ALEXSANDRO SOUSA BRITO
Intermunicipal consortiums and the production of public policy: the São Luís Intermunicipal Consortium for Production and Supply (CINPRA-MA) and a proposal for analyzing implementation of public consortiums

Date: 20/03/2017

Examination Board: Renato Sérgio Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ), Georges Gerard Flexor (CPDA/UFRRJ), Cesar Augustus Labre Lemos de Freitas (UFMA), and Eduardo de Lima Caldas (USP).

Abstract: Public consortiums are known for their ability to bring together local government and partnerships around a common problem that would be difficult for a single entity to solve. This study analyzes the experience of a local government consortium, the São Luís Consortium for Production and Supply (CINPRA), and suggests parameters to analyze the implementation of public consortiums. These parameters are constructed to identify these consortiums not only as instruments of policy but also arrangements for policy making or democratic structuring of public policy. They indicate the capacity of these arrangements to produce shared public policies according to how the institutional design of the consortium favors (or discourages) the democratic structuring of these actions. In this sense, this analysis inserts discussions of public consortiums into analysis of public policies, more specifically analysis of policy implementation. We explore the classic models for implementing public policies and propose a strategy for analyzing implementation that considers the democratic-participative aspect in the process of building consortiums. We also briefly explore the historiography and examine other Brazilian and international experience for common elements in the various experiences in the literature. We also analyze the legal and institutional aspects resulting from ratification of regulatory legal framework for consortiums. In the case of CINPRA, the inability to institutionalize this consortium as a space for cooperative and democratic structuring of policy leads to the inability to formulate a common problem required for a cooperative strategy. We find that the supply problem (as it was posed by CINPRA) was not able to capture public interest at the level of local government or society itself, and failed to constitute a public problem, which may partially explain this consortium’s ineffectiveness at drawing the necessary attention to producing public policy between local government and partnerships. For this reason, the “unusual” problem was not sufficient to attain a consistent agreement around membership.

Keywords: CINPRA; public consortium; public policies.

DANIEL DELATIN RODRIGUES
Constructing the theory and practice of ecological restoration and the emergence of new perspectives on the relationships between nature(s) and society(ies)

Date: 01/06/2017

Examination Board: Maria José Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ), Edgar de Brito Lyra Netto (PUC-Rio), Marko Synesio Alves Monteiro (UNICAMP), and Luiz Fernando Duarte de Moraes (EMBRAPA).

Abstract: This work assessed the theory and practice of ecological restoration. Founded as a scientific field in the 1980s, ecological restoration proposed a new type of engagement with biodiversity that differed considerably from the preservationist and conservationist strategies of the previous century. Rather than merely protecting or conserving, the goal of ecological restoration is to create ecosystems; various controversies on how new ecosystems can be created will involve specialists in this field. This study traces the establishment of ecological restoration and dialogs with sociology and anthropology to highlight the horizons of action for these practices. Three main lines structure the study: analysis of editorials from two specialized publication from 1981 to 2016 to identify the most problematic issues defined by scientists in the field, analysis of how the field developed in Brazil, and discussion of the relationships between ecological restoration, ruralities, and agriculture in Brazil. The aim is to circumscribe the emergence of different forms of ecological restoration. We show that theory and practice in this field are irrevocably linked to three aspects: the type of science scientists consider appropriate for defining activities, definition of a reference system to guide scientists in creating ecosystems, and different understandings of human/nonhuman relations. Ecological restoration is intended to function by planning potential relationships among a multiplicity of agents; in this study, ecological restoration is considered an (eco)political technology involves the creation and modulation of relations that are not only ecological but socio-ecological.

Keywords: ecology.

VANESSA SCHOTTZ RODRIGUES
National School Meal Program: controversies over acquisition of products from family farmers

Date: 31/07/2017

Examination Board: Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Renato Sergio Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ), Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ), Luciene Burlandy Campos de Alcântara (UFF), and Inês Rugani Ribeiro de Castro (UERJ).

