Research partnership for an agroecology-based solidarity economy in Bolivia and Brazil

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Objectives: The partnership combines three research teams to deepen their interdisciplinary skills for participatory action research with community organisations developing agroecological innovation as a crucial means towards sustainable, socially equitable development. The three research teams are: Open University, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP in São Paolo, Brazil) and the Comunidad de Estudios Jaina (CEJ) in southern Bolivia. Their partnership aims to: - identify and strengthen community capacities for an agroecology-based solidarity economy, in response to needs and demands of traditional lower-income communities; and.- develop, combine, test and refine culturally-grounded research methods for making those community capacities more visible, as a basis to strengthen them through multi-stakeholder knowledge co-production. Integrated expertise: Within the broad area of agri-food sustainability, the three research teams bring diverse expertise (methodological, thematic and disciplinary) which will be integrated through transdisciplinary research. This addresses real-world problems in order to overcome the distance between specialized and lay knowledges, as well as between research and policy. The results will present an innovative methodology in the project's handbook and final report.Activities:Each research team will form an action-research group with members of relevant communities; some already agreed to participate in the project. They will plan a series of three workshops to be held in each case-study area: the Valle Central (Bolivia), Brazil's Litoral Norte; and Brazil's Baixada Santista. In each area, the third workshop will attract many more participants to discuss the results, the project's indicators of success and practical use of the research method.Meanwhile the Latin American and International Advisory Panels will maintain contact with wider networks, especially the FAO's agroecology programme. Final project-wide conference will present the draft outputs. This conference will bring together representatives of community participants, support organisations, public authorities (local, state and Federal Ministries), other Federal organisations and Latin American contributors to the FAO's agroecology programme.Project outputs will emphasise methods relevant to agroecological innovation of traditional communities for a solidarity economy. They will be designed as media tools to gain impact locally, regionally or internationally. - Methodology handbook for practitioners. - Report from each pilot case-study (x 3). - Report on the novel research methodology demonstrating its implementation in practice through the pilot case studies, lessons from them and wider implications (in English). - Films on the communities' knowledge co-production processes, to be commissioned from - professional film-makers. Bilingual subtitles will be added. - Summaries: The printed outputs will be double-sided A3 brochures summarising each of the longer outputs above, including a bar code for easily downloading them from the project website. These will be printed (3000 copies) for wide distribution at numerous relevant events in Latin America.- Papers will be presented at numerous professional conferences and published in academic journals. All these will be in Spanish and/or Portuguese, except that the longer final report and its summary will be in English. All will be available on the project's website, which will continue long after the project. Impacts: The project will have several impacts, in particular: Community organisations' capacities will be enhanced through the research method. Wide participation of their networks will enrich multi-stakeholder knowledge-exchange (diálogos de saberes). Lower-income agroecological communities will demand support measures enhancing their capacities for an agroecology-based solidarity economy.