Lógicas de envolvimento de camponeses em associações agrícolas: estudo de caso na Associação de Regantes de Massaca-Boane 1995-2007

Abstract

In a context of poverty in rural areas, agricultural-type associations have proved to be a driving factor in the fight against this problem (Poverty). Thus, this fact served as the basis for the present work entitled Logics of the involvement of peasants in agricultural associations - case study in the Association of Irrigants of Massaca, District of Boane (1995-2007). The government's concern to support and encourage the associative movement, which in turn leads to the numerical increase of these associations and, paradoxically, their nominal existence, served as a subsidy for a sociological reflection on the issue, from which we raised the following starting point: What are the reasons that lead the peasants of Massaca to get involved in the Associação de Regantes de Massaca, an agricultural type association? Thus, we put forward the following hypothesis: Peasants get involved in the association for purely individual reasons with expectations of reducing the effects of poverty. To test this hypothesis and reach the objective proposed in the work, which consisted of understanding the relationship that can be established between agricultural associations and poverty, based on the logic that lead peasants to organize themselves in associative movements, we took the carried out a case study at the Massaca Irrigants Association in Boane, from which we concluded that: > There is no common or collective reason for the involvement of the peasants in the association, that is, that each member joined the association to achieve personal and concrete goals, among which the following stand out: better life, employment opportunities, land ownership, desire to have an irrigated plot etc. > There is no cause-effect relationship between associativism and poverty, that is, being a member of the association does not necessarily imply not being poor, the reduction of poverty is an adverse consequence of the involvement of peasants in the association.