Collective strategies of commercialization of açaí and discursive ambiguity around sustainability in northeastern Pará

Abstract

In northeastern Pará, the reduction of biodiversity in the floodplain ecosystem, caused by intensive açaí management practices, generates various socio-environmental consequences. Some social organizations involved in the açaí commercialization circuit, which expressed the need to reverse this situation have developed practices and discourses with their associates that are presented as more sustainable. In view of the complexity of these constructions, the present study aimed to verify dissonance and consonance between discourses and practices related to socio-environmental sustainability, propagated by leaders of these social organizations and riverine farmers, involved in the commercialization of açaí from Guajará de Baixo Island, in Cametá– PA. Thus, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three riverside farmers linked to local associations and sixteen non-associated farmers, as well as with two representatives of collective instruments active in the organization and commercialization of açaí produced by agro-extractivist farmers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the Iramuteq software was used to facilitate the analysis of the discourse of these interlocutors. The theoretical contributions of the Actor-Oriented Perspective and its cornerstones grounded the analyses. The results obtained reveal that, if on the one hand, the stimulus to the configuration of sustainability by collective devices leads to management practices of açaí groves more concerned with the proper use of the biophysical environment by riverine farmers associated with such devices, on the other hand, market pressures for high production have triggered marketing strategies dissociated from the discourse of sustainability created by these social actors.