The ordinary, cultures, and management: the organizing processes within the handicraft sector in Piúma (ES), Brazil

O ordinário, as culturas e a gestão: os processos de organizar do artesanato em Piúma (ES)

Abstract

This article aims to understand the ordinary management of the resistances and forms of survival, organized in everyday practices that are in part product and producers of cultural plurality in the field of handicrafts in the city of Piúma, Brazil. From the perspective of practice-based studies (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011), we articulate theoretically the approach of ordinary management (Carrieri, Perdigão & Aguiar, 2014) of craft production (Sennett, 2009) and the certeaunian contributions. These contributions are directed towards the recognition of the games of force relations within a cultural plurality. In proposing the focus on this plurality, this article fills a gap, because in previous studies on ordinary management, this cultural plurality has not been specifically addressed. The proposal was supported by a qualitative research, accomplished through document collection, participant observation, and unstructured interviews with five artisans from Piúma. In the analysis of the data, we articulate the narrative practice in De Certeau (1985) and narrative temporality in Ricoeur (1994). As results, we identify different networks of force relations in which artisans are involved in organizing practices of ordinary management. In them, cultures have shown themselves as plural productions, moving away from the view of a popular culture, external to everyday practices or submissive to other external pressures. This article contributes to an alternative view at the Ordinary Management of handicrafts and other organizational actions based on cultural plurality.

Keywords:
Ordinary Management; Cultural Practices; Organizing; Handicraft

Resumo

O objetivo deste artigo é compreender a gestão ordinária enquanto resistência e forma de sobrevivência, organizada em práticas cotidianas que são em parte produto e produtoras da pluralidade cultural no campo do artesanato em Piúma. Dentro da perspectiva dos estudos baseados em práticas (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011), articulamos teoricamente a abordagem da gestão ordinária (Carrieri, Perdigão & Aguiar, 2014), da produção artesanal (Sennett, 2009) e das contribuições certeaunianas voltadas para o reconhecimento dos jogos de relações de forças dentro de uma pluralidade cultural. Ao propor o foco nessa pluralidade, o artigo preenche uma lacuna, pois em estudos anteriores sobre a gestão ordinária essa pluralidade cultural não foi abordada de maneira específica. A proposição foi sustentada por uma pesquisa qualitativa, realizada por meio de coleta de documentos, observação participante e entrevistas não estruturadas com cinco artesãos de Piúma. Na análise dos dados articulamos a prática narrativa em De Certeau (1985) e a temporalidade narrativa em Ricoeur (1994). Como resultados, identificamos diferentes redes de relações de forças nas quais os artesãos se inserem no organizar das práticas de gestão ordinária. Nelas as culturas se mostraram produções plurais, afastando-se da leitura de uma cultura popular externa às práticas cotidianas ou submissa a outras pressões externas. O artigo potencializa um olhar alternativo sobre a gestão ordinária do artesanato e de outros fazeres organizacionais baseados na pluralidade cultural.

Palavras-chave:
Gestão Ordinária; Práticas Culturais; Organizar; Artesanato

Introduction

The so-called ordinary management (Carrieri, Perdigão & Aguiar, 2014) has been approached in different ways in organizational studies, exploring contributions of authors from various fields of knowledge to offer alternative ways to deal with types of organizations that are not often investigated in this study area. Inserted in this view, we studied management beyond the techniques that inhabit the term (Korica, Nicolini & Johnson, 2015). To this end, our goal was to understand ordinary management as resistances and forms of survival, organized in everyday practices that are in part product and producers of cultural plurality in the field of handicrafts in the city of Piúma, Brazil.

The approach adopted here recognizes the everyday management practices of ordinary individuals, assuming a theoretical perspective of practice-based studies (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011) applied to informal organizations, considering management as a creative act, carried out by bricolage (Barros & Carrieri, 2015). The study of these bricolage allows us to understand how personal life and business management are articulated in the everyday network of relations of ordinary managers (Carrieri et al., 2014). In this scenario, we distanced ourselves from the common sense of the term organization, which indicates a defined structure, and treated it as organizing processes of permanent constructions (Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016), placed in space and time (Czarniawska, 2004). This perspective allows the reading of the processes of organizing as unfinished products of complex social interactions, extolling the importance of studying other organizational forms, for example concerning the resistance of which residents of Brazilian favelas are part (Brulon & Peci, 2018; Noronha, 2018).

Although organizing has already been adopted to discuss the management and culture in a case of teaching about Pernambuco’s maracatu (Santos & Helal, 2018), we advance in this perspective by offering a theoretical and empirical contribution, emphasizing the association of resistances and forms of survival in the process of organizing in the ordinary management of handicraft, the marginalized art among the so-called fine arts (Figueiredo & Marquesan, 2014), which has great economic, social, and cultural importance to the Brazilian population (Leite & Sehnem, 2018). We consider handicraft as an activity surrounded by practices that incorporate skills and disciplines in their productions (Betjemann, 2008), surviving in contemporary society in an artistic know-how of manual production (Sennett, 2009), through knowledge constructions that occur through practice (Figueiredo & Cavedon, 2015; Gherardi, 2016).

In this study, we contributed to the need of studying the management of handicraft, however, differently from authors such as Leite and Sehnem (2018), we step away from the understanding that the management of handicraft is just a matter of planning and control. We focused on the silent practices (De Certeau, 1998), on the management marginalized by administrative theories (Carrieri et al., 2014), and offer a contribution to the field of study by understanding resistance practices and forms of survival that exist in everyday life, but that were little explored in the study of the management of handicraft. We recognize, currently, the artisan gains the status of a profession (Sapiezinskas, 2012), and there is pressure on their crafts in function of the capitalist institutionalized production modes (Betjemann, 2008). In this scenario, there are authors who suggest there is a reconfiguration of the practices and knowledge, generating the end of the cultural tradition and of handicraft itself (Marquesan & Figueiredo, 2014), characterizing the artisan almost as a passive figure in the process.

De Certeau (2012) allows us to identify in these reconfigurations a game of force relations, with everyday practices referring to plural anonymous cultures, not worse or better than a monolithic culture, called traditional. In this game, for the author, and in the meaning adopted here, cultures are ways of living that are part of social interactions, being marked by different forms of production and consumption, which, at the same time, compose different cultures and establish exchanges among them. In this production, the ways of making arise, i.e., the practices marked by everyday creativities that go beyond a place of power that could impose a monolithic culture. Therefore, there is no sense in just considering this culture and ignore the others, composed by different productions and ways of making, but with exchanges between themselves in the game of force relations.

