ATES SERVICES AND POWERS ASYMMETRY IN RURAL SETTLEMENTS

Abstract

The Technical, Social and Environmental Service (ATES) made in rural settlements is analyzed in the present paper. The field of analysis is the settlement Ceres, located in Jóia, state of RS. It is also investigating the possibilities of action, influence and work by ates technicians from the account of a field of asymmetric power formed by a number of agencies that establish the settlement as a social space. Among the key players and institutions of social space are: farmers-settlers, the directions of the Movement of Workers without Land (MST), directions for co-direction of the settlement, neighboring farmers for settlement, various networks of relationships, also groups of cooperation and production, regional market networks, and technical advice, which is subject to a given institutional of the ates program. These actors and institutions structured a set of autonomy for the participants of the social space, which fits the scope of action of the ates agents involved. This restricts the support service to the entertwining power manifested in the social space of the settlement. The research was conducted between May and July 2006, which used techniques for generation of quantitative and qualitative data.