A reciprocidade como prática econômica e social em assentamentos da reforma agrária

Abstract

This thesis has as its empirical object of field research the settlement Antônio Companheiro Tavares, in the state of Paraná, aiming to understand how the social processes observed in it, including divergences and conflicts, are related to latent factors determined by life systems and by different forms of economy, coexisting in that reality. The study is supported by the work of Karl Polanyi, especially in his theory of economic principles, such as: reciprocity, domesticity, redistribution and exchange. In addition, he was inspired and guided by reference works by some authors, in particular on the gift, whose paradigm we owe to the seminal work of Marcel Mauss. To understand the reality of the settlement, we examined the literature referring to the agrarian reform programs and the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). For the empirical research in the settlement, two instruments were used: on one side semi-structured interviews, applied to family farming associated and not associated with the Cooperative of Peasant Industrialization and Commercialization (Coopercam), located in the settlement, on the other side data collection through direct observation, including visits, and informal conversations. We found that the movement tends to develop cooperative projects, imbuing them with a market logic, which clashes with other logics, typical of settled farmers. The case study demonstrates that the collective development project of the settlement, along the lines recommended by the MST, did not succeed. But the fundamental reason concerns the validity of the economic principle of reciprocity among family farming, the basis of their local social and economic integration, alongside the principle of domesticity, which organizes family production and daily life. Sharing things is something that was always present among the settlers: they held joint efforts at the beginning of the settlement's implementation, exchange products and favors when they can, and have a circuit of amenities and services, which is renewed over time. Reciprocity has thus occupied a large place in the development of families. In turn, the cooperative is an essential part of the current system, imposing a system of division of labor, taxation of products, financial organization, in addition to commitments made to public institutions. However, these functions are nothing more than an expression of an economic system submerged in the principle of exchange. From this point of view, the empirical study also revealed that economic principles are intertwined and, from them, the economic and social system of family farming and associates acquires unity. The logic of the market, underlying the operation of the cooperative, is associated with collective logics incorporated by the settlers in the settlement under study, in order to convert the cooperative into an element of reinforcement of reciprocity and domesticity. Such logic, therefore, prove to be interdependent.