a foreign audience, the challenges to be considered, its importance for Brazilian historiography and advances some points of his new research, which comes to complement the debate on History of Labor in Brazil.

Read the interview below:

The book in English was based on the second edition of the original, which was revised and expanded. What are the points that were expanded and revised in the second edition and, consequently, in the German edition?
Fernando Teixeira da Silva - As I prepared the book for the second edition, I was at the same time reformulating it for the German edition in order to adapt the language, analysis and information for an audience little or less familiar with the history of contemporary Brazil, as well as with the theme and more specific issues surrounding the legal and legal framework of labor relations in the country. In the same way, writing for a foreign audience alerted me to certain passages in the first edition that no longer seemed to me to sufficiently clarify some of the study's central arguments. Therefore, both in the Preface to the second Brazilian edition and in the English version, I considered three challenges. First, relate the 1964 coup with the coup that overthrew Dilma Rousseff in 2016 in order to suggest that both have at least one point in common, although, of course, in different contexts: the issue of rights was at the center of both events. My intention was to reinforce something that was already announced in the 2013 edition: what was at stake, more than the struggles for rights, was the way in which they were disputed, conquered and recognized institutionally, that is, within public decision-making spaces. . This led me to address a second aspect: critically dialoging with two explanations about the causal relationships between workers' political participation and the 1964 coup. I sought to refute the thesis of the “collapse of populism”, according to which, in general terms and in a very reductive way, workers, by joining interest representation institutions created since 1930, would have turned the machine of “populist domination” which would have fatally crushed them when struck. Another theory (the thesis of the “radicalization of actors”, in the expression of historian Marcos Napolitano) sought to maintain that, especially during the João Goulart government, social movements and the left had surpassed the institutional barriers built by Vargas, leading to a polarization of forces which would lead to the outcome of 1964. In both interpretations, very briefly, democracy would be in the background as a substantive political value in the period from 1945 to 1964. I sought to show that both theses are shaped by a “memory of guilt” for the execution of the coup, transformed into an academic explanation. By analyzing how workers in the state of São Paulo related to the Labor Court in resolving conflicts in that coup context, I highlighted the meanings and effects of their “intrusion” in institutionality and in the dilemmas surrounding democracy itself.

With this, I concluded that the Brazilian Labor Court was not the reflection of institutional experiences and ideas from other “national cases”, as some analyzes claim, especially in the versions that defend the “modernization” of labor legislation in Brazil, under the assumption that that institution is an import of “ideas out of place” and time. Nor would it have been an integral and originally national creation, as suggested by the architects of the legal frameworks erected in the 1930s and 1940s. The construction of the Labor Court was a creative arrangement of international influences adapted to the very history of labor regulation in Brazil, which dates back to the period of the First Republic (1889-1930). Thus, in the two editions published in 2019, I incorporated dialogues with more recent studies, added information, deleted passages that seemed clumsy to me and, above all, tried to make clearer the arguments surrounding the problems that structured and gave unity to the book.

What was the process like for the book to be published abroad and, more specifically, in Germany? The publisher that mediated?
Fernando - The publication in Germany is due to an institution called “re:work - Work and Human Life Cycle in Global History”, based in Berlin, focused on studies in the area of ​​Human Sciences. re:work research aims to understand the historical foundations of today's society through international comparisons and connections in the field of work. The institution promotes exchanges between researchers of different nationalities through conferences and workshops. In partnership with the prestigious German publisher De Gruyter Oldenbourg, re-work coordinates the Work in Global and Historical Perspective series, which is concerned with establishing connections between different regions of the globe, problematizing the boundaries between salaried, forced, slave, domestic and self-employed work. etc. It was through the encouragement of historian Sidney Chalhoub (professor at Unicamp and Harvard University), who is part of re: work and the collection, that I submitted the book to the publisher and for consideration by specialists in labor history. The editorial house considered that the book suited the purposes of the collection by tracing connections between a specific location and distant places and long-term processes of change, thus allowing a dialogue from a transnational perspective.

What are the gains for Brazilian historiographical production with the publication of works in other languages? Especially talking about your work and in English, which can have a much greater reach.
Fernando - The history of work produced in Brazil has been very dynamic and innovative, interfering vigorously in international debates, as attested, for example, by several studies on slave, compulsory and “free” labor. However, except for foreign specialists in the History of Brazil, the Portuguese language remains ignored and insurmountable for many readers and researchers from other countries, which, evidently, places serious limits on our production being better known outside national borders. As we have studies translated into other languages, especially English, the international possibilities for institutional and intellectual dialogue increase. Connected, crossed, comparative and transnational approaches significantly feed back into the historiography carried out in the country and its analysis tools, expanding the range of themes and research problems, in addition to calling into question supposed national exceptionalities that, often, only appear as peculiarities due to lack of knowledge of other historical realities and experiences. Therefore, new crossings in transnational terms can confront rigid national and regional borders, allowing us to mobilize, compare and problematize a very broad set of historical sources and historiographical traditions that remain comfortably embedded in national histories.

Are you developing any other research related to this that could complement the debate on the topic?
Fernando - At the moment, with the historian Alexandre Fortes (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro), I have organized a collection entitled Labor & Labor: shared stories (Brazil and the United States, 1930th century), scheduled for release next year by Editora Sagga. The book, which brings together historians from different national and academic backgrounds, starts from the observation that the fruitful history of American work remains largely unknown in Brazil, exerting little influence on Brazilian historiography. It is worth adding that, due to their attributed exceptionalities, the histories of the two countries seem strange to each other, discouraging comparisons, dialogues and transnational approaches. Thus, the collection was born from our perception of the need to fill the enormous gap represented by the absence of works dedicated to the integrated study of the historical experiences of North American and Brazilian workers in the 1940th century. The ongoing publication is an invitation to broaden the field of analysis on various themes and problems that have long been part of the historiographical production on work and workers in Brazil and the United States, but which have not yet sparked closer dialogues between scholars of both nations. Contributors' contributions cover a range of classic subjects, such as the labor movement and trade unionism, immigration, race and ethnicity, urban and rural work, labor relations systems, legislation and labor rights, politics and the State, feminism and women's history , Cold War and international relations. My contribution to this work is a chapter that analyzes the penetration of corporatism into labor regulation in the United States during Roosevelt's New Deal (2017s and XNUMXs) and its subsequent stigmatization as a “deviation” from what the traditional historical narrative describes as a long-term trajectory characterized by free negotiation between employees and employers, without legal and state interference. The emphasis of the text is on the participation of the working class in politics and in the state apparatus of that country, as well as on the problematization of the image of a “free and autonomous” working class, without public-institutional mediations. This problem also led me to confront, in another study, which is about to be published, the current debate on the Labor Reform sanctioned in XNUMX, discussing, among other aspects, the false “American paradigm” of labor deregulation, increasingly raised. the model to be implemented in Brazil.

But the more systematic research I am carrying out now is focused on the study of rural workers in their relationships with laws, rights and the Labor Court, which involves investigating the crisis of the colonato system in the region of Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo) between the 1950s and 1970s, experiences within family work and the limits and potential of labor legislation in the countryside. One of the essential questions of the research is to analyze rural workers on the borders between “free labor” and forced labor. The main result will be the creation of a book that also involves a debate with other experiences of workers in the field in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Mexico, who have gone through similar processes.