Between solidarity and justification: A sociology of practice of solidarity economy in southern Brazil

Abstract

The present research is inserted in the questioning concerning the phenomenon of the solidarity economy. From the analysis of documents relating to the Esperança/Cooesperança Project, which gathers diverse associations and cooperatives of the solidarity economy in the city of Saint Maria (Rio Grande do Sul State), we seek to identify the evaluative hierarchies that underlie the justification of associations and cooperatives of the solidarity economy as well as the rhetoric used to transmit these values. This study concludes that the solidarity economy has a justification of its own that builds on a critique of the capitalist system. In this sense, it builds its own principles and presents itself as a social transformation project for the economy. It is noted, however, that the solidarity economy is embedded in what is called “hybridization of the economy”: it mixes elements of a monetary, non-monetary and redistributive economy, which allows to understand it as a set of economic practices marked by plurality. In this way, the solidarity economy is not an economy without market, but with a market based on values and principles diff erent from liberal ideas.

Keywords: solidarity economy, solidarity, justifi cation, ideology, utopia.