Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores a question that has so far been under-explored in the study of civil society organizations: Which factors determine whether or not the interaction between “experts” working at NGOs and grassroots activists produces practices of knowledge construction that truly promote the moral, political and economic agency of popular groups with restricted access to “expert” knowledge? Such exploration is based on a literature review, complemented by an analysis of ethnographic data collected during the summer of 2006. The fieldwork data included in this paper is the result of a voluntary work experience at PACS – Instituto Politicas Alternativas para o Cone Sul, an NGO based in Rio de Janeiro. PACS is one of the most influential NGOs in the emergence and institutionalization of the Brazilian movement of Solidarity Socio-Economy. It had a fundamental role as the coordinator of the mobilization process that led to the creation, in 1996, of FCP-RJ - the Forum of Worker’s Cooperatives of Rio de Janeiro. This forum was the first organized structure created by the movement in Brazil to debate policy issues affecting cooperatives, networks of microenterprises, microcredit and the informal economy. For reasons of practicality and focus, this paper will only use field data on “Casa da Confiança” (“The House of Trust”), a microcredit and training project that PACS developed with members of neighborhood-based associations, in the framework of FCP-RJ. This project is a typical example of production of practices of knowledge construction that empower popular groups with restricted access to “expert” knowledge.