A trajetória do Fórum de Agricultura Familiar da Região Sul do RS: entre mediações e (re) configurações.

Abstract

This dissertation presents the research results of an experience of local management, citizen participation and public policies in the extreme south of Brazil. This is a case study carried out at the Family Farming Forum of the Southern Region of Rio Grande do Sul, created in 1995 and which from 2004 onwards acquired a socio-state interface - starting to act as a territorial collegiate of the South Zone of the State . We start from the theoretical assumption that the processes of local management and citizen participation involve a complexity of phenomena, which configure relationships that are established between agents, many of them promoted by social mediation processes. These relationships generate multidimensional interdependencies, which, in addition to economic and political aspects, involve cultural and emotional issues. We used as a theoretical reference the assumptions of critical epistemology (DE LA GARZA); the sociology of interdependence (ELIAS); and research carried out in participatory public policy implementation processes in the Brazilian rural world (SILVA, FAVARETO; DEMARCO, MATTEI; CAZELLA, SCHNEIDER, SCHMITT). Theoretical contributions from North American sociology were also used regarding the interdependence between the institutional political context and the collective action repertoires (MCADAM, TARROW, TILLY, SKOCPOL) and social mediation relations (NEVES, NUSSBAUMER; ROS). As methodological procedures, document analysis, participant and retrospective observation and interviews (focused and by agenda) were privileged. The Forum is characterized by monthly meetings, in which governmental and non-governmental organizations linked to family farmers, land reform settlers, artisanal fishermen and quilombola communities participate. A series of nine years of activities of this forum (2004-2012) was analyzed. The results show that in this period there was a significant growth in the participating organizations. It should be noted that in the period under analysis, in 2004 organizations linked to artisanal fishing and in 2007 quilombola communities, who had never participated in other management spaces and changed the face of the Forum. The data obtained demonstrated that this inclusion was made possible through the action of a center linked to small farmers, as a social mediator. The Forum, in turn, was able to include them in the processes of managing this space and in the debate and deliberation of the public policies made available. The analysis of the Forum's trajectory points to the specificities and influence of several factors in the social participation process, breaking with any explanation due to the immediate and spontaneous dependence between the groups, contributing to studies in the area.