Abstract

GUEDES, Roberto. Manual trades and social mobility: Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (circa 1650 - circa 1850).Translated byEoin O'Neill. Topoi [online]. 2006, vol.2Selected edition, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1518-3319.

This article analyses the Seventeenth- to the Twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo  capitanias/provinces with an underlining concern about labor conceptions in Brazil by then, highlighting different approaches of the theme as well as trying to intertwine the idea that the mechanical handicap stigmatized workers, especially for freed people and for slaves' descendants. We propose that social mobility happens at the intragroupal level, and that not every social group was based on the aristocratic notion about the mechanical handicap.  Moreover, such notion proved some flexibility of time and space even among the elite members.

Keywords : mechanical job; social mobility; freed people and descendants.