From the arrival in power of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva in 2003, Brazil became known internationally for his pioneering policies in solidarity economy. Developed at the federal level and at the state and municipal level by local governments controlled by the Workers Party, these policies have promoted self-managed workers’ organizations, community development banks, networks and spaces for meeting between public managers, support organizations and local initiatives. This development of the solidarity economy in Brazil took place at the same time as conditional cash transfers – that had been experimented by the neoliberal governments in the 1990s (Hall, 2008) – were being massively extended. Lula’s government was marked by these “new” social policies, the Bolsa Família with its 13 million of beneficiaries became the emblem of, halfway between recognition of rights and the management of poverty (Georges, dos Santos, 2016). In the meanwhile, the minimum wage and associated basic pensions experienced a real increase, responsible for 2/3 of the reduction of inequalities during the period 1995-2010 (Pero, 2012), without however the model of extraction of natural resources, a regressive tax system and a financial system extremely favorable to capital being called into question.
This complex scenario, crossed by contradictory tendencies from the point of view of social justice, resulted in a welfare regime based on a certain redistribution through the labor market and social policies, as well as civil society initiatives and family resources. This regime allowed the emergence of an unprecedented space of interactions between State and civil society around the co-construction of certain public policies and their integration into social policies, although this space has been small compared to policies promoting individual insertion into the labor market which have continued to predominate. This space was also crossed by internal tensions (Cunha, 2012), and its institutionalization was not completed during the cycle of lulism, extended from 2011 to 2016 by Dilma Rousseff’s government.
The exhaustion of this cycle and the seizure of power by the neo-conservative government of Michel Temer in 2016 brutally called into question this welfare regime. At present, the drastic limitation of social spending and a reform of labor and pensions law are leading to a new wave of privatization of the social question, the reduction or even the destruction of spaces for dialogue between the State and initiatives of solidarity economy and a repositioning of these initiatives in spaces of civil society whose nature and relationship (or absence of relationship) with the State remain to be characterized.
Based on an action-research with women’s groups working in agroecology in the rural region of Vale do Ribeira (state of São Paulo), this paper will propose to illustrate the changing place of solidarity economy initiatives in the current transformation of social policies, spaces of interlocution with the State and the welfare regime in Brazil. On the basis of an analysis of the context and qualitative field data, we will characterize the formation of these political subjects, their spaces and modes of action, and their current transformation. From a feminist and political economy perspective, we will show how the way these women do politics and enter the public space is articulated, on the one hand, with their position in the domestic sphere and the collective organization of their economic practices and, on the other hand, the changing relationship between the State and civil society.
References
Cunha, G. C. (2012). Outras políticas para outras economias: contextos e redes na construção de ações do governo federal voltadas a economia solidaria (2003-2010). (Doutorado em Sociologia), Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia.
Georges, I., & Dos Santos, Y. G. (2016). As 'novas' políticas sociais brasileiras na saúde e na assistência: produção local de serviço e relações de gênero. Belo Horizonte: Fino Traço.
Hall, A. (2008). Brazil's Bolsa Família: A Double‐Edged Sword? Development and Change, 39(5), 799-822.
Martínez Franzoni, J. (2008). Welfare Regimes in Latin America: Capturing Constellations of Markets, Families, and Policies. Latin American Politics and Society, 50(2), 67-100.
Pero, V. (2012). Bolsa Família : une nouvelle génération de programmes sociaux au Brésil. CERISCOPE Pauvreté. Retrieved from http://ceriscope.sciences-po.fr/pauvrete/content/part4/bolsa-familia-une-nouvelle-generation-de-programmes-sociaux-au-bresil
9. Social and solidarity economy, civil society and social movements
