PRODUCERS’ COOPERATIVES BROKERS OR MIRRORS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE: A CASE STUDY FROM NORTHEAST OF BRAZIL

This working paper aims that showing how relevant variability of social structure influences the different diffusion of agriculture. My arguments are the following. First the different social network structure of villages reflects different history of village creation. Second the presence of more connected network favours the diffusion of agriculture as income generating strategy. Third that the producers’ cooperative plays a different role in the villages according to importance of agricultural employment as income generating activities and driving forces behind network formation. Three villages created by the agrarian reform (“assentamentos”) can be considered quasi-natural experiments of village composition and network formation as they include both old and new settlers; family agriculture is an innovation for the context and producers’ cooperative represent a change in the organizational landscape. Households living in these villages (“assentados”) are a new category of rural inhabitants that have higher political participation than average rural inhabitants and which are more connected to the state [1]. “Assentamentos” have potential for promotion of local development as in an area historically characterized by sugarcane monoculture, land tenure inequality and “coronelism” [2], agrarian reform permitted access to land to households with different professional experience and geographical origins. Villages case studies analyzed show how a combination of kinship and agricultural employment ties foster the creation of connections between households of different geographical origins. The two main elements allowing for such connections are villagers’ recruitment patterns and the role-played producers’ cooperative. By analyzing the history of three villages’ creation and the results of a household survey including both socio-economic features and social networks, the paper shows how the village where agriculture is more widespread is the one where there are more bridges across groups.