Abstract
In a country characterized by extreme social inequality, historically recent processes of industrialization and urbanization as well as rich popular equestrian traditions and culture, there is also an ample and modern equine economy which is just beginning to attract scholarly attention. Our chapter considers some of the emerging contrasts and contradictions of that economy and its sociocultural field, focusing on a group of workers whose often taken-for-granted labor makes its existence possible: stable hands. By examining stable hands in two different contexts—the formally organized, highly structured and largely feminized hípica, where classical equitation is enjoyed by elites, and the cabanha, a less formal environment that caters to and promotes ‘traditionalist’ equestrian practice, with a wider class base yet less female participation—we shed light on cultural diversity and conflict. We also engage with broad critical discussions on class, race and gender relations in the equestrian world, rural/urban reconfigurations and how work, leisure and sport are constructed in one contemporary Latin American society.
Cabanha is a vernacular term for the formal or informal sector riding, training and or breeding barn linked to rural Brazilian equestrian tradition; hipica refers to the type of riding club or center that is associated with dressage and showjumping, thus linked to an urban upper class and cosmopolitan sporting culture.
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Notes
- 1.
Our own work on the rural/urban meeting ground of campeiro culture, in which the ‘rural lifestyle’ is ressignified by city dwellers in very romantic terms, points to ongoing changes in mainstream attitudes toward rurality. These attitudes seem to be quite different, from previously prevailing notions of the countryside and its habitants; for example, mass culture representations of the peasant—‘caipira’—as simple-minded, naïve, out-dated, were widely disseminated in Brazilian society throughout the twentieth century, and rooted in notions of urban/rural meeting ground (traditional/modern) opposition (cf. Coneglian and Monastirsky 2015).
- 2.
In 2012, we received funding for our research on women in rodeo and popular equestrian practices through a government-sponsored (National Scientific Research Council (CNPQ)/Special Secretariat for Public Policies for Women) program to promote research on Women, Gender Relations and Feminism. All research was expected to discuss possible public policy implications, a challenge which we attempted to address in our own final report, presented in Brasilia in September, 2014.
- 3.
The term ‘groom’ is used here, as a rough equivalent to the Portuguese term, ‘tratador’. It refers to a person who engages in the most basic and lowest status barn work: cleaning stalls, feeding and grooming horses, turning them out to pasture and bringing them back to their stalls at the end of turn out, applying medications, and saddling and bridling them for riders and/or trainers. At times, particularly in the Crioulo horse cabanha environment which will be discussed further on, this may also include exercise riding responsibilities (which are coveted and can also constitute 'privileges'). It may be formal or informal sector work, but even in the former case, is not unionized (unlike its neighbor, Argentina, and its UTTA (Union de Trabajadores del Turf y Afins, with information available at http://www.utta.org.ar/) which has the explicit purpose of serving the interests of all stable and equine industry workers.
- 4.
A number of adults were formally interviewed for the present phase of research: João Salles [proprietário/administrador da cabanha e domador de cavalos], Fernando Sperb [lawyer, show jumper, former president of the Sociedade Hípica Paranaense and current president of the state branch (Federação Hípica Paranaense) of the national equestrian federation] Carol Dunin, veterinarian who maintains her own thriving practice at the SHP, and three SHP grooms, We also spoke to and observed a number of boys and youth—approximately ten on the list we put together during our field research: A constant procession, they remain in the cabanha for months or years. We refrain from providing their names here, in the interests of maintaining anonymity.
- 5.
Our interviews and research into stable workers represent one specific segment of the social actors we examine in research focusing particularly on the southern Brazilian crioulo horse culture and the practices, representations and markets that it produces and reproduces. The comparative approach we use here led us to to include data on the upper class English riding milieu as well.
- 6.
The world renown ‘natural horseman’ Monty Roberts has made several appearances in Brazil and has a wide circle of followers, although throughout our fieldwork in campeiro circles, he was often the object of intense criticism, especially on the part of those who use ‘traditional horsebreaking’ methods and perceive his methods as emblematic of a potent rivalry. He was also involved in a widely publicized polemic regarding his horse handling methods. See http://www.montyroberts.com/latest-news/responses-to-negative-media-in-brazil/.
- 7.
12/02/2016, conversation with UTTA staff person (Ivonne) confirmed what we had noticed in looking through UTTA material and website, that workers in the sector are largely male.
- 8.
The caring attitudes we have observed may spill over into other domains, (such as behavior we have observed the boys display in protecting and caring for babies, toddlers and younger children) and may be a fortunate indication of new cultural trends, as suggested to us by one of our informants from an earlier research project elsewhere (Adelman and Becker 2013: 84–85), who in answer to our question about young women’s increasing participation in roping competitions, went on to make connections between his own changing attitudes regarding gender and the forms of masculinity attached to different horse training philosophies.
- 9.
There is ongoing debate around doma racional, a concept and movement which seems to have been inspired by the North American new horsemanship movement and often posed as diametrically opposed to traditional Brazilian ranch techniques of understanding and dealing with equines and in southern Brazil, to traditional ways of breaking and training the native Crioulo horses, which have often been qualified as cruel or violent. See Footnote 3.
- 10.
Latin American authors have devoted many pages to these discussions, looking at the relationship between indigenous and rural forms of knowledge and their encounters with agrarian sciences and professionals (Leff 2003). There is a growing corpus of literature in the area of sociology/anthropology of animals or on human/non-human animal relations which take a similar critique of Enlightenment epistemologies as their point of departure (Peggs 2012; DeMello 2012). Connections are made between power relations within the human world (male dominance and Western dominance of other peoples, for example) and notions of absolute mastery and control over other species, of (certain) humans and the “natural inferiority”, servility and lack of rights of non-humans. Some non-western cultures (such as the Amerindian cultures; see discussed by Levi-Strauss, 1962; Viveiros de Castro 1992, 1996, 2004; Turner 1991) have, on the other hand, developed very different cosmologies based on notions of continuity between humans and non-human animals, and current critique has also struggled to rethink these issues and, most importantly, the practices that they promote or negate.