Based on the author’s ideas, we consider the artisan does not act as a simple passive accomplice of transformations of handicraft, as suggested by Marquesan and Figueiredo (2014). We understand cultures as plural phenomena (re)produced in everyday relations (De Certeau, 2012). Relations that pass through the bases of traditional cultures, as well as through the globalization of markets of styles, causing a plural and transitory effect in cultural interactions (Hall, 2002). In other words, we consider the handicraft resides and resists in a multicultural environment, in which artisans are not simply consumers of a traditional culture, or of a culture based on the market, or of any other. We believe they are also producers of these cultural everyday contexts, capable of performing the affirmation of Sennett (2009) that handicraft is still alive.

To discuss this plurality and resistance, we went to the city of Piúma, state of Espírito Santo (ES), Brazil, the so-called “City of Shells,” marked by the tradition of handicraft production with these molluscs, considered a source of culture and income for a large portion of the population (Bodart, 2016). In addition, we posed the following question: how does the organizing of ordinary management practices happen as resistances and forms of survival, which are part of the production of cultural plurality and are influenced by it in the field of handicrafts in Piúma? The empirical research was of qualitative nature, and was performed by collecting documents, carrying out unstructured interviews, and conducting participant observation with five artisans. The empirical evidence were analyzed by means of a dialogue between the conception of narrative practice in De Certeau (1985) and the narrative temporality in Ricoeur (1994).

The “City of Shells” was chosen, as we identified in the practices of handicraft in the region reconfigurations related with different relevant aspects: the demand of capitalism, such as the concern with the participation in the local sales market of souvenirs; the current economic and financial situation in the country, such as the difficulty to obtain employment; and the entry of imported low cost products such as jewelry sold at the place where the artisans sell their pieces. Along with other factors, these aspects are part of the everyday cultural dynamics of handicraft in the region. This indicates the relevance and justifies the choice for ordinary management that we approach in this study, that of the artisan of “the city of shells.” It occurs in a cultural tradition tensioned by these factors in the quest for survival. Around those tensions, we defend the existence of a cultural plurality that offers a distinct view from that of ordinary management studies.

Although Anderson (2008), Junquilho, Almeida and Silva (2012), Oliveira and Cavedon (2013), Carrieri et al. (2014), Barros and Carrieri (2015), Aguiar, Carrieri and Souza (2016), among others, do not deny cultural plurality when offering their contributions to the study of management regarding its ordinary aspects, they do not address specifically how this diversity involves the relationships of resistance and forms of survival in the organizing of a production such as handicraft. To fill this gap, this article contributes to the discussion of alternative paths to study management, ways to organize, cultural diversity, and handicraft itself, placing the artisan as an ordinary manager, protagonist of his/her history of survival within cultural plurality.

To offer this contribution, after this introduction, we developed the following discussions: the possibilities offered by De Certeau to the study of ordinary management practices; the processes of organizing as ways to resist; and the relationships of this organizing of ordinary management as resistances and forms of survival of the artisans within the plurality of cultures. Hereafter, we expose the research methodological aspects that showed those relations empirically, discuss their results, and weave some final considerations.

Michel De Certeau: concepts and contributions to the study of ordinary management

The search for alterity and the occult in everyday life make De Certeau a thinker that breaks with the scientific dogma of his time (Ferraço, Soares & Alves, 2017). For the author, science reduces the other to an institutionality that is unable to dominate it (De Certeau, 2008). It is between the lines of everyday lives that De Certeau (1998) seeks ordinary individuals, who are able to weave their own stories through small and quiet acts of resistance. This posture aids the studies that aim to understand how management is manifested in small business (Carrieri et al., 2014). Until now forgotten by the history of administration (Barros & Carrieri, 2015), ordinary individuals are seen as business managers who survive in the invisibility of scientific narratives on administration.

The notion of ordinary management arose to break with the idea of management as a phenomenon performed by specialized people homogeneously. Ordinary management manifests within invisibility, within subalternity, within the everyday and silent micro-practices. It is articulated within cultural everyday contexts and, as revealed by De Certeau (1998), in these everyday contexts new practices arise. We consider the everyday life to be permeated by the coexistence of various cultures (Hall, 2002), and that the ordinary individuals have various uses for this cultural heterogeneity. By adopting this view, we assume an understanding of the social universe through practices, so that symbolism, knowledge, and cultures become phenomena interpreted based on the ontology of social practices (Reckwitz, 2002). Therefore, in this article, cultures are understood through everyday practices, which produce and are influenced by them (De Certeau, 1985).

De Certeau (1998) dimensions these everyday practices in four concepts: space, place, strategies, and tactics. The space, for De Certeau, goes beyond the objective levels of analysis, it is “. . . a practiced place” (p. 202) In their turn, places are visual dissimulations erected by the law of a place of previously established power. Both are not antagonistic dimensions, as they coexist. The author reveals this characteristic when dealing with the city and its uses: the city, in terms of architectures and uses defined by the public power is a place, but in terms of the different uses people make of these architectures in everyday practices, it turns into a space. An application of these concepts is to investigate the multiple uses of public spaces, designed as spaces of relation between power impositions and resistance practices (Jenlink, 2007), such as the art of graffiti (Frers & Meier, 2017).

Within the discussion on ordinary management, relations between public spaces and places are part of the everyday life of the ordinary manager who uses the public space in a transgressive manner regarding its established purpose. In handicraft, artisans’ trajectories, selling their products in the midst of bustling beaches and forming fairs in public spaces, carry with them everyday practices that revert the logic of utilization of cities. Analyzing these practices show the dwelling (Dosse, 2009), in resistances and force relations in these spaces through what De Certeau (1998) calls strategies and tactics.

The author’s understanding of strategy differs from the traditional definition of organizational strategy (Silva, Carrieri & Souza, 2011). De Certeau (1998) defines strategy as a calculation of force relations, raised from a place of power in the network relations. Based on these places, the strategies defy time and space to condition individuals to maintain a certain order. However, this maintenance does not imply the simple submission of practitioners, as its transgression occurs by the tactics. They are also calculations of force relations, but do not have an established place of power. To perform them, the ordinary individuals take advantage of momentary opportunities, when elaborating actions through the bricolage of elements of the strategies with other elements that refer to resistance, without rupturing the strategy. The tactics allow transgressive actions regarding the established place of power (De Certeau, 1998). The complex relationship between these conceptions of strategy and tactics in management was already addressed in other organizational studies in various organizational spaces, such as research laboratories (Paco-Cunha, Gomes & Bicalho, 2009), markets and fairs (Silva et al., 2011), and multinational companies (Corbett-Etchevers & Mounoud, 2011).

Due to the restriction of the places of power on which the ordinary managers can count, studying ordinary management we are turning to the tactics, without excluding the strategies, as the two coexist. Privileged places of power and strategies are also established around ordinary management. The resistance in De Certeau (1998) is always conditioned to this coexistence. The practitioners are involved in networks of power relations and in the possibility to resist. It is in this everyday context of multiple force relations, between strategies and tactics, places and spaces, that we investigated ordinary management as a form of resistance.

