Rural development, cooperative work and subjectivities: a study using the Institutional Bricolage and Reflexive Monitoring in Action (RMA) approaches

Abstract

Brazilian farmers in land reform settlements face different difficulties to manage their cooperative organizations, either because of rules governing rural development policies or because of weakened cooperation relations, consumed by conflict and mistrust. The objective of the doctoral research is to investigate the trajectory of cooperation experiences between farmers and their organizations through the implementation of rural development public policies. We conduct a qualitative case study of the Sepé Tiaraju Rural Settlement, a land reform community where the Sustainable Rural Development Programme Microbacias II is being implemented. This public policy aims to promote sustainable agricultural practices, the strengthening of organizational management, and the rescue of cooperation and trust relationships. Until now, we made observations of meetings related or not to the Microbacias and 35 interviews with farmers which are participating in the Programme. The analysis is being carried out through triangulation technique between bibliographical and documentary research, empirical data and Psychosociology theory, from which thematic categories will be identified. Based on the preliminary mapping of community experiences of cooperation, we identified the need to explore the institutional dimension present in these relationships, especially in the current experience of implementing Microbacias. For this reason, in this research internship project we propose to include two new approaches as part of the doctoral research: (a) the concept of institutional bricolage, for proceeding further analysis of cooperation experiences built throughout the history of the settlement, marked by the influence of different institutions; (b) the methodological tool, the Reflexive Monitoring in Action (RMA), as a way to evaluating the Microbacias implementation and its ambitions to promoting changes in cooperation relationships.