5.2 | Enabling cooperative collective dynamics through conflict resolution
Along the different phases of pre-establishment, establishment and maintenance, assentamentos face a variety of situations in which conflicts need to be resolved. Sustained interaction with others in daily life requires means to settle disagreements and coordinate actions, especially when spaces are shared, resources are scarce, and future livelihoods depend strongly on what neighbors can do together. A lack of capacity to resolve conflicts has led some assentamentos to experience difficulties in setting up collective projects, especially due to a “tendency” of attributing responsibility for crises or shocks to “the cooperative"(19:32).
On the other hand, in relatively more ‘successful’ assentamentos, an increased capacity to work together led some families to opt to share their “individual” parcels and install a system in which production parcels are assigned according to the size and the labor capacity of every family [21:13].
This integrated and cooperative system allowed them to build a wide range of collective infrastructure for service provision—including restaurants, laundries, bakeries and supermarkets—which not only diversified jobs in the community, but also allowed their income to be more stable (19:xx).
A high degree of cooperation (and access to know-how) also lead residents in these communities to be able to gather enough resources for building an agroindustry for processing their raw goods—and those of their neighbors—and sell to companies and organizations across the country. Terra Vista, instead of just continuing to export high quality cocoa for European manufacturers—already a memorable triumph of their cooperative, linked to agroecological know-how—are now starting to make chocolate and cosmetics from their crops to commercialize in those markets. COPAVA produces cachaça (a sugarcane spirit) and several other agrarian processed (mainly dairy) goods and packed products (rice, beans) for selling and overing internal consumption (interview 19).
The importance of solving conflicts to enable cooperative collective dynamics was also a key lesson from our experience in ecovillages. Some of them, such as ZEGG and Sieben Linden, master techniques and tools to resolve interpersonal friction in living and working together. In addition, they incorporate strong common visions.
Apparently, the use of such techniques and tools is essential to explain how ecovillagers are able to live and work together and persist in tight communities throughout time. It is important to highlight that those techniques and tools operate under principles of experimentation; they bring flexibility at the same time that they create room for learning with trial and error.
>>> 6 | Insights to address sustainablity in assentamentos