Estratégias de reprodução socioeconômica familiar: um estudo nos assentamentos rurais de Palmeira das Missões (RS)

Abstract

This dissertation involves the theme of social and economic reproduction of family units. More specifically, it seeks to analyze the socioeconomic reproduction strategies of families living in rural settlements in the municipality of Palmeira das Missões (RS). The settlements are called the Potreiro Bonito Settlement, the Terra Nova Settlement and the Antônio Joceli Correa Settlement (Nova Vida). The theoretical-methodological study approach uses Frank Ellis' livelihoods diversification approach as a study development tool, as well as for the analysis of the data obtained. The field research involved 33 families residing in the cited settlements from January to March 2020, through interviews conducted by the researcher herself. The data analysis methodology consisted of descriptive statistics, content analysis and cluster analysis. In this sense, the main assets, activities and socioeconomic reproduction strategies employed by the settled families were identified. In addition, we sought to build typologies of families according to the strategies they employed. The choice of rural settlements as an empirical research context was due to the continuity of the study initiated at graduation and personal interest. The results showed that the settled families use innumerable strategies of family socioeconomic reproduction, in which are production strategies (diversification of productive activities, access to financial credits, exchange of agricultural services and investment in soil productivity), income and work strategies (diversification of income sources and pluriactivity), agricultural partnership strategies, family self-consumption strategies and strategies for access to institutional markets (PNAE). These strategies are based, above all, on the local context, on the immediate needs of the family, on market instabilities and, mainly, on the social, human, physical, natural and financial assets available to families. In addition, it was possible to identify four different typologies in relation to the strategies employed, divided into pluriactive families (who have agricultural and non- agricultural income), agricultural families (but little technical), livestock families (intensive in dairy farming) and families that produce only for family self-consumption (those where the owners are already retired, have no children living on the property and like to live in the countryside, making their lot a place to live).