The place of tradition in the

practices of solidarity economy

in Brazil
Marilia Verissimo Veronese
UNISINOS

Thematic line 9: Social and solidarity economy, civil society and social
movements
 The study
The paper focuses on a qualitative study, theoretically supported in
Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ critical sociology, especially in the
sociology of absences and emergencies and the prospect of
epistemologies of the South.
Knowledge is not viewed as something of cognitive order exclusively,
but a matter of world view, perception and representation
regarding the identities and cultural expressions of these subjects.
Espistemologies of the South

The epistemologies of the South (the epistemological South,

understood as a metaphor of human suffering caused by
imperial and colonial predatory relationships, through exclusion,
exploitation and hiding) refer to existential cultures, which
produce habitus, behaviors and values.
In a world of appalling social inequalities people are becoming
more aware of the multiple dimensions of injustice, whether
social, political, cultural, sexual, ethnic, religious, historical, or
ecological. Cognitive injustice is another vital dimension which is
rarely acknowledged: the failure to recognize the different ways
of knowing by which people across the globe run their lives and
provide meaning to their existence.
 Some theoretical assumptions
 There is no global social justice without global cognitive justice, which is based on the
search for an egalitarian treatment of all knowledge forms and of those who work and
possess it, paving the way for the epistemological world diversity in the academy
(Meneses, 2009).
 Modern societies possess the feature of being abysmally divided between those who do
and do not have access to symbolic means and material goods, and therefore those who
are full citizens and those who are not, meaning that these belong to an “inferior” and
disqualified rank.
 Racialization occurred in different terms in the Spanish/Portuguese colonies than it did
in the English colonies, but the purpose and effect was the same: to create a system of
social categorization that differentiated between who could own land and who would be
forced to work on it; a distinction in social category between who could define, and who
was to be defined. (Martinot, s/d)
 The study
• The object is the Socioeconomic
practices produced by communities of
traditional origin, such as quilombolas,
Indigenous communities, small fishing
communities and riverine communities.
• The metaphorical South refers to the
ethical-political suffering of having been
invaded, plundered, exploited and
finally marginalized by the complex
social mechanisms of colonialism and
coloniality of power (Quijano, 2005).
• We start from the perspective of valuing other
systems of life, non-mercantile and non-
utilitarian modes of social existence, based
above all on social ties (Gaiger, 2016).
• This is what research in solidarity economy
proposes, "digging" present and past in search of
alternative practices to those of economic
orthodoxy and its obsession with productivism
(GAIGER, 2016).
• Solidarity economy in Brazil has a long-running
history, beginning with pre-Columbian
indigenous forms of production and collective
systems adopted by freed slaves (quilombolas).
 The study
• The autochthonous practices • Such groups, quite diverse in the
represented a ramification of production of collective identities,
production of solidarity in the refer to peculiar social situations
economic life, by different social with a strong territorial link.
groups.
• Quilombolas, indigenous and • Epistemological forms (understood
riverine communities currently as various types of existing
integrate solidarity economy knowledge) ground the social
networks, although they have practices conducted by the actors.
always practiced economic
solidarity and sustainable
production and consumption in
their ways of life, even before the
formation of these networks.
 The study
• The concept of buen vivir or sumak • During the fieldwork, we were staying with
kawsay expresses in Latin America a cooperative or community-based individuals that
worldview that can be identified with the
epistemologies of the South. practice associativism, in the context of different
experiences of solidarity economy and collective life,
• They are a part of cultures with systems of
values ​and a range of practices which have like quilombolas, indigenous groups and artisanal
been oppressed, silenced or even fishermen and women.
annihilated by predatory colonization and
Capitalist exploitation. • The basic idea of ​listening to these “voices of the
world” is to concretize the epistemological position
• They are quite diverse, but in many cases
they already had germens of what we call that there is infinite possible knowledge of the world
today “economic solidarity enterprises”. and that scientific knowledge is one among them
(CES, 2008).
 The groups
• These individuals and groups produce
• This groups who today live and resist in
strategies of individual collective life,
ways that are not well integrated with
work, mobility, militancy;
the capitalist Western society suffer a
process of exclusion, invisibility and • In a society characterized by
social disqualification. relational matrices that amplify
exchanges and correspondences
• Despite the achievements of the 1988
among subjects (YÚDICE, 2006).
constitution, the conservative wave
that is raging in Brazil may explain that • Despite all the conflicts, they do
the most voted Federal Deputy in the participate in political life and reach
state of Rio Grande do Sul said: achievements.
“Quilombolas and natives, together
with gays, is all that is no good!“
 Traditional peoples or communities
in solidarity economy in Brazil
• In the National Mapping of Solidarity Economy, completed in 2013, the
concept of traditional peoples or communities refers to culturally
differentiated groups that recognize themselves as such, occupying
territories and using natural resources to reproduce their living
conditions, and their situation is generally linked to the concept of
ethnicity. Their practices are based on knowledge transmitted by the
tradition of their ancestors.
• In the National Mapping, they su up 11% of the total of SEE; the data
point, in regional perspective, a majority of traditional communities in
the north of the country (23% of the total) and a minority in the
southeast (5,7%) (GAIGER et al, 2014).
Data of the Nacional Mapping
Of Solidarity Economy

