Popular education in solidarity economy

Abstract

This article seeks to show the relation between popular education and solidarity economy in experiences of solidarity economy enterprises in Brazil. It is based on diverse experiences which have occurred in various sectors of this economy, highlighting those experiences which took place in João Pessoa with the creation of a Cooperative of Workers in Party Services (Copy Buffet), in the district of Valentina, and in the town of Catende, when workers took control of a sugar mill for 15 years, in addition to more than five years of experience in an Incubator of Solidarity Enterprises. It employed a research methodology oriented by the inductive method to investigate the theoretical descriptive dimensions of popular education and of solidarity economy, after consulting the relevant bibliography on the issue. As a result, it was possible to emphasize the dimensions common to all these practices, such as culture, work, the ‘popular’ centred on a pedagogy for the promotion of the other, in addition to ethical values, such as dialogue, solidarity, justice and equality. Popular education in tune with solidarity economy.

Este texto procurou mostrar a relação da educação popular e a economia solidária em experiências de empreendimentos econômicos solidários, no Brasil. Partiu de diversas experiências que vêm ocorrendo em vários setores dessa economia, destacando as experiências que ocorreram em João Pessoa, quando da criação de uma Cooperativa de Trabalhadores em Serviços de Festas (Copy-Buffet), no Bairro do Valentina, e em na cidade de Catende, quando trabalhadores passaram a gerenciar uma usina de cana de açúcar, por 15 anos, além da vivência de mais de cinco anos, em uma Incubadora de Empreendimentos Solidários. Utilizou-se de uma metodologia de pesquisa pautada pelo método indutivo, teórico-descritivo das dimensões da educação popular e da economia solidária, após a utilização bibliográfica na temática. Com isso foi possível destacar as dimensões comuns em todas essas práticas tais como: a cultura, o trabalho, o popular centrado por uma pedagogia da promoção do outro, além de valores éticos como o diálogo, a solidariedade, justiça e a igualdade. A educação popular em sintonia com a economia solidária.

Keywords:

• popular education
• solidarity economy
• incubation

Palavras-chave:

• educação popular
• economia solidária
• incubação

Notes

Several ideas presented in this paper have already been presented in the book—Incubação em Empreendimento Solidário—fragmentos teóricos. Francisco Xavier Pereira da Costa, Iolanda Carvalho de Oliveira and José Francisco de Melo Neto. Publisher of the Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, 2006.

1. Popular solidarity economy begins to establish itself as an international movement that seeks alternatives to the dominant economic model, emphasizing the organization of workers in self-managed enterprises. Various experiments are in progress worldwide, such as recovered factories and cooperatives in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, India, South Africa and other countries. In Brazil, one of its most prominent theoretical formulators is Prof. Paul Singer, current Head of the National Secretariat for Solidarity Economy, linked to the Ministry of Labour (SENAES).

2. Incubation—Educational activities to prepare groups of workers that come together in some type of productive enterprise focused on their subsistence, encouraged by ethical values such as dialogue and solidarity, within a self-managed structure.

3. Popular solidarity enterprise—group of workers of varying number, aimed at collective production of economic entities for the market, seeking their own subsistence, experiencing the incubation process.

4. Text distributed during the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, 2005. the course of the Solidarity Economy Movement in Brazil: from the WSF to the Brazilian Forum of Solidarity Economy. Self-management of the enterprise can be added.

5. Management consisting of autonomy of all members of a popular solidarity enterprise (companies and others) to decide on destinations, processes and work products. It is based on the end of wage labour, the democratic management of the enterprise’s activities, with implementation of direct democracy and the end of hierarchy.

6. Research on the understanding of popular carried out among leaders of social movements and political parties that claim the inclusion of the popular dimension in their strategic projects of society, in the state of Paraíba, in 2002, in the Postgraduate Programme in Education of UFPB.

7. Instrument for establishing and exercising democratic and socialist principles and values substantially geared towards the practices of self-management, in popular solidarity enterprises, as an alternative lifestyle.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José Francisco de Melo Neto

José Francisco de Melo Neto is a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), coordinator of the Research Group on Popular Extension (EXTELAR) and member of the Solidarity Enterprise Incubator (INCUBES-UFPB).

Francisco Xavier Pereira da Costa

Francisco Xavier Pereira da Costa is a doctoral student in the Postgraduate Programme in Education, Federal University of Paraíba, in 2013.