Social Representations and Rural Sociability Among Farmers of a Rural Community

Abstract Guided by the Social Representation Theory, this study aims at investigating rural social representations among farmers in State of Espírito Santo Brazil by analyzing the semantic field associated to the representational object “rural person”; the organizational principles of individual attitude in face of shared content; and the anchoring processes. Two hundred (200) residents, aged between 7 and 81, belonging to four generations of a rural community participated in individual interviews in this study. The results analyzed using software SPAD-T showed that rural sociability is represented from the positive association to the agricultural and community spheres, as well as from the negative comparison between country and city life, which causes feeling of depreciation and critical evaluation about the poor investments in rural areas. It also identified that personal and community values strengthen the positive image of rural identity, showing strategies to maintain the country way of life among different generations in this community.