Abstract
In this paper, we reflect on the distance between the rural development conception in public policies for rural settlements and the reality of workers settlers organized in co-ops. We studied the case of a co-op at a rural settlement of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, through bibliographical and documentary research, empirical observations and semi-structured interviews with co-ops, social movement, and technical assistance members. We concluded that the way cooperativism has been institutionalized reveals a model of policy formulation which ignores workers’ objective and subjective conditions. Public policies also believe that such formal arrangements by themselves provide the political and cultural support necessary for co-ops to operate, which was not observed in this case study.
Keywords:
public policies; rural development; cooperatives; rural settlements