Autonomia e participação no comércio justo: a experiência da Cooperativa dos Pequenos Produtores Agroextrativistas de Lago do Junco COPPALJ

• Ano de defesa: 2011
• Autor(a) principal: Falco, Tania Carla Bendazoli de
• Orientador(a): Arruda, Rinaldo Sérgio Vieira
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Ciências Sociais
• Departamento: Ciências Sociais
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Português: Comércio justo; Quebradeiras de coco babaçu; Autonomia; Desenvolvimento local; Cooperativa dos Pequenos Produtores Agroextrativistas de Lago do Junco
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Fair trade; Brazilian babassu breakers; Empowerment; Local development
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS
• Link de acesso: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/3343

The present dissertation aims to verify fair trade s reach towards its producers, beyond its impacts on life quality improvements. Particularly, it focus on its impacts on producers empowerment and in their effective participation in local development, in the definitions of commercial terms and in the fair trade movement itself. As fair trade proposes an alternative for international trade that aims to distribute commercial outcomes in a more equitable fashion among the players involved in the supply chain, particularly marginalized producers, it is also presented as a concrete strategy for a fairer development. However, it was not originally designed by these producers and one of the main present challenges for fair trade consolidation is a low participation of producers in developing fair trade practices. This research focused in the experience of produces associated to Cooperativa dos Pequenos Produtores Agroextrativistas de Lago do Junco (Cooperative of Small Agroextractive Producers of Lago do Junco) COPPALJ, particularly in two villages of the municipality of Lago do Junco Ludovico e São Manuel located in the micro region of Médio Mearin Valley, in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. These producers, through COPPALJ, participate in a international fair trade chain, exporting babassu oil to three clients The Body Shop, Aveda e Mondo Solidale. The study concludes that participation in an international fair trade has improved material conditions in these producer s lives, as well as it has helped the strengthening of COPPALJ and the social movement to what the cooperatives belongs to. Fair trade has also contributed to COPPALJ s political actions in the region. Fair trade has given an effective contribution to these producers empowerment, especially at local level. However, these outcomes are not result of fair trade alone, instead they are result of fair trade association to other important processes that occurred in these communities from the 1970s. Even if fair trade has contributed to producers empowerment, this outcome is not followed by a actual participation of producers in the fair trade movement. Producers have little knowledge on fair trade concepts, its main players and its mechanisms, especially at the international level. Considering its present importance to these producers, this fact points to an unbalance of power in established relationships in which producers have a much higher dependency on the contracts than the clients and are excluded from processes that define fair trade relations. Thus, fair trade keeps mechanisms of symbolic domination at the same time that it creates more space for questioning and overcoming this domination than conventional trade