Abstract: Since 2003, the National School Meal Program (PNAE) has undergone changes involving the reformulation of its goals, principles, and guidelines, as well as its operational design from the intersectoral perspective of food and nutritional security (FNS). The legal framework for the program, which was ratified in 2009, is intended to establish a link between the supply of healthy food in schools, the educational process, and family-based agriculture, recognizing school meals as a human right. In line with some principles of FNS, some changes were made in program operations, principally with regard to the dynamics of public acquisition of food: at least 30% of the funds allocated must be set aside for direct purchase of products from family-based agriculture with no need for a bidding process. This study assesses the historical trajectory and recent reformulation of the PNAE from an angle that has not yet been thoroughly explored in the analysis of public policies: its instruments. The objective was to answer the following questions, using an approach that focuses on instrumentation of public action: i) how the process of selecting instruments to operationalize food acquisition from family-based agriculture took place; ii) which FNS principles were incorporated into the instruments; iii) which actors participated in the process and what interactions were established between them; iv) what public controversies were present. We show that the context of strengthening the dynamics of social/state interfaces and the government’s increased permeability to FNS-related alterations created opportunities for coalitions of actors (governmental and non-governmental) linked to the defense of FNS causes and family-based agriculture to articulate themselves around this new legal framework. These actors worked to reorient the guidelines of PNAE and also to participate in the selection of instruments. The introduction of new acquisition mechanisms into the PNAE led to new controversies, since the changes affected the interface between public action and a very stable market. Mapping by the PNAE Managing Committee and Advisory Group (formal spaces to regulate the program) indicated that the main controversies surrounded the following issues: i) selection of the modality to operationalize purchasing from family agriculture; ii) the adoption of selection criteria linked to the guidelines of PNAE that replaced guidelines based on the lowest bid; iii) definition of pricing methodology; iv) defining a yearly sales limit; v) connecting the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) and the PNAE. Investigating the dynamics associated with constructing this instrument shows the dynamics associated with their creation, which are seen to be just as important as the principles and objectives that guide public policy, particularly for innovative intersectoral approaches such as FNS.

Keywords: National School Meal Program; instruments of public policy; food and nutrition security; family farming; public procurement.

LUIS CLAUDIO MONTEIRO DE MATTOS
A time between droughts: overcoming drought-caused social calamities through actions in defense of coexistence with the semi-arid region

Date: 29/08/2017

Examination Board: Peter May (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Jorge Osvaldo Romano (CPDA/UFRRJ), Maria José Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ), Roberto Marinho Alves da Silva (UFRN), and Ghislaine Duque (UFCG).

Abstract: The drought currently affecting the Brazilian semi-arid region since 2011 is quite different from others in times past. Although this drought is considered the most intense in history, its social impacts are significantly less intense now than they have been in the past; there are no records of social calamities or riots. Part of these different social impacts are related to a new way of mitigating drought, which was gradually developed over three decades of political and social transformations in the region. This project focuses on three aspects of these transformations: (i) the characteristics of the local rural population who comprise society in the region; (ii) the agro-ecological relations of the systems that were disseminated in recent years; and (iii) the process of mobilizing civil society to construct new policies for the semi-arid zone. Intensity of droughts was compared using climate data from the Brazilian Center for Weather Forecasting and Climatic Studies (INPE). We then move to participatory appraisals of the agroecological systems and subsystems referring to an increased ability to adapt to semi-arid conditions and drought, which are responsible for mitigating impacts by converting natural capital into other assets for the families. The multifunctionality and multiple activities of the rural dwellers in this region also play a crucial role in the stability of the systems and food security. Finally, we examine the trajectory of the public policy development process that combined the notions of living with semi-arid conditions and a focus on family farming in policies for facing and promoting development. Civil society played a decisive role in this trajectory.

ANDREA SIMONE RENTE LEÃO
On the road to the highway: paths towards (and detours away from) the Sustainable BR-163 Plan as a concept for development in the Amazon

Date: 30/08/2017

Examination Board: Renato Sergio Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ), Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ), Gilberto de Souza Marques (UFPA), and Antonia do Socorro Pena da Gama (UFOPA).

