Cooperativism in Brazil: A bibliographic review from 1996 to 2009

Abstract

This article presents the partial results of a research project in interface with a university extension course that is funded by the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG). It seeks to elaborate a bibliographic guide on Brazilian cooperativism. The guide consists of the presentation of authors and books on cooperativism writt en in co-authoring that have been published in Brazil since the 1960s. The software PAJEK was used for network analysis and visualization of social networks for the variable of the authors with publications in co-authoring. The software SPSS was used to perform descriptive statistical analysis for the variables publication period, topics discussed by the authors, geographical region of publication and research database. Thus, it is a descriptive article. The literature on cooperativism is extensive and dispersed, encompassing many areas of knowledge. There are authors who focus on the ideological and doctrinarian debate, others highlight legal issues such as legislation and taxation of cooperatives, and there are those who direct their studies to various types of existing cooperatives, among many other topics. This fact, coupled with the small number of bibliographic references, motivated the development of a literature review that is representative of the state of the art in the area of cooperativism in Brazil and may serve as the basis for the development of future scientific research and in-depth studies.

Keywords: cooperativism, cooperatives, bibliography.