Uma nova versão sobre a história do Serviço de Recreação Operária: memórias reveladas sobre os anos de 1958 a 1964

Abstract

Until now, studies about leisure and, specially about the occupation of free working time with activities that promote quality of life and the appropriation of different cultural goods, polemicize debates in academic places as well as in municipal, state and federal locations. Through analysis of the first Brazilian experience nationwide which aimed to promote, schedule and diffuse sports, cultural and scouting activities for the unionized workers and their families, it’s presented the Recreational Service for Workers, SRO, an organization created by the Ministry of Labour Industry and Trade in 1943 and extinguished in 1964. For the analysis it was developed a historiographic research based on qualitative information that used oral history and content analysis to the appropriation of data in order to verify, through the analysis of various official sources, the goals and purposes of the institution throughout its life cycle, as well as the political and social context involving each period. As a research poposition it was established the research and analysis of the entire set of references, academic studies and official documents on the overall life cycle of the SRO, however, limiting the research in discussions and activities between 1958 and 1964. During the investigation, it was noted that scientific studies on this institution, generalized their analysis and findings, by claiming that the SRO had a linear historical trajectory with a main purpose of contributing to the project of coercion and conformation of unionized workers, as proposed in the forties, during the “Estado Novo”. This study challenges this understanding, stating that the SRO subverted the logic of the Brazilian worker conformation proposed by its creators, and during the period between 1958 and 1964, its objectives and actions aimed to a participatory management model that sought voluntary participation, awareness and emancipation of the unionized worker in Brazil, for the choice of activities to be undertaken in their free working time. It is expected that the results and conclusions presented in this thesis, arranged narrative information, documentary evidence and bibliographical sources to allow a new understanding of the history of recreation and working on the Recreational Service for Workers in Brazil.