Abstract: This project examines the 2006 Regional and Sustainable Development Plan for the area influenced by the Cuiabá-Santarém Highway (known as the Sustainable BR-163 Plan). The objective is to show the routes toward and distractions from development in the region based on analysis of the conditions and catalysts that occurred in the Pará portion of the Cuiabá-Santarém highway as a result of the decision to finish paving this stretch. This decision led to the mobilization of economic and social sectors in the region, government action, and formulation of the Sustainable BR-163 Plan as a plan for alternative political action based on sustainable regional development, although this plan was ultimately not effective as a guiding tool for actions beyond the paving effort. From the processes of building and completing the Cuiabá-Santarém highway (themselves based on the “Vargas era” up to the Lula government), we develop a historical trajectory of the facts that led the federal government and local civil society in Pará to draft the Sustainable BR-163 Plan. This study is descriptive, based on literature and document survey. Next, the supporting area was defined to complement as well as refer to descriptions of development for the region and the Sustainable BR-163 Plan, through thirty-eight interviews conducted in the area where the Cuiabá-Santarém highway cuts through Pará (seven municipalities and one district), from Santarém to Castelo dos Sonhos. The conclusion is that the Sustainable BR-163 Plan did not reach its ultimate goal, and what could have been a new concept of development based on activities agreed between the government and civil society “for the” Amazon did not materialize. Again, the story describes government actions that did not achieve their objectives, only completing what was in the interest of the government, which were gradually replaced by those supporting the prevailing economic interests, strengthening the rhetoric that political regions in the Amazon region were and continue to be top-down in nature.

Keywords: Development; Amazonia; Sustainable BR-163 Plan.

SANDRO AUGUSTO VIEGAS LEÃO
Soy agribusiness and regional dynamics in western Pará

Date: 31/08/2017

Examination Board: Sergio Pereira Leite (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Karina Kato (CPDA/UFRRJ), Renato Sergio Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ), Raimunda Nonata Monteiro (UFOPA), and Paulo Roberto Raposo Alentejano (UERJ).

Abstract: This study analyzes the transformations caused and the dynamics resulting from the expansion of soy agribusiness in western Pará from 1997 to 2016, connected with the occupation of the frontier, particularly Santarém and Itaituba. In Santarém, we examine economic and social processes, starting with the installation and operation of a grain port and production of soybeans in the region; in Itaituba, we explore the consequences of installing a complex of ports for transhipment of grain loads. There are two main theoretical lines for reflection; the first is based on modernization of agriculture and interpretations of Brazilian agribusiness and its effects in western Pará, while the second is based on approaches to territorial expansion in Brazil and the Amazon region according to the concepts of frontiers, pioneer fronts, and expansion fronts. Primary sources were used, including data collection in the field and interviews with strategic actors, as well as secondary data and bibliographic review. We conclude that the region was transformed by the expansion of soy agribusiness and logistics investments to facilitate the flow of agricultural production in the state of Mato Grosso. Greater demand in the land market is related to its expropriation from former settlers in the face of market pressures, and prices are being reformulated in certain areas. Settlers follow the frontier dynamics, seeking new and more accessible areas farther from the main highways and centers where they could sell surplus family production. This movement directly affects the concentration of land and re-conversion of areas previously used to produce a variety of foods to meet the demands of the local market, with grain monocultures for export. The construction of a port complex, based on legal and institutional changes, demonstrates political articulation between the government and national and multinational companies in the soybean production chain, as well as strategic direction of public and private investments in the region in order to take advantage of multimodal transportation, with highways and waterways that can generate economies of scale for outbound logistics.

Keywords: soy agribusiness; western Pará; frontier.

GILMARA GOMES DA SILVA SARMENTO
“Some people only seek us out when they are hurting:” health, illness, and death in the production of political capital

Date: 01/09/2017

Examination Board: Elisa Guaraná de Castro (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros (CPDA/UFRRJ), Thereza Cristina Cardoso Menezes (CPDA/UFRRJ), Marcos Otavio Bezerra (UFF), and Moacir Gracindo Soares Palmeira (UFRJ).