- 11.
This South American breed is evidently the most popular equine in southern Brazil today, providing an ever-expanding and lucrative market for trainers and breeders. We are currently engaged in research focusing on the particular symbolic value that has been attributed to the Crioulo horse, as signifier of ‘authentically gaucho’ tradition, and the cultural, political, social and economic interests that are part of this construction.
- 12.
- 13.
We use 'identity' here in the sense of group references as riders, or as crioulistas, for example and 'subjectivities' (which have dimensions; Adelman and Ruggi 2015, Adelman 2015) to refer to individual processes in which biographical elements are fundamental, highlighting people's singular experiences which, in our research, are expressed through narratives of self and particular forms of engagement in equestrian culture (Adelman and Ruggi 2015, Adelman 2015).
- 14.
As stated earlier, informal sector youth employment is a feature of cabanha life; however, our work with the youth has unfolded as conversation and conviviality over time, which seems to be the best way to get to know their stories without causing them feelings of constraint and discomfort.
- 15.
As we will discuss below, within certain contexts barn workers may be promoted to more valorized types of equine work.
- 16.
Researcher’s field notes.
- 17.
Bronc riding, or gineteada, as it is referred to in Brazil today, is coming under increasing scrutiny and often banned from the southern Brazilian rodeo scene, under pressures coming from animal rights activists and animal protection societies.
- 18.
Campeiro’ is an adjective used to signify that which is from or linked to the countryside; hípica to English-style riding centers where jumping and dressage disciplines are practiced and promoted.
- 19.
It is important to note that while most cabanhas in the region are run by men, single or married, we have also encountered barns run by women, or by husband-and-wife teams that do not reproduce the more conventional pattern which places the man at the front. This is more common among people engaged in classical (European) styles of riding, who keep up riding schools sometimes denominated as hípicas or through the French term manege. Furthermore, in these contexts, both riding instructors and pupils are mostly female, a stark contrast with the cabanhas, where, in general terms, the opposite situations inheres.
- 20.
This came up in our interview with Fernando Sperb and also in an earlier study, in which competitors complained about the difficulties of trying to get ahead as a rider in Curitiba and in fact anywhere in Brazil (time and time again, interviewees mentioned the top names in the field who were reported as having had to move to Europe in order to become successful or develop their talents (Adelman 2004).
- 21.
Potential members must apply and pay for the ‘title’, at present somewhere around US$10,000 as well as their share of monthly club maintenance costsand all of their horses expenses, costs hefty enough to represent considerably more than the current Brazilian monthly minimum wage.
- 22.
Renown Brazilian sociologist Jessé Souza, current head of the government research institute IPEA (Institute for Applied Economic Research) considers the “democratization of cultural capital” as the nation’s major challenge, arguing that. “Ultimately, it [cultural capital] is the most important issue for a modern, democratic society, since economic capital is always concentrated [whereas cultural capital is not]. In Germany and France, for example, cultural capital has been 70–80% democratized. Here in Brazil, only 20%. This is the greatest challenge, since it is what transforms people's lives” http://www.conversaafiada.com.br/tv-afiada/jesse-souza-brasil-precisa-democratizar-o-capital-cultural published on Feb 18th, 2–16.
- 23.
As we will attempt to show below, there is something in the nature of work with equines, and with human–equine fields of interaction, that is particularly resistant to the assimilation of a merely bureaucratic workplace logic. This of course is also the case for many other types of work in contemporary society, and as literature in the area of sociology of emotions has so persuasively argued (Bericat 2012).
- 24.
The ‘cultural community’ we speak of here gains a certain unity through its links—which vary from loosely or tightly connected—to the Gaucho Traditionalist Movement (MTG) which dates back to the mid twentieth century and has been considered one of the largest formally organized popular culture movements of our times. (To date, the most comprehensive and insightful work on the emergence and development of the MTG and its local centers (CTGs) is Ruben Oliven's pioneering study, which was been published in English under the title Tradition Matters (1996).
- 25.
“Equine-based cultural capital”, in our usage, is linked to popular traditions and is transmitted to them, often with a gender bias. Evidence we have collected in the field suggests that young women are increasingly active participants in these circuits of cultural transmission, yet often defer to boyfriends or partners at ‘critical moments’, accepting companionate roles that are supportive rather than competitive, such as being girlfriend or wife to a rodeo competitor and eventually, mother of a horseman’s children.
- 26.
For example, the club manager's suggestion that her uncle keep a watch out for her, in light of all male working environment which is cast as potentially predatory.
- 27.
Pressure to think and rethink horse handling and training methods has never been greater: Not only are there countless Internet videos on natural horsemanship that anyone with a smartphone can access, but also State and municipal government rural extension programs sponsor courses on riding, training, shoeing and care, open to whoever would like to take part (usually requiring prior payment of a very modest registration fee).
- 28.
A rough translation would be “A homestead in strange lands”, an expression which historian Renata Sopelsa (2005) uses in her study of internal migration and Gaucho traditionalism).
- 29.
The official site of the Brazilian Crioulo Horse Breeder's Association (http://www.cavalocrioulo.org.br/) offers information on the history of the breed and its current market situation, focused primarily on Brazil and the neighboring countries—with their own native Crioulo horses—of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.
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Adelman, M., da Costa, T.K.L. (2017). From Hípica to Cabanha: Brazilian Stable Hands in Different Cultures and Contexts. In: Adelman, M., Thompson, K. (eds) Equestrian Cultures in Global and Local Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55886-8_11
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