The processes of organizing as ways to resist

Modern thinking and enlightenment reason (Cooper & Burrell, 1988) have influenced organizational studies leading to organization being seen as a homogeneous phenomenon, with a stable structure and well-defined purposes (Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016). This trend was solidified with the systems theory, which led to the need to establish a limit for organizations (Czarniawska, 2008). From the questioning of this traditional view, the idea of organizing arose, in which organizations are permanent construction processes (Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005). Within this reading, organizations are temporary reifications entwined in the space and time of practices (Czarniawska, 2004).

In this article, we approached organizing with the study of ordinary management. Ordinary management is studied through practices that are formed in the midst of everyday network relations (Carrieri et al., 2014). The approximation of the organizing approach with the proposal by De Certeau (1998) is based on this design, since both prospects encompass the understanding of the social world through a transitional lens, socially constructed, focused on supporting everyday practices. It is within these network relations that De Certeau’s social theory allows us to identify the resistance practices of ordinary individuals.

Organizing, as a product of complex social interactions that occur in several places at the same time (Czarniawska, 2004; 2008), has already been used to study some organizational forms associated with the production of resistances, such as the struggles of favela residents regarding public policies (Brulon & Peci, 2018; Noronha, 2018) and the cultural productions of maracatu (Santos & Helal, 2018). In search to advance in this perspective, we analyzed the processes of organizing resistances in the ordinary management of handicraft, making a connection with the contributions by De Certeau (1998).

To understand the organizing of handicraft is to recognize there are network relations , connected in artisans’ practices, allowing their survival. Such practices are inserted in a handicraft know-how that includes a pride relationship in the production of artistic artifacts (Sennett, 2009), which resists to several places of established power, such as the logic of the capitalist market. Throughout this article, we use the term resist to indicate this resistance within the force relations highlighted by De Certeau (1998). According to the author, such relations are marked by the cultural plurality produced, in part, by the resistances and which also influence them. Therefore, we propose an approach with this plurality in order to contribute to the study of the organization of the practice of ordinary management of handicraft.

Ordinary management and the organization of the resistance of artisans in the plurality of cultures

Handicraft involves a know-how in the production of artifacts (Sennett, 2009), repetitive movements that compose a complex relationship of knowledge and discipline (Betjemann, 2008). Through it, handicraft survives even after the productive logic of the Industrial Revolution (Sennett, 2009). Currently, in Brazil, it is the main source of income for many families (Leite & Sehnem, 2018), in addition to offering symbolic meanings for the artisans (Cezar & Fantinel, 2018). By following outside the institutionalized production modes, handicraft production is an act of resistance regarding contemporary industrial production methods. De Certeau (1998) exemplifies this movement by classifying as tactics the reuse of scrap by employees, who take advantage of moments to transgress the rules of the company and produce their handicraft.

This transgression in production also occurs in other modalities and is part of the practical knowledge of the artisan. This knowledge on handicraft does not separate the knowing from the making (Sennett, 2009), i.e., knowledge is not a static possession of artisans (Gherardi, 2016) because it is a phenomenon dynamically (re)constructed in practice (Orlikowski, 2002), immersed in power games (Figueiredo & Cavedon, 2015). Amidst this know-how, the space for reinvention, creativity, and development of skills opens up (Betjemann, 2008; Gherardi, 2016), at the same time as articulations between strategies and tactics occur (De Certeau, 1998) within the ordinary management of the everyday context of handicraft.

Around these relationships, the transmission of knowledge is a sustainable source for the survival of handicraft (Sennett, 2009). Through it, the artisan discovers reinvention and creative capacity add value to the artifacts (Betjemann, 2008; Sennett, 2009), since originality has become an object of desire, generating different definitions of what is good handicraft to those who consume it (Figueiredo, 2014). On its turn, this consumption and the influences related to it become part of the concerns of ordinary management for the survival of the activity. We believe this survival takes place in a multicultural environment (Hall, 2002), permeated by many influences.

For authors like Betjemann (2008), Sapiezinskas (2012), and Marquesan and Figueiredo (2014) it is necessary to recognize these influences, especially in the market, and the way they decharacterize a traditional handicraft culture. However, in this article, we question whether there is any point in speaking of a traditional culture and treat the artisan as a victim who passively sees his/her culture being destroyed. If handicraft required a traditional, homogeneous culture, kept stable for centuries, it would not exist, as what is traditional today is not what was traditional in the past. We support the argument cultural changes include anonymous productions and transgressions of ordinary subjects within various everyday contexts, which produces cultures in the plural, which are also anonymous (De Certeau, 1998, 2012).

We do not deny the influences highlighted. We agree capitalism enters the world of handicraft, exerting multiple implications in the activity (Betjemann, 2008). An example of this is the influence of bodies like the SEBRAE (Brazilian Service of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises), which tends to approach handicraft as business cultures (Marquesan & Figueiredo, 2014; Sapiezinskas, 2012). For example, Leite and Sehnem (2018) discuss models of cultural and social intervention, with the aid of SEBRAE. In a distinct vision, we understand, as pointed out by De Certeau (1998), we should be opposed to strictly economic submission issues, extolling the anthropological character of the cultures that emerge from everyday relations (Poster, 1992).

From this view, resistance practices can emerge (De Certeau, 1998) as well as multiple cultures that go beyond a simple submission to capitalism. They are the results of force relations in which artisans resist, without having to preserve an untouched traditional culture. The artisans themselves want to touch it, transgress the place of power of tradition, a resistance as any other. Creativity, uncontrollable in the relationships that involve everyday practices, leads to this. In addition, capitalism can offer opportunities to its own transgression, and not just impose a way to submissive artisans in their ordinary management.

The study of cultures should consider the forms of resistance as components of complex cultural productions (Poster, 1992). Productions that refer to different uses and possibilities within a multicultural environment, marked, for example, by the traditionalism and market demands. We argue the study of cultures must first investigate the everyday resistance practices, then verify in which commonplace they are situated (De Certeau, 1985). The potential of this proposal was evidenced empirically when we investigate the ordinary management of artisans in Piúma, through the methodology described below.

Methodological aspects

To address management as an ordinary social practice, we used a qualitative research, focused on its complex and substantive forms of manifestation (De Certeau, 1985). As subjects for the research, five artisans were chosen, who are part of the Association of Artisans of Piúma (ASAPI), recognized for the tradition of seashells handicraft. Their choice and ASAPI’s choice considered several aspects: the presence in a location in which handicraft is marked by capitalist demands due to the lack of employment options and competition with imported products; the survival through handicrafts for 30 or more years; and the insertion in different production logic around the local tradition. Concerning the latter, three artisans work exclusively with seashells handicraft and two started with the shells and currently produce artifacts with other materials.

