Economia solidária como projeto cultural e político: a experiência do Banco Palmas

Abstract

I present here an ethnographic approach, of interpretative type, which has as object of analysis an experience of supportive economy carried out by the Association of the Residents of Conjunto Palmeiras - ASMOCONP, neighborhood on the southern edge of Fortaleza city - CE. The work developed by ASMOCONP is supported by Palmas Bank, a microcredit institution founded in 1998 in order to promote in the local area the formation of a supportive network consisting of manufacturers, service providers and consumers. One of the most expressive symbols of this experience is a social currency called Palmas, which was designed to operate only in the neighborhood. The main argument oh this thesis is to say that the social economy is a cultural and political project that is under construction. Accordingly, the case of ASMOCONP / Palmas Bank system is studied as a specific experience in which that construction materializes itself on the symbolic and practical plans. There is, in the daily life, in the local area, a mobilization of efforts to strengthen and to broaden the ethos of community belonging, solidarity and reciprocity as fundamental values in the conduction of alternative economic practices to the ethos of capitalism. Educational activities, events, ceremonies and rituals are also mobilized for the purpose of ensuring social legitimacy to the actions carried out and design the visibility of local experience in a broader space of civil society. Thus, on one hand the system ASMOCONP / Palmas Bank attracts several partners and investments for projects that are worked in the Conjunto Palmeiras. On the other hand, it matches itself to thematic networks and social movements, occupying a pluralistic public sphere, where conceptual and practical elements are exchanged according to common interests. The participation in these networks reveals that the local experience is also a global dimension, where the economy, among other related topics, substance itself as a cultural and political movement capable of pointing out possible paths for the construction of a non-hegemonic globalization, focused on social, economic an environmental justice, community empowerment and in a participatory democracy