https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3740-9160
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ABSTRACT
In May 2018, truckers paralysed Brazil producing a series of disruptions causing unprecedented immobility. The event was a logistical disaster, exposing major failures in commodity supply systems and causing monumental economic losses, cancellations of basic services, and the disruption of public services. In this paper, we approach this phenomenon by means of an urban study using the new mobilities paradigm and a dialectical character of social and spatial relations to help us understand what was going on. To accomplish this, we have performed content analysis of the virtual media during the trucking disruption and the 90 days that followed it. Our findings indicate that a paralysed society becomes disoriented and even aggressive when order, routine, and everyday life are disturbed. The paper concludes with notes about the consequences of immobility in daily life.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by CAPES – Coordinating Body for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - a Brazilian federal government agency under the Ministry of Education that supported us with a scholarship and CNPq - Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development which is an organization of the Brazilian federal government under the Ministry of Science and Technology, that granted us financial assistance. We take this opportunity to thank the two anonymous reviewers who were so gracious as to read through the work and give us much-needed criticism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Vignette inspired by https://www.buzzfeed.com/br/julianakataoka/a-historia-da-janaina-enfrentando-uma-pane-seca-e-um.
2. Vignette inspired by http://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/edicoes/2018/05/24.html#!v/6760213.
3. The 2018 Brazil truck drivers’ “strike”, also called the diesel crisis, was not a strike in the strict sense of the word. It was closer to a truck drivers’ self-organized paralysis via many different WhatsApp groups. However, as the media reported it as a strike, we decided use the term strike in order to keep our text as close as possible to the way it was reported by in the media.
4. PETROBRAS (Petróleo Brasileiro S.A.) is a semi-public Brazilian multinational corporation in the petroleum industry. Until recently, it was a state-owned enterprise with an unregulated monopoly status.
5. CNT (Confederação Nacional dos Transportes) is a top-level trade union that brings together several Brazilian transport associations.
6. As established by the ethical guidelines for scientific research with human subjects in Article 1, Single paragraph, Subsections I and V, of Resolution no. 510 from the Brazilian National Council on Health, the present study was exempt from registration or evaluation from the country’s Council of Ethics in Research and National Council of Ethics in Research due to the fact that no identification of subjects was registered or even asked for, no experimental intervention was done on the participants that might generate any risks above those of daily life, and absolutely no form of diagnosis or counselling was offered either as a consequence of the responses or any other basis. In accordance with international principles regarding research ethics, the participation in the present study was fully informed and strictly voluntary.
7. CONAB (Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento) is a public company, linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. Currently, the company, which is an official company of the federal government, is in charge of managing agricultural and supply policies in order to ensure the fulfilment of the basic needs of society, preserving and stimulating market mechanisms.