Uma feira aprendente e ensinante: a economia solidária e a interculturalidade na experiência da FEICOOP

Abstract

The Feira Internacional de Economia Solidária e Cooperativismo (FEICOOP) is an event for training, commercialization and dissemination of art of Solidarity Economy that takes place annually at the Centro de Referência em Economia Solidária Dom Ivo Lorscheiter, in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. Its organization is marked by the involvement of various public, private and non-governmental entities and has at its core the work carried out by Projeto Esperança/Cooesperança. From this context, we ask ourselves how FEICOOP contributes to the theoretical and methodological development of Solidarity Economy and Rural Extension actions. This thesis is marked by a decolonial matrix methodology, inspired by the theory of Sociology of Absences and Emergencies by Boaventura de Souza Santos and by the theory of Communication and Social Mediations by Jesús Martín-Barbero, with the exercise of writing, theory, criticism and interpretation of data using the Experience Translation method of Boaventura de Souza Santos. The results of this exercise presented an invisible reality to the eyes of those who do not know the experience of FEICOOP and gave rise to a methodological basis for organizing the fair that has the potential to help and the emergence of new methodologies for a Rural Extension that is concerned as much as with the realities intercultural aspects present in the daily life of the Solidarity Economy, as well as in the daily life of social realities that value a decolonial development model, or furthermore, an alternative model to development.