Collective and Networked Learning Developed in Enterprises Formed by Women in the Solidarity Economy: A Post-Colonialist Analysis of a Feminist Self-Management Practice

Abstract

This research arises from studies of women's management practices from the place of self-management within the scope of the Feminist Solidarity Economy Network (Resf) and, therefore, the term feminist practices of self-management was developed throughout the research, considering the practices that are performed in the Solidarity Economy (ES). The objective of this research is to identify and analyze one of the feminist practices of self-management observed in the field: the development of collective and networked learning. The main theoretical contributions used to mediate the discussion are based on studies of feminist management practices, on the perspective of substantive rationality, on studies on organizational learning and the post-colonialist view that adheres to the context of women in the SE. The data collection was implemented based on thematic oral history in semi-structured interviews with women from Resf and direct and indirect field observation between the years 2018 and 2021, recorded in field diaries. The perspective adopted for data analysis is critical discourse analysis. The results point to the following findings: (I) no hierarchization of the organization of learning practices; (II) intense exchange of information inside and outside the network based on reciprocal ties; (III) a form of learning that prioritizes experiences with a system of activities in which knowing is not separated from doing. For the women, knowledge is integrated and distributed in the life of the community, which necessarily requires the involvement that comes from the sense of belonging and mutual care that unites them.

Solidarity Economy; cooperation networks; self-management; feminist self-management practices; collective learning

Resumo

Esta pesquisa surge dos estudos das práticas de gestão de mulheres a partir do lugar da autogestão no âmbito da Rede Feminista da Economia Solidária (Resf) e, por isso, desenvolveu-se ao longo da pesquisa o termo práticas feministas de autogestão, considerando-se as práticas que se performatizam na Economia Solidária (ES). O objetivo desta pesquisa é identificar e analisar uma das práticas feministas de autogestão observadas em campo: o desenvolvimento da aprendizagem coletiva e em rede. Os principais aportes teóricos articulados partem estudos sobre práticas de gestão feministas, da perspectiva da racionalidade substantiva, dos estudos sobre aprendizagem organizacional e a visão pós-colonialista que adere ao contexto das mulheres na ES. A coleta de dados foi implementada a partir da história oral temática em entrevistas semiestruturadas com mulheres da Resf e observação direta e indireta em campo entre os anos de 2018 e 2021, registradas em diários de campo. A perspectiva adotada para a análise dos dados é a análise crítica do discurso. Os resultados apontam para os seguintes achados: (I) não hierarquização da organização das práticas de aprendizagem; (II) troca intensa de informações dentro e fora da rede baseada nos laços de reciprocidade; (III) uma forma de aprendizagem que prioriza as experiências com um sistema de atividades no qual o conhecer não é separado do fazer. Para as mulheres, o conhecimento é integrado e distribuído na vida da comunidade, o que requer necessariamente o envolvimento que advém do sentimento de pertencimento e cuidado mútuo que as une.

economia solidária; redes de cooperação; autogestão; práticas feministas de autogestão; aprendizagem coletiva

Introduction

In the world, the social economy is best known as a space for generating income and promoting citizenship; however, in Brazil, the Solidarity Economy (SE) is the movement that has brought these qualities together, adding solidarity in relationships as a trait that manifests itself in close relationships with the surrounding community, thus demonstrating a political will to transform social relations and, consequently, society (Guérin, 2005). The SE is recognized as an alternative space, where the enterprises are owned by the workers and are based on self-management practices, which allow the formation of an active citizenship with a view tobuilding another economic culture and another rationality in management practices (Pinheiro& Paula, 2014).

Women bring to the SE a set of demands that contemplate a concern not only with the demands of the productive process, but also with equipment and actions to meet community needs and foster local development (Guérin, 2005). In fact, the intertwining of the economic and social dimensions points to a qualification of the SE in the sense of getting closer to the demands and potentialities of local communities. Another equally important aspect that is presented in the narratives is the learning from the collective and shared functioning of the enterprises as a basis for the development of a self-management capacity, a necessary foundation for an emancipatory project (Laville & Gaiger, 2009; Mance, 2006; Scherer-Warren, 2006, 2012).

