Cooperation networks and transformations in the food production and distribution systems of family farming in the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract

This article mobilizes the theoretical approaches of novelty production and collective actions to analyze the construction of innovative organizational strategies in the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, focusing on the sociotechnical transformations triggered by them. Based on documentary and field research conducted between August 2013 and April 2016, through observant participation and semi-structured interviews with family farmers, social mediators and researchers, it was possible to identify the consolidation of a peculiar network of collective actions, involving several social actors in the management of new and relevant media, which transform conventional food production and distribution systems. Evidenced as a 'novelty' in emergency, this articulation of social actors is largely related to the precepts of sustainability, reciprocity, sharing of knowledge, heterogeneity and dynamism of social action. Such interrelated devices seem to indicate a change in the development dynamics in the rural area of the study region. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]