Abstract: This ethnographic study addresses the implications of aid in the political configuration of a municipality in northern Rio de Janeiro state. We begin with the finding that most local politicians were involved in providing informal healthcare assistance; these various mediations to meet the demands of illness and death involved transporting patients to the doctor, help obtaining hospital beds, scheduling medical appointments or surgeries, intervention to shorten wait times for procedures, and payment for funeral expenses. As the field research progressed, the centrality of the health field as an arena for the production of political capital became even more evident, since the electoral success of some of these politicians was seen to be almost exclusively associated with their activities in this area. The reputations of many of these politicians were their main source of political legitimation. However, their position within this universe of “assistance” was not as simple as it seemed, because it demanded a certain ethical conduct. This kind of “assistance” could produce politicians but also could demoralize them, because while aid in moments of suffering and pain can generate an unpayable moral debt, at the least sign of interest the politician’s reputation could be ruined, since these life domains were considered non-negotiable. This project consequently attempts to understand the moral logics that make it possible for practices of aid, favors, and social work in the health area to constitute a modality for political establishment and representation.

Keywords: aid; health; local politics; political capital.

MARIA GEOVANIA LIMA MANOS
Socio-technical controversies about food biofortification in Brazil: research and its (dis)connections with the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy

Date: 05/10/2017

Examination Board: John Wilkinson (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Renato Sergio Maluf (CPDA/UFRRJ), Fátima Portilho (CPDA/UFRRJ), Virginia Martins da Matta (EMBRAPA), and Irio Luiz Conti (FASA).

Abstract: Biofortification of food consists of using conventional plant breeding techniques, genetic engineering (obtaining genetically modified organisms, GMOs), or agronomy-based fertilizing to obtain food crops with greater quantities of vitamins and minerals. Biofortification research is justified by global data on the prevalence of micronutrient deficiency malnutrition, deficiencies in the agrifood system’s ability to provide necessary micronutrients (specifically for rural and poor groups), the viewpoint that poverty and malnutrition feed into each other, and the notion that biofortified seeds can reach those populations; it is a complementary strategy that can enhance others, while the problems of poverty and malnutrition are not significantly reduced or eliminated. The HarvestPlus international biofortification research program was launched in 2002 and is intended to reach one billion people by 2030. In Brazil, research on food biofortification has been conducted since 2003 by the Biofort Network, coordinated by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) in partnership with fourteen Brazilian universities and international institutions. It is currently based on seven areas of research and has made available varieties of five basic foods (beans, cowpeas, corn, sweet potatoes, and cassava), and since 2012 has provided seeds to family farmers as part of technology adoption studies. In this way, these foods became part of school meals. We consequently maintain that based on these actions, social actors involved with food and nutrition security began to identify uncertainties related to this technology and began debates that led to social and technical controversies resulting from conflict between the biofortification strategy in Brazil and the principles of food and nutritional security (namely food sovereignty and the human right to adequate food) and its main justifications, which are related to agroecological family agriculture as a foundation for fulfilling its principles and objectives. This study consequently maps these socio-technical controversies, identifying their spokespersons and their debate terms (uncertainties they linked to biofortification), knowledge gaps, and opportunities for convergence, while attempting to make the controversy as intelligible as possible for scientists, policymakers, and other social actors. We also maintain the perspective of the conventions and actor/network theories, cartographic methods (STEPS, KASTRUP, and ESCÓSSIA, 2015), and ‘following the actors’ (LATOUR, 2012) during technical and scientific events that occurred from May 2013 to October 2016. Content analysis utilizing webQDA software (COSTA and AMADO, 2017) was also used to codify the terms of the debate. These were grouped into thirteen topics, highlighting the ‘lack of public debate on biofortification,’ ‘dispute over the concept of food quality,’ and ‘uncertainties associated with the consumption of biofortified foods.’ This study not only makes this controversy more understandable, but also identifies opportunities for convergence. These include ‘construction of a social and political commitment regarding the management and use of this technology’ and ‘a set of research that can be carried out in partnership between actors in food and nutritional security and the Biofort Network,’ recognizing the meaning of ‘Science under Construction.’

Keywords: socio-technical controversies; biofortification of food; National Food and Nutrition Security Policy.