Source: GAIGER, L. I. et al. Economia solidária no Brasil: uma análise de dados nacionais. São Leopoldo: Oikos, 2014, p. 64.
 A brief presentation of empirical records
Figure 1: The Kaingang Indigenous Community
Photos: Quilombo of the Silva Family – Porto Alegre
Figure 3: Photos of the quilombo of Praia do Rosa (The Rosa Beach)

Photos of the quilombo of Praia do ROsa

Figure 4: Photos of fishermen community at Pântano do Sul – SC - Brazil
Figure 5: Photographs of the riverside communities of the Amazon forest.
 Achievements of the communities through
associativism
• Participação em movimentos sociais
• Irrigation systems for por moradia e comitês de gestão
plantations (water potability) urbana
• Creole seed bank, getting rid • Gestão autônoma da escola
of dependence on the state indígena, relação mais igualitária
and the market com a escola pública de referência
• New products such as • Questionamento das relações
meliponicultura binárias de gênero no trabalho
Frustrations
Não ser capaz de deter o avanço da pesca industrial, que está ameaçando
o modo de vida dos pescadores artesanais
 Conclusions
• In this experiences, solidarity economy • In terms of economic gains, some
entrepreneurs can move into a deeper experiences have the characteristic of
participatory citizenship, becoming protagonists of provisionally and precariousness; others
the possible social changes they are committed consolidate and achieve relative
with. successes and possibilities for
• In terms of political rights, the solidarity ties expansion.
between members that emerge from participation
• However, it should be pointed out that
in solidarity enterprises can be a platform for
the experiences and networks that
collective action and for expansion of citizenship.
expand and articulate grow within the
• Outside of their communities, increased
field of social regulation to be carried
interaction with different kinds of actors also
out by the actors in the space between
represents an increased freedom of mobility and
the unregulated free market and
even perhaps an insurgent claim to the idea of
eventual state planning (Vinha, 2003).
expansion of civil rights in general (RioOnWhatch,
2011).
 Conclusions
• The main findings so far point to the
plurality of experiences and
organizational forms.
• The non-directivity of their worldviews
and work/community practices.
• The importance of association as a
central community figure;
• And how ethnic, gender and
generation diversity impact on the
construction of their identities and
trajectories, marked by the adversity of
poverty and socio-political suffering.
• In the proposal to combat
inequalities, we think of an ethic:
being with those who, by their
social conditions, are put in the
place of "inferiority“ or
“incapacity”;
• In an aesthetic, that aims the
inventive character in valorization
of the life;
• And of a politics that conceives the
subject in its historical and cultural
contexts in search of citizenship.
 References
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• GAIGER, Luiz Inácio. A descoberta dos vínculos sociais: os fundamentos da solidariedade. São Leopoldo:
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https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~marto/coloniality.htm
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 References
• VINHA, V. (2003). Polanyi e a nova sociologia econômica. Econômica, 3 (2):207-230.