SABOURIN, Eric.; DUQUE, Ghidlaine.; DINIZ, Paulo Cesar Oliveira.; OLIVEIRA, Maria do Socorro de Lima.; GRANCHAMP, Laurence Florentino.
Résumé:
In recent years, peasant communities and family farmers’ organisations have
developed new forms of collective action among smallholders in North East
Brazil. This paper analyses the origins, emergence, and impact of these local
and regional initiatives as well as their relations with peasant social movements
and with public institutions. These smallholders groups constitute collective
systems for the management of natural resources (water, grazing, forest, seeds
and bio-diversity) and/or the production of public assets (information, training,
access to innovation and to specific markets). In the Northeast, particularly in
the State of Paraíba, their experience has mobilised social and professional
networks among civil society and led to demands in hybrid forums for public
recognition or, better, public support from State institutions. The authors analyse
the first lessons from, and the limitations of, these new forms of interaction
between peasant collective action and State public action. This movement is
related to the decentralisation process underway in Brazil and the first intermunicipal initiatives. There is a risk that civil society might substitute for the State in the performance of its functions; but the public obligations of these
collective stakeholders also ensure locally adapted responses to the complexity
and specificity of public policies. The new government has staked its programs
on civil society participation. But we can already observe some tensions between
the government, social movements and local politicians. In a political system
with elections every two years, it is difficult to maintain participatory processes
that require longer periods for concrete results.