DAN GABRIEL D’ONOFRE ANDRADE SILVA CORDEIRO
Hospitality as technology in Rio de Janeiro’s Vale do Café in the 2000s: production and consumption

Date: 07/11/2017

Examination Board: Fátima Portilho (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Claudia Job Schmitt (CPDA/UFRRJ – Co-Supervisor), Maria José Carneiro (CPDA/UFRRJ), Sandra Maria Correa de Sá Carneiro (UERJ), Maria Amália Silva Alves de Oliveira (UFRJ), and Alexandre Panosso Netto (USP).

Abstract: This study analyzes the processes of production and consumption of commercial hospitality in the Vale do Café, discussing hospitality and tourism in rural areas, consumption and material culture allied with technology to provide support for analysis of the tourism phenomenon in Vale do Café. The social actors include, on the one hand, established actors that are more stable in regard to occupation of tourist territory (hosts), and on the other hand, a group that voluntarily travels to this region to consume hospitality services (guests). The contact between these actors raises a discussion about the emergence of a new form of relationship between the state, market, society, and material culture. While classical studies of “the rural” were limited to the human groups that dedicated themselves to agriculture, livestock, and extractivism, today other social configurations vie for this stable position. The objective of this study is to understand that rural worlds are being constructed through material culture powered by hospitality technology. The spatial focus of the research is Rio de Janeiro state’s Vale do Café, a tourist region that has been represented in the efforts of the National Tourism Policy through its Tourism Regionalization Program. The study is multidisciplinary, combining methodological strategies and resources to collect a variety of data through participant observation, interviews, and photographs. The data analysis involved dialog between various sources through triangulation. We conclude that production and consumption of commercial hospitality services (reception, lodging, food, and entertainment) reflect the coexistence between technological operators and the structure for the technological practice of hospitality. Most notable is the existence of a social category in rural Rio de Janeiro: commercial hosts.

Keywords: hospitality; tourism; technology; material culture; Vale do Café.

ANDREIA TECCHIO
Poverty and territorialization of public action in the disputed midwest territory (Santa Catarina, Brazil)

Date: 11/12/2017

Examination Board: Nelson Giordano Delgado (CPDA/UFRRJ – Supervisor), Karina Kato (CPDA/UFRRJ), Jorge Osvaldo Romano (CPDA/UFRRJ), José Renato Sant’Anna Porto (UFF), and Ademir Antonio Cazella (UFSC).

Abstract: The territorialization of public action consists of implementing a set of public policies in a single territory and includes participation by actors in government and civil society who are relevant to politics in the social management process. This is an important innovation of the Brazilian government, since it permits problems to be approached in specific spaces in order to serve specific social segments in different ways, tailoring policies to unique needs. In Brazil, the territorialization of public action (which is meant to combat poverty, among other objectives) began during the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) with the foundation of the Sustainable Development of Rural Territories Program (PRONAT) in 2003, linked to the Secretary of Land Development (TDS) in the Ministry of Agrarian Development (ADD). Along similar lines, in 2008 the Citizenship Territory Program (CTP) was launched by same ministry and the Civil Cabinet. This study analyzes the dissonance between poverty and territorialized public activities directed at facing this phenomenon in the disputed midwest territory in the state of Santa Catarina. Methodological resources include documentary research and field interviews. The documentary research included analysis of texts, documents, legislation, promotional material, minutes from meetings of PRONAT and the CTP drafted by the federal government, by ADD/TDS and by the disputed territory. The field research was conducted between 2014 and 2016, with interviews of 38 institutional actors involved in implementation and/or social management at PRONAT and CTP, as well as 40 families benefited by the Bolsa Família family cash transfer program who live in rural and urban areas. The results indicate that one of the main factors in poverty in the disputed territory is access to the land, since the rural poor population’s land was historically expropriated. PRONAT has mainly benefited farmers organized into cooperatives, unions, and social movements. The poorer rural populations are not part of these organizations, and consequently did not take part in the Territorial Development Council (CODETER), and we did not find any indications that federal, state, or municipal government expressed any interest in representing this group or encouraging them to participate in this council, or to distribute PRONAT resources to the interests of this social segment. CTP activities helped improve living conditions for the poor population in the disputed midwest territory, but policies did not address the mean motives behind poverty or even address the variety of situations experienced by these populations.

Keywords: poverty spatialization; experience of poverty; territorialization of public action.