Given the difficulty to access the artisans through the ASAPI and the City Hall, we chose to walk around the city in search of them, talking and asking for directions on the street, until choosing those who met the previously mentioned aspects. Their life stories are imbricated, bypassing ordinary episodes and other distinct ones, which enabled us to analyze different processes of organizing in the ordinary management of handicraft in Piúma.

The first stage of data collection consisted in the realization of five unstructured interviews with the individuals. They allowed a survey of their life narratives related to their survival trajectories in the handicraft activity. Unstructured interviews do not follow pre-established scripts (Fontana & Frey, 2011), thus avoiding directing the narratives (Riessman, 2001). We interviewed the individuals in their homes, which were usually also their workplace. In parallel with the interviews, to reflect on characteristics seen as typical in the history of handicraft in Piúma, we opted for the interpretation of documents (Hodder, 1994). The following documents were collected: old newspapers, photographs, minutes of meetings, the Statute, and the rules of ASAPI. The latter were collected during the observation.

After most of the interviews, we used participant observation to understand in greater depth the processes of production and sale of the handicraft pieces. With this collection technique, we participated in part of their everyday life and we recorded our observations in a field journal (Cavedon, 2014). We justify the use of this technique as we seek what De Certeau (1985, 1998) argues as a deep immersion into the disclosure of everyday practices in their temporalities. The observation took place in different spaces: the artisans’ homes (during the production of the handicraft); at the ASAPI fair (where retail sales happen); and in the activity of “mangueio,” which is selling by walking along the beach. On average, the observations lasted 4 hours per day, carried out from October to January 2016 and from October to December 2017, according to the seasonal nature of the activity in the region.

During the observations of sale processes, one of the authors of this article actively participated with different artisans in the production of the fair, in negotiations with customers, product offerings, among others. However, the observation of the handicraft production did not occur as planned. Some artisans were not producing as they already had a stock of products. Those who were producing worked in their own homes and shared their work time with domestic demands without a setting a specific moment to resume work. This sometimes made us stop the process of observation, as we did not have permission, for example, to spend the night in the artisan’s house. We see it as important to clarify the reader about this limitation in the application of the methodology, which results in the non-monitoring of the production of the handicraft of all individuals, which would be more fruitful. To deal with this limitation, we used data on the production of certain individuals from the interviews and dialogues in other moments of observation.

Data analysis consisted of a dialogue between the narrative temporality in Ricoeur (1994) and the importance of the narrative as a practice in De Certeau (1998). We centered the analyses in the uses of language made by the individuals, as thought by De Certeau, considering “the speech, thus, produces effects, not objects. It is narration, not description. It is an art of saying” (p. 142) An art of saying that is articulated in the present by rearranging the past (De Certeau, 1985). For Ricoeur, the present is always a non-palpable transition. We assumed the present manifests itself in the past in a dialectical way through memory, i.e., the narratives report past events, socially intermediated by the present (Riessman, 2001).

Ricoeur (1994) suggests in the midst of narratives there are articulations (symbolic, cultural, axiological in mimesis I, schematic in mimesis II), which allow us to integrate a theory of action to a theory of narrative. The interpretation of this language of making was analyzed based on De Certeau (1985): we sought to understand the strategies and tactics that are articulated in the networks of social relations of the different narrative productions. The analysis consisted in considering the construction of a narrative made by the researchers themselves. For Ricoeur, mimesis III refers to the role of the reader in extracting his own sense from the plot. De Certeau (1998, 2008) himself considers reading as a practice of appropriation. The field experience and reading of the theory produced a potential for analysis, whose purpose was to understand the narratives in their certeaunian practical sense.

We did not separate past and present, which would be a target for criticism by De Certeau (1985, 2008), because we argue the narratives, the documents, and the journal are in categories of similar meaning, in a dialectical movement between present and past (Ricoeur, 1994). Through various data readings, we organized them in chronological order. Subsequently, we created categories of meaning, to connect the stories and events that dealt with the following themes: narratives concerning the artisans’ lives; the striking episodes in their trajectories; and the everyday experience of handicraft.

The proposed analysis proved to be suitable for this study, since the ordinary management of handicraft in Piúma revealed itself to be interwoven with the past and the present. The resistances and forms of survival were reconstructed. Interactions between the narratives that relate past episodes and the narratives that represent the everyday life were studied. Over the course of this analysis, we believe the object of study is not something given, but produced by its own author (De Certeau, 1985), through the teachings of De Certeau (2008), when he gives us the following message: “. . . may the excluded produce the fiction that narrates himself through a comic or tragic ‘way of speaking,’ that is the ‘truth’” (p. 335). In this production, we relied on the characters which we approached, presented below.

Presenting the context and characters of a narrative

To give the reader a context, we present a brief mapping of the field and of Piúma. The city is located on the south coast of the state of Espírito Santo (ES), Brazil, with a distance of 96 km to Vitória (ES). Initially inhabited by Tupi-Guarani Indians and colonized by Europeans, the region experienced an initial period of great economic growth, due to the ease which the port of the Rio Piúma provided for the exchange of various goods (Bodart, Paula, Marchiori, Almeida & Guimarães, 2014). In 1907, a crisis in the state economy, combined with the conflicts between the Government and the European merchants, made the local economy slow down (Marchiori & Bodart, 2014).

The period of economic stagnation led the population to develop different forms of survival, among which seashells handicraft stood out (Bodart, 2016). In 1960, Piúma was emancipated from the municipality of Iconha (ES) (Bodart et al., 2014). At that time, the inhabitants of the town and the public power assumed seashells handicraft as their own tradition, which intermediated the practice of calling Piúma the “City of Shells” (Lopes, 2016). Seashell crafts and the beautiful beaches attracted people to the city.

Figure 1 represents the main beach of Piúma. It is common to observe a quiet town, with little movement of people and a few stores in operation. However, during periods of vacation and holidays, there is a transformation of the space. We see thousands of people circulating, mainly tourists enjoying the beaches and consuming a wide variety of products. It is due to this flow of tourists that on the main street (by the sea) resided a myriad of street vendors, merchants, tradespeople, etc. The main area of movement of people is around the region of the Dona Carmen Square, which is named after one of the pioneers of seashells handicraft. Due to this movement, currently, the ASAPI fair takes place on this square. The movement of appropriation of the square shall be presented later, here we seek to situate the reader in the city, on the beach, and in the square that is the space of survival of handicraft.

Figure 1
Map of the field in Piúma

The participant observation occurred in the square, on the beach, and in the homes, which were also the artisans’ workshops, and were around two kilometers away from the square. The narratives collected are placed in the present and in the past as one single thing. They emphasize the 1960s, when Piúma began to be called “the City of Shells.” as the basis for the development of the activity in the city. At the same time, an icon of the craft with shells appeared, Dona Carmen. She was a pioneer in boiling the shells before production, which made her artifacts more presentable (Lopes, 2016). Dona Carmen stood out when adding value (Sennett, 2009), in the way of making (De Certeau, 1998), which transgressed the knowledge of handicraft in Piúma until then.

This initiative shows the movement of cultural plurality in the everyday production of handicraft, in invisible practices. However, in this case, it became visible, many adopted it and began to call it a tradition. Then, over time, there seems to be a unique culture and a homogeneous tradition, forgetting that invisible practices continue to be produced. If currently the tradition includes boiling the shells, this only happened because a woman, an ordinary manager, decided to change the management of her production, due to a set of force relations that involved her a few decades ago, at the time when it was a transgression from the current production, while today the transgressions are the other ways of producing.

As a relevant character of handicraft production in Piúma, Dona Carmen was highlighted by all the artisans who are the main characters of our narrative. They say from her time until the 1990s, seashells handicrafts developed widely in the region. A fact discussed with a certain nostalgic tone, as the handicraft began to decline as an economic activity and the five artisans, which we approached in this study, related in different ways with this phenomenon. When presenting our narrative about these relationships, for ethical issues, we shall not disclose the real names of the artisans, they will be identified as A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5.

A1 is a woman and has been living from handicraft for 30 years. She started helping her mom picking up shells on the beaches. When young, she participated in a group that worked with Dona Carmen. She says in that time she developed some skills. Since then, she started working with seashell handicraft alone, making her “own pieces,” i.e., her own way of making (De Certeau, 1998). A1 is currently the president of ASAPI. A2 has also been working exclusively with seashell handicraft for 30 years, she was one of the founders and is a member of ASAPI. For most of his life he was a fisherman. Later, he chose to live exclusively of handicraft. He associates his choice to the fact that handicraft “became a profession,” which allowed him to obtain more income. Thus, the status of “professionalization,” associated to the various dynamics of handicraft practice, is not necessarily bad for A2, as addressed by Sapiezinskas (2012). He learned how to make handicrafts with A4, in a period which they produced and sold seashell handicrafts in various regions of Latin America. He shows great pride of this time:“. . . Piúma is known worldwide due to handicraft. Through what we disclosed abroad”.

A3 is the third artisan who has been working exclusively with seashells, he was also one of the founders and is a member of ASAPI. He started in handicraft with his father when he was 13 years old, and, after a period, began to produce “his own handicraft,” in the name of continuity of his survival in this activity. These practices performed by A3 are connected to the assertion that the knowledge and innovations became a source of value within the development of handicraft practice (Betjemann, 2008; Sennett, 2009). By expressing he started to make “his own handicraft,” such as A1 expressed to “make her own pieces.” he expresses a change in the awareness of the importance of creativity. A4 has been working with handicraft for over 40 years, being recognized as a master of seashells handicraft in Piúma. He has a degree in accounting and worked for a time as a realtor. After this period, he claims he discovered “a giant he did not know,” associating the constitution of this “giant” to his skills to produce seashells handicraft (he claims he developed them on his own). Despite his pride and his story associated with seashells handicraft, A4 currently sells other types of materials.

A5 has also been living of handicraft for 40 years. He learned the craft with his mother and with A4. A5 is proud to narrate, throughout his life, he survived of his “love” for the activity. A5 started with seashells handicraft, however, he currently works with the products he calls “fashionable,” justifying this change by the need of artisans to “reinvent” in order to survive. The reinvention of the ordinary manager, on transgressions regarding the place of power of seashells handicraft in the “city of shells,” is part of the dynamic that sustains the plural culture (De Certeau, 2012) of Piúma. A4 and A5 express their “love” regarding handicraft, and due to it they take part in relationships that transgress the cultural tradition of seashell handicraft in the “City of Shells.”

This and other connections of these characters’ life episodes of allow you to analyze, in the perspective of cultural plurality, the processes of organizing of ordinary management practices as resistances and forms of survival. We present these analysis hereafter, organized in the creations, appropriations, and other social productions related to these processes.

The creation of ASAPI and appropriation of space

ASAPI was created by artisans in 1988, inserting them in the condition of being part of a formal institution, a place of power to establish calculations of force relations with the political power and other instances of local society. That is, the creation of ASAPI is articulated as an ordinary management in the strategic network relations (De Certeau, 1998). Initially, its main goal was to ensure a space for operating the fair: It emerged exactly from a place to group the artisans and sell.… register an association, make business legally, to have strength even within the municipal, state, and federal powers (A4, 2017). The choice of the president of the association is resolved by votes of the majority. According to A1, nobody wants to take over this function, since it only gives you “more work.” Despite praising this rejection of the job, she expresses great pride when speaking of her deeds for ASAPI, including, especially, the dwelling (De Certeau, 1985) of the Dona Carmen square. After the creation of the ASAPI, the artisans held a fair in different locations of Piúma. Throughout their narrative, it was possible to perceive the expression of the difficulty found by them, since they did not have a suitable location, nor had money to buy standardized tents and stalls. In the mid-2000s, the artisans achieved along with the City Hall the chance to dwell in the Dona Carmen square. At that time, the square had no pavement and the artisans had great difficulties to operationalize.

There was no money, no standardized stalls, no light, we were all in the mud… And then?… I started to collect money from the association, from the members, and we paved our area.… That was what gave a boost to the association. (A1, 2017)

Changes in the Dona Carmen square led to improvements to the artisans from their articulation, indicating a process of organization (Czarniawska, 2004; Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016) connected by ordinary management (Carrieri et al., 2014), which allowed a “boost to the association.” In other words, the social interactions between the artisans, performed in non-traditional ways of managing and organizing, were associated to their survival and to the survival of ASAPI. In the ordinary management of the process of dwelling (De Certeau, 1985), the square involved political articulations. Although mobilizing around their own resources, they also used ASAPI’s formal role as an association to strategically request and obtain construction materials from the City Hall.

Another evidence of the everyday game that occurred regarding tents and stalls. During a certain period, there was a fishermen’s fair, with tents provided by the City Hall. After the end of this fair, they were placed in a parking lot. At the same time, the artisans from ASAPI approved along with the City Hall an aid of R$ 15,000.00, which was never passed on to the association. Therefore, the artisans took their tents as payment for this aid. The appropriation of the tents configured itself as a tactic (De Certeau, 1998), as a momentary blow, since the tents belonged to the City Hall. A tactic on invisibility, which played with the force relations of the municipal government.

The current space of the fair is important for the artisans, due to the position of the Dona Carmen square regarding the flow of tourists in Piúma. Thus, the historic rescue of the space appropriation episode made it possible to highlight some organization processes associated to the production of resistances and survival in the ordinary management of ASAPI. These relation networks are articulated in strategies and tactics in the social interactions of the production of space. These everyday dynamics allowed ASAPI’s artisans to articulate themselves regarding the public authorities, as shown in this topic, as well as regarding their force relations with other institutions, such as SEBRAE.

SEBRAE’s attempt - the “Shell Center”

SEBRAE tried to establish in Piúma the so-called “Shell Center.” However, the artisans’ narrative refers to the idea that this center “failed.” They credit SEBRAE’s failure to two main reasons. The first is in accordance with points discussed by some authors, such as Marquesan and Figueiredo (2014) and Sapiezinskas (2012), who criticize SEBRAE’s attempt to standardize the production processes of handicraft, which also occurred in Piúma. According to the artisans, this attempt at standardization was made by people who did not have enough knowledge about seashell art. “They may understand the administrative area. But the question of you benefiting from the material, make your own piece, that they do not master” (A3, 2017). In other words, the representatives from SEBRAE lacked practical knowledge (Gherardi, 2016), or handicraft know-how (Sennett, 2009). It was a failed attempt to standardize ways of making by “masters” from SEBRAE, who knew less of the practice than the “apprentices” of Piúma. The artisans refused to be part of this process, as they preserved the value (Sennett, 2009) of their own ways of making (De Certeau, 1998). The second reason attributed to SEBRAE’s failure involved ASAPI.

Another interesting factor was the fact he mentioned that during SEBRAE’s period they could not be associated to shells center, since it was not allowed to be associated to two institutions. In this case, the artisans from the ASAPI transgressed the SEBRAE, remaining in the association. (Field Notes, January 12^th, 2017)

Through this imposition, the artisans chose to remain in ASAPI and were part of a strategic articulation (De Certeau, 1998) against SEBRAE in City Hall, as reveals A1 (2017): “Then, the mayor . . . complained a lot to the Secretary of Tourism, . . . she who was facing him, and said: ‘No, the association first. The other can come next.’” The strategic articulations from which the artisans participated had an effect, since ASAPI preserved its continuity in the handicraft scenario of Piúma, in addition, we only found one artisan working with SEBRAE in the city. Strategic network relations allowed the artisans from ASAPI to preserve their own ways of making (De Certeau, 1998), whether they were associated with the practice of producing handicraft (Sennett, 2009), or with the maintenance of its organizing processes (Czarniawska, 2004; Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016).

It is possible to perceive the reflexivity between external influences and everyday practices, since the artisans did not act as mere passive accomplices of SEBRAE’s influences. When trying to introduce their policies in Piúma, SEBRAE failed for not considering they would resist to the business world promised. Without the artisans’ knowledge and support, the influences of the institution did not realize the process, criticized by Marquesan and Figueiredo (2014) and Sapiezinskas (2012), of redefining in a deliberate direction the handicraft cultures of the regions. The cultures continued to be (re)produced in a plural way (De Certeau, 2012) in the everyday life of handicraft in Piúma. Toward understanding this dynamic, manifested in the artisans’ different ways of making (De Certeau, 1998) who opted for ASAPI, we shall discuss its ordinary management.

The ordinary management of ASAPI

ASAPI has 27 members, who contribute annually with the value of R$ 150.00. This money is intended for the funding of common expenses. We identified the artisans organize themselves strategically in a network of relationships to set rules about how to use the resources. However, the artisans themselves transgress this place of power. For example, when a member was going through an important personal need, such as a disease, even though this was not in the rules, the member in the role of president of the association allowed the use of the resource. The moment of personal need was an opportunity for the member in need and the president to pervert that place of power and the rules established. Here we have the strategies and tactics (De Certeau, 1998) connecting in ways to organize the survival of a member in the association’s ordinary management.

In addition to the management of these resources, ASAPI is responsible for the management of its handicraft fair, which has 27 tents designed for members and three for visitors. When a member quits ASAPI, there is a contest for entry of a new artisan. This contest aims to verify if the candidate actually is from Piúma, as well as whether he/she has handicraft skills. During the contest, stands composed by ASAPI’s member evaluate the candidate. It is a process of organizing (Czarniawska, 2004; Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016) within ordinary management (Carrieri et al., 2014) the strategic network relations (De Certeau, 1998) in which the artisans are inserted. From this place of power new members are defined, from where they are, and what they can produce and sell. These articulations are inserted in the everyday context of ASAPI’s fair.

The tents of products with shells had lower demand than the others, especially when compared to “hippie” products. Asking some artisan, they mentioned that tourists who consume seashell handicraft are different. Sometimes, it was possible to notice some tourists more inclined to buy seashells handicraft. However, the large volume was always directed to the purchase of other materials. (Field Notes, October 13, 2017)

During the fair, we noticed a large diversity of products sold. ASAPI rule is that, among the 30 tents, at least 50% must be selling seashells handicraft. A1 and A2 define this choice as an instrument to preserve the local culture. However, during the observation periods, we noticed less than ten stalls selling seashell handicraft, and were the ones with the least movement of customers. This lack of customers was perceived by the artisans, who reacted by changing their production to approach a “mediatic fashion,” which, in some cases, kept them away from seashell handicraft. Among our interviewees, A5 and A4 fit in this dynamic, producing and selling according to what appeared in the media, for example, they produced necklaces worn by actresses in soap operas. On the other hand, there is an effort from A1, A2, and A3 to maintain a certain tradition of the seashells handicraft in their pieces. These facts attest to the cultural plurality of handicraft production.

The ordinary handicraft production

A common point in the manufacturing process of the artisans whom we approached is the production at home. This already occurred in the Middle Ages, when the house and the manufacture were not separated in the process of producing (Sennett, 2009). The artisans we observed shared their attention between production and domestic demands, such as cooking, answering to their children, etc. “The handicraft pieces were being made in the kitchen. While she assembled the pieces, cleaned the house, and washed the dishes” (Field Notes, December 2, 2017).

A1 manufactures by herself. Only with the arrival of summer her husband helped her, gluing the final touches of the pieces. Her production revolved around 150 artifacts per week, similar to A2’s production, who also manufactures by himself. A3’s production is focused on wholesale sales, producing up to 600 pieces per week, with the aid of a helper. The three artisans have as main products seashells knickknacks made with cold porcelain. A4’s manufacture is different because he uses different raw materials and tools, and also resells in the handicraft fair pieces produced by other artisans, what he calls “hippie” handicraft.

During the observation period, A5 went to São Paulo, claiming he needed to know the products that were “fashionable.” When returning, he produced artifacts similar to what he claims to have seen there, which were not made of shells, to be sold in Piúma. In some artifacts, fashion was incremented, for example, by adding seashells to the artifacts. It is clear an increase by a way of making (De Certeau, 1998), intertwined in a practical innovation (Gherardi, 2016), through the use of the local culture around the shells. Amidst these (re)inventions, it becomes clear how the ordinary manager uses the possibilities within a multicultural environment (Hall, 2002), referring to the cultural plurality (De Certeau, 2012) in which Piúma’s handicraft is inserted. A5 uses the tradition and the fashion to organize his reinvention for survival.

A5’s process of manufacture is different from the others, since most of his raw materials do not require pre-treatment. On the other hand, the artisans who manufacture seashells handicraft pieces have similar previous steps for their manufacture: boil, clean, and dry the shells. After these procedures, A1, A2, and A3, basically use hot glue gun and sticks to make their artifacts. Unlike all four artisans, A4 (2017) recommends the use of an unusual material indicated to glue the pieces: “. . . I work with a glue that nobody uses here. Do you know what it is? Plastic mass for automobiles.” Within this search for innovations in gluing, identified among some artisans, A2 told us he was developing a new process to glue his pieces, but did not let us have access to this new procedure, defending, as well as Sennett (2009), the knowledge in handicraft as a source of value for the artisans. This practical articulation A2 sought is linked to another everyday (re)invention carried out by him, through a mimetic relationship between past and present (Ricoeur, 1994).

There was no color, you know? . . . When I started coloring crafts, I was a little criticized by people. They said that what was beautiful was the natural state. But, today, if we go look, the natural is beautiful, but what sells more are the colorful pieces. (A2, 2017)

We noted the colorful pieces were the most purchased by customers. This result is part of a process in which the artisans create their products through a know-how-to-invent in practice (Gherardi, 2009a, 2016; Orlikowski, 2002), associated with the value and survival of the handicraft (Sennett, 2009). A1 reveals this process by saying “I saw a topiary made entirely of sunflower seed. Then I ended up making one out of shells” (2017). Similarly, A4 created a shell lamp from a product that he met in the Northeast region of Brazil. In both cases, the process of creating the piece is part of the artisan’s practice (Gherardi, 2016; Sennett, 2009). The same happened with the seashell handicraft product that seems to be the best seller at the present time, the knickknacks that reproduce little frogs.

A2 narrates their birth: “I took that idea of a book that I had, I saw the frog and said: ‘I can make this out of shells’” (A2, 2017). Initially, it was not made of shells, but was transformed by A2 and then copied by the other artisans in their everyday practice. In another example of innovation in production, A3 complemented the frogs by adding soccer teams symbols, which appeared to sell more frogs than A2 himself. It is possible to see that A3 transgressed (De Certeau, 1998) how the frog was made by other artisans, expressing the value of practical knowledge, including the appeal of soccer in Brazil. These are examples of uses of cultural possibilities by ordinary managers. At the same time they transgress the tradition, they are also using it to organize their production to ensure survival around the handicraft activity.

It was evident, in the handicraft practice, there is a possibility of innovating the techniques, skills, and products (Betjemann, 2008), in a movement in which the know-how-innovate (Gherardi, 2016) are imbricated in the artisans’ practices. Thus, the ordinary managers make different uses of the multicultural environment of which the handicraft of Piúma is a part. These innovations are linked to handicraft valuing aspects (Sennett, 2009) and to the artisans’ different ways of making (De Certeau, 1998) and surviving. However, it is not restricted to production, within the ordinary management in which the manager does everything, it invades other instances, among them, sales stand out.

The ordinary handicraft sale

Among the ways of selling, A3 sells more wholesale and A1, A2, A4, and A5 sell more in retail. For over 20 years, A3 has clients from several regions of the country. When talking about inspection and invoices, he used linguistically (De Certeau, 1985) the expression: “Now I got it.” That is, in the past, he operated the ordinary management of his businesses within invisibility (De Certeau, 1998) concerning the public authorities, working silently in those regions. A1, A2, and A4 sell their products at the Dona Carmen square, A5 sells there but also carried out an activity called “mangueio.” “Mangueio” is connected to the notion of walking in De Certeau (1998). The beaches are public places visited by bystanders, among them are vendors of various goods, which are not always formally allowed. Although some tourists are friendly and receptive to ordinary sellers, others direct a marginalized look to this exhaustive activity, as was recorded in the field journal.

Walking in the hot sun, carrying a heavy material against the force of the wind is an extremely painful activity. The material is quite heavy, and the weight doubles with the strong winds of the beach. The look of the tourists was also something that disturbed me. The approach with customers seemed “an invasion,” no matter how polite we were. Consumers are sometimes polite and receptive concerning the mangueadores, but in others are extremely rude. The bargain is a predominant characteristic in this activity. At all times, there is an intense negotiation of prices. (Field Notes, December 3, 2017)

The difficulties when invading in a tactical action a place where handicraft should not dwell, in which survival thanks transgression, were experienced along with A5. A5 sells more by mangueio than at the Dona Carmen square. The bargain is extremely relevant in this dwelling. In the following excerpt, the use of the word “tactics,” by A5, converges with De Certeau’s theory (1998), as he appropriates linguistic practices to build his relationships with customers in public spaces.

In the beginning it is tough for those who are starting, because you receive many “noes.” But, as you begin to talk to the people, . . . they already know you are a good person, you know? . . . Because often you have to please people. . . . This is a tactic I use and that has always worked (A5, 2017).

This “no” refers to a devaluation of handicraft that is not exclusive to the activity of “mangueio,” it is also present at the square, at the handicraft fair. The artisans mention the little value given by the tourist to the crafts at the fair, which leads them to sell it at prices considered too low. The alternative found by them to survive is to sell in larger volumes, and, to this end, a common practice in seashells handicraft trade and production is the tactic of copying from other artisans the pieces that sell the most. What extended the offer and spread the low prices, as observed in the field:

A3, for example, has more expensive products, and justified them by the quality of the artifacts. In contrast, there are other artisans who charge lower prices for the same products in question. Would we be talking about copies? (Field Notes, October 13, 2016)

As a mechanism created in a process of organizing this practice, price limits were defined by the artisans from their places of power in the ASAPI. There are prices determined by the association’s statute, related to different types of artifacts made of shells. This network of strategic relationships (De Certeau, 1998) originated precisely due to the tactics of copying pieces. However, despite the existence of a “cartel” (A3) of seashells handicraft, it is common to observe in the everyday context of the fair the artisans performing tactics in timely moments to negotiate with the customer, invisible, to sell the pieces below the prices determined in the rules of procedure, transgressing the established place of power. Therefore, on the one hand the artisans are inserted in networks of strategic relations, through ordinary management mechanisms (Carrieri et al., 2014), connected in organizing processes (Czarniawska, 2004; Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016), associated with price parameters. On the other, they perform many everyday tactics, which transgress the strategic relationships of which they are part.

The strategies and tactics in this study indicate artisans are in multiple cultures, in places institutionalized by the network relations formed from the ASAPI, and in the spaces of transgressions constituted from their tactics. These dynamics refer to the everyday complexity in which Piúma’s handicraft is inserted. It indicates the practices emerge from plural cultural relations and highlights the ordinary aspects immersed within ordinary management itself, analyzed in this study.

Final considerations

The objective of this article was to understand ordinary management as resistances and forms of survival, organized in everyday practices that are in part product and producers of cultural plurality in the field of handicrafts in the city of Piúma. Along the analysis, we were able to describe and identify different everyday practices (De Certeau, 1998), connected in ordinary management mechanisms (Carrieri et al., 2014). These different ways of making (De Certeau, 1998) were revealed as practices for organizing and resisting processes (Duarte & Alcadipani, 2016; Czarniawska, 2004), associated with several productions, among which it is worth mentioning: the ordinary creation and management of the association; and the multiple means and cultures imbricated to handicraft production and sale.

These practices indicated several reflective dynamics between the artisans and places of power in Piúma. The episode of dwelling (De Certeau, 1985) at the Dona Carmen square, as well as the appropriation of the tents, revealed the articulations of artisans in networks of force relations with the City Hall place of power, acquiring advantages. The same happened regarding SEBRAE’s attempt, rejected by the artisans, who opted for their ordinary management and the maintenance of their multiple cultural and practical ways to make and manage handicraft.

These findings allow us to offer a proposition distinct from that of authors that highlight the study of the power of and within external influences to produce a social, cultural, and economic decharacterization of handicraft (Betjemann, 2008; Marquesan & Figueiredo, 2014). We understand this proposition puts in the background the ability of social relations to position artisans as producers of handicraft everyday context, a condition to transgress those external influences. Based on this article, we defend the proposition that studies on the topic should recognize how the artisans organize themselves, resist, survive, and make management in a game of forces with traditional narratives. This reading reveals complex social, cultural, and economic implications, beyond a fixed itinerary defined by an established place of power, capitalist or any other.

Some transgressions occurred in the rules of the association of artisans in Piúma itself, against a place of power produced within the relations among the artisans. This was evidenced in the definition of the expenses of ASAPI resources and the transgressions to the handicraft price table. By focusing on the ordinary practitioner, De Certeau (1998) emphasizes the places of power are produced in networks of relations formed between those who have privileges in various social contexts, as he addresses literally mentioning the Administration of companies. In the management of the association, the artisans jointly produce rules in calculations that rely on the place of power. However, in timely moments, some of these artisans, while ordinary managers, articulate tactics that transgress this place, obtaining financial aid or negotiating prices under those established. This study indicates the places of power of handicraft are also produced in specific relationships among the ordinary practitioners themselves. In Piúma, these ordinary practitioners perform tactics regarding the institutionalized power parameters in instances beyond their privileged everyday relationships, such as the City Hall, and also within these relationships.

The artisans’ everyday life, observed and recognized by themselves as grounded in learning by practice, is inserted in a process of knowing already highlighted by the lenses of practice-based studies (Gherardi, 2009a, 2016; Orlikowski, 2002), but which dealt with other types of organizing. In Piúma’s handicraft, knowing by practice proved to be extremely dynamic and there is always room for innovations (Betjemann, 2008). Even when the practice of copying occurred, in the calculations of force relations (De Certeau, 1998) of ordinary management, it is organized within a cultural plurality (De Certeau, 2012) in which the product is changed and the copy is transgressed. The frog with a team shirt, a part of the cultural plurality of those who wanted to (re)produce it in this way, is an example of this.

In short, in theoretical terms, the proposition advocated in this article is supported in an analysis based on the theoretical entanglement between the ordinary management approach (Carrieri et al., 2014) of handicraft production (Sennett, 2009) and certeaunian contributions geared towards the recognition of force relations within a cultural plurality, as forms to resist and survive. This proposition provides contributions to the understanding of know-how in the practice of handicraft (Gherardi, 2009a, 2016; Orlikowski, 2002).

De Certeau (1985) states a cultural study should seek the common place amidst heterogeneous everyday practices. Throughout this study, we showed, if there is a common cultural place for artisans, this place is the practice of handicraft itself, permeated by heterogeneity. Among the artisans whom we approached and handicraft, there is relationship involving the individual and the practice (Gherardi, 2009b), associated with the word “love.” Just as there was association with the word “fashionable,” to which the artisans try to fit to survive, but with a taste for creation, resisting even through it.

The notion of culture in Piúma lacks a center that allows it to be defined in a static manner, thus, the cultures fluctuate freely among the practices of handicraft. Within these contours, the concept of plural culture in De Certeau (2012) was timely for the analysis carried out in this article. This articulation reveals the potential for increasing in the study of the relations of taste between individuals and practices (Gherardi, 2009b) the plurality of culture, something to be applied in future studies on the theme.

By adding this look to what was proposed by Gherardi (2009b), in addition to raising the possibility of recognizing the relationships of taste between individuals and practices, it may be possible to realize they are formative of anonymous cultural productions. This study reveals this connection in the handcraft practice in Piúma, where sentimental relationships exist, however, the social effects of these relationships for the different individuals are extremely dynamic. In other terms, the love relations between individuals and practices in Piúma are tensioned by networks of force relations within cultural plurality (De Certeau, 2012).

In methodological terms, this study advances the use of the ways of making narratives (De Certeau, 1985) as a path to understand everyday practices. By emphasizing the link between present and past (Ricoeur, 1994), the narratives allowed us to reconstruct past episodes, in which the past and the future are produced and considered in the production of the present. The three times are produced together in the narratives. Analyzing these parameters, the notion of truth and the importance given to the term diverges from what is institutionalized in the field of Administration.

Recognizing the inaccessibility of historical reality and seeking alterity concerning the other (De Certeau, 2008), the truth became relativized in the representation modes of the investigated individuals themselves (De Certeau, 1985). This emphasis on alterity contributes to new conceptions around the mainstream, which involve the study of everyday life, history, and management in organizations, an effort already undertaken by Barros and Carrieri (2015). What was discussed here increments the authors’ proposal in methodological terms, for recognizing history as a reality (re)constructed by the marginalized other within the imbrication of the past, present, and future. Therefore, the search for alterity in the investigations should not be limited to one of these times, for example, to the present of the researcher at the time of data collection, but consider this imbrication.

In short, these contributions sustain the denaturalization and questioning of certain historic speeches produced by hegemonic places, especially those of the official documents and traditional theories on management and organization. Thus, we potentialized an alternative look to studies on Ordinary Management to address, in addition to handicraft, other organizational practices commonly neglected.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Espírito Santo and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior for the financial support.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 Nov 2020
• Date of issue
  Oct-Dec 2020

History

• Received
  14 Sept 2018
• Accepted
  10 May 2019