A feira livre de Caicó/RN: um cenário de tradição e resistência às novas estruturas comerciais modernas

Abstract

The present study refers to the street market in Caicó city by having goal was to investigate the dynamics and the socio-spatial transformations that it has been suffering and its resistance to modern business structures known as supermarkets. From its inception, the street market is the space of economic, social and cultural relations. This commercial activity had important contribution to the occupation of the Brazilian territory, especially in the Northeastern where it was responsible for the first settlements in the region. At beginning the economic relations were focused to cattle trade with the famous cattle markets. Over the years the fairs were molding and evolving to take this current configuration. Going to the empirical focus of this study, the street market in Caico city is characterized as a space for multiple relationships which in recent times have resisting and persisting in a space among the current modernization of the local forms of trade (the supermarkets). In this context, the free market is inserted in the lower circuit of the economy urban being a traditional activity with rustic components and traditional methods of sale and intensive hand labor use. Despite these considerations the free market still has an economical importance for the caicoense population as well as to the neighboring counties becoming a marketing space and socialization space. Based on the analyses made we tried to understand the relationships that exist in that space as well as the lack of investment by the City Hall.