Moving from the social movement context, from which the SE emerges, to the research context, the field of SE studies is experiencing a phase of maturation and growing internationalization. Several fields of knowledge in different countries have conducted research on SE ventures, from different perspectives, in order to understand the organizational dynamics of the SE movement (Costa& Carrion, 2008; Gaiger, 2011; Silva, 2018) . We find research that analyzes the factors that guided the emergence of SE enterprises (Benine & Benine, 2012; Singer, 2008; Gaiger, 2011), studies that observe the SE as a social movement of a grassroots nature ( Costa, 2011 ; Singer, 2008), investigations regarding the impacts of enterprises on local economies ( Andion, 2005 ; França Filho, 2013; Silva, 2018) , studies that observe women's labor relations in the context of the SE (Guérin, 2003; Santos, 2017) , research on public policies in the context of the SE (Dagnino, 2011; Monje-Reyes, 2011) , studies on the dilemmas of the SE (Barreto; Paula, 2009), analyses regarding the formation of cooperative networks among enterprises (Mance, 2003, 2006; Scherer-Warren, 2006), research on the organizational dynamics within the scope of SE enterprises (Costa& Carrion, 2009; Faria, 2017 ; Pinheiro; Paula, 2014; Santos, 2017 ; Vieta, 2015) , and studies that question the capacity of the SE to emancipate women and as an alternative observing the limits imposed by the market system ( Bauhardt, 2014 ; Costa, 2011 ; Soares & Rebouças, 2022 ; Soares et al ., 2020).

Among this plethora of research, there are no studies that focus on observing women's management practices. This research draws from Martin's (1993, 2006) studies of women's management practices; however, from the place of self-management developed within the RESF, and therefore the term "feminist self-management practices" was developed throughout the research, considering that the feminist management practices identified by Martin (1993, 2006) in his studies in the context of hetero-management do not encompass some dynamics that are performatized in the SE ( Soares, 2019 ; Soares & Rebouças, 2022 ; Soares et al ., 2020). The aim of this research is to analyze the feminist practice of collective and networked learning identified throughout broader research on feminist networked self-management practices developed by the women of the RESF in their organizing dynamics. Initially, it is important to ponder that the proposition of feminist self-management practices elaborated in this study is not a proposal of individual conception, but observations of dynamics whose constructions were collective, that needed, yes, reflections in the theoretical field, but that are especially grounded in the empirical field, from the perspective of the women of the RESF that are active in Ceará.

The theoretical contributions used to mediate and guide the discussion are: Fraser's approach (1997, 2010) regarding the dimensions of gender justice (redistribution, recognition and representation); Martin's approach (1993, 2006) regarding feminist management practices; the perspective of post-colonial feminism authors, such as Mohanty (2006) and Lugones (2008); the perspective of substantive rationality in organizations considered by Ramos (1989) and Serva (1997) ; and the studies on organizational practice by Guerardi (2009). The perspective adopted for the data collection and analysis stages is that of oral history, especially using the new history approach, through interviews and observation. For Godoi, Bandeira de Mello and Silva (2006, p.182), oral history favors forgotten or invizibilized voices.

Theoretical support

Self-management from the perspective of women in the Solidarity Economy

The Solidarity Economy acts to rearticulate the economic with other spheres of social action. Singer (2008) reflects that the SE is not just a response to the contradictions of capitalism or an exclusive reaction to the lack of jobs, because, if it were, it would be nothing more than a complementary form of the capitalist economy. Even though it emerges within scenarios of inequality and structural unemployment, Mance (2006) argues that the SE is not only a way to mitigate the social exclusion caused by the dominant economy. The authors propose that the SE would be an alternative in the sense of expanding the opportunities for human and social development through production with the community organization of social life. In this way, people obtain not only income, but social and economic justice, and the right to participate in productive activity without submitting to a hierarchy, valuing cooperation over competition, thus representing a multiform movement for income generation and local development, with self-management as an organizational paradigm ( Costa, 2011 ; Vieta, 2015 ; Monje-Reyes, 2011 ; Silva, 2018 ).

Participative management models have been developed since the middle of the 20th century to meet the new demands in terms of people management in conventional organizations. However, self-management, one of the types of participatory model, has been practiced since the mid-19th century within the scope of associativism and cooperativism, although self-management should not be confused with cooperativism and associativism, since it is independent of the real content of the actions supposedly identified as self-management ( Andion, 2005 ; Benini & Benini, 2009; Guillerm & Bourdet, 1976; Motta, 1987; Nascimento, 2000; Rosavallon, 1980 ; Vieta, 2015) . In the context of the Solidarity Economy, self-management has been one of the foundations for the development of enterprises, being considered a management paradigm to be appropriated by them, opposing the hierarchical hetero-management models that predominate in the economy and in the market system (Benini, 2009, 2012; França Filho, 2013; Gaiger, 2004; Vieta, 2015) . Self-management, which was addressed in this subsection in the context of the SE, especially concerns the dynamics of control and management of the work process and organization, even though self-management encompasses broader issues, as part of a political science project, as Nanci Valadares de Carvalho (1983) indicates.

Nanci Valadares de Carvalho's (1983, 1995) perspective on self-management articulates autonomous, participative, and emancipatory administrative dynamics at the internal level of the organization, which in the realm of women's practices, reflect specific organizational processes. For the author, self-management is based on fundamentally collective decision-making processes, which require access to information, responsibility for the collective, and group discipline. The author reflects that self-management leads to the experience of managing one's own life, which means, to some extent, a process of human emancipation in the political sphere, regardless of orientation, and that, among other things, self-management is not just a method of enterprise management, but a "political form" in which relations of production expand to all other spheres of social life, where the "associated producers" themselves direct their activity and the product derived from it. Evidently, as the author points out, self-management "is impelled by the material conditions of our time and not as a maturation of previous forms of the same thing" (Carvalho, 1983, p. 21).

Therefore, the context is important for the development of self-management and defines the form and levels of interaction that will develop in enterprises (Soares &Rebouças, 2022). In the Solidarity Economy, the knowledge built and shared on a daily basis is fundamental for strengthening the movement and reflects cultivated solidarity values (Pinheiro& Paula, 2014). The knowledge and actions form the dynamics experienced in the different stages of the movement and, in view of the diversity of the movement, contain different life stories and cultures, showing the repertoire shared by the community, as pointed out by Gherardi (2009) . Such actions educate, humanize, and contribute to building an essentially collective way of life. Self-management requires everyone's participation, the practitioners learn by belonging to the community, and the sense of belonging results in responsibility and mutual engagement.

The women who make up the SE encounter the same contradictions that many others face in society, but the issues are different and are related to women's very survival. Women in the SE are not worried about breaking through the "glass ceiling" because this is a challenge outside their reality. They challenge more basic conditions in terms of generating income and guaranteeing survival. And in view of this peripheral condition that affects them, the (post)colonial feminist critique questions the limited analysis of the cultural, socio-political, and historical context of these women, often adopting a reductionist language that assumes excessively technical contours (Spivak, 1988). The subalternity of these women is part of a dynamic of economic coloniality, to which non-centrist countries are historically subjected. Post-colonial economics studies help in understanding that this condition results in generalist analyses about the life conditions of individuals occupying peripheral spaces, and reflect considerably on the condition of women (Lugones, 2008; Santos, 2017) .

Embedded in this debate on coloniality is the issue of the peripheral, subaltern, colonized woman, and it manifests itself in different ways in view of the diversity and plurality of contexts (SPIVAK, 1988). For Lugones (2008), economic coloniality materializes in the bodies of different women. In this way, feminist theories that homogenize the condition of women do not account for it; women's experience may vary according to the context in which they are embedded, whether in the struggle against the effects of a model of production and consumption that excludes them, or in the organization of their own ways of producing, gathering, and distributing resources. The different subaltern women face their own dilemmas, and it is important to consider them so as not to engage in biased analyses that do not reflect the reality of their social dynamics. For Santos (2017) , feminist economics studies can easily slip into a homogenizing reading of women's economic practices, thus confirming stereotypes and using the centrist discourse to represent subaltern women in a reductionist way.

Understanding the knowledge and know-how about the business they organize is essential, so participants must understand the management practices at the production and marketing level, and participate in forums, plenaries, enterprise decision-making meetings, etc. Such actions have a strong educational nature, since they develop the perception and awareness of citizenship (Pinheiro& Paula, 2014; Singer, 2000). Although often not systematized, much knowledge in the context of the SE is developed implicitly and can be retrieved through collective memories (Gaiger, 2007; Soares & Rebouças, 2022) . In the self-management of the work or development project, fundamental learning takes place, which should involve everyone and include various types of knowledge and skills, encouraging those involved to see themselves as subjects of the process, emancipating them. For Singer (2005b, p.19), "The Solidarity Economy is a pedagogical act in itself, insofar as it proposes a new social practice and a new understanding of this practice. The only way to learn how to build the Solidarity Economy is by practicing it." Women in the SE attribute values that qualify the movement by accepting the unequal conditions between men and women in the economy and break with heterodox management dynamics of essentially bureaucratic organizations ( Santos, 2017 ; Soares & Rebouças, 2022) .

Feminist practices of self-management and the ways of learning of substantive organizations

When discussing solutions to contemporary economic crises, the author Bauhardt (2014) reflects that for the Solidarity Economy to become an alternative and solution to the crises of capitalism that have been occurring, it is necessary for it to consider the issue of women in the economy, because, for the author, gender equity is essential for changes in the economy. According to the author (2014, p.64), the first issue to be addressed is the responsibility for care, the care economy, in which work activities occur where no money flows, and therefore remain invisible to the conventional economy. The second issue to be addressed is that as long as social participation and power relations are strictly linked to employment and income, gender justice will be contingently dependent on an equity of participation between men and women in the labor market.

According to Bauhardt (2014) , a third point to reflect on is that employment and income opportunities are affected by unpaid care work and should be divided evenly between men and women. The fourth and final point is the need for a change in conceptions of reproductive work and the care chain to combat the prevailing view of the feminization of care work. The author raises a critique of the SE, in the sense that it is a challenge for the movement to break with the hegemonic logic of exploitation of women's productive and reproductive labor, which could be solved based on a feminist view of the economy. The issues pointed out by the author are part of the feminist economics agenda and can be adopted in the context of the Solidarity Economy, enhancing the implementation of self-management and cooperation practices. Therefore, a feminist Solidarity Economysupports necessary transformations in the search for gender justice through feminist self-management practices (Fraser, 2002).

It should be noted that, conceptually, the categories "gender" and "woman" are treated differently, since the former is related to the social construction and the latter to a biological distinction. This research is based on Fraser's studies (2002) and post-colonial feminist authors, therefore the concept of woman will also be based on an expanded approach, including social constructions and contexts. We understand that the woman category, from the point of view of the gender category, encompasses the norms, obligations, behaviors, thoughts, abilities, and even the nature that women have been required to have because they are biologically female. Therefore, for this study, woman is a social role, also derived from a social construction, notably in the insight that the social division of labor derives from a social construction and not from biological distinction, and it entails the critical examination of the sexual division of labor, and the dichotomy of public and private relations (Hirata, 2002; Saffioti, 2013).

The demands for a substantive rationality in organizations and in organizational dynamics are one of the vectors for the implementation of gender justice needed for the emancipation of women, conceptualized by Fraser (2002) as the balance between redistribution, recognition and representation of women in public and private spaces. It is assumed that the bureaucratic organization, due to its instrumental and functionalist orientation, uses methods of direct and indirect control to deny and manipulate conflicts, including gender-related issues (Fraser, 2001; Martin, 2013; Ramos, 1989; Serva, 1997 ). The three-dimensional approach to gender justice seeks a space in which women's activity is valued as much in productive and reproductive spaces, so the quest for the resignification of organizations is the quest for gender justice.

Within organizational studies, the model of feminist organizational practices proposed by Martin (1993, 2003) is the one most closely aligned with SE values. This approach selects forms of feminist management, namely: it asks about women's issues; it uses feminist practical reasoning; it promotes greater awareness; it fosters community and cooperative ties; it promotes democracy, participation and empowerment of subordinates (a view of power as an obligation); it values mutual concern and care; and it strives for transformative outcomes. Such practices do not involve only the labor dimension, and in the scope of women's self-management practices in solidarity enterprises there is a displacement of the meaning and purpose of work. According to Soares and Rebouças (2022) , the SE context represents a solidary social form of production that differs from the traditional form of hierarchical social relations of production typical of predominantly bureaucratic organizations.

In the context of the Feminist Solidarity Economy Network, self-management practices are not only related to work relations, but also develop diverse ways of relating and producing that favor cooperation and community, in addition to fostering collective, free and shared knowledge (RESF, 2016). As stated so far, self-management is, therefore, a requirement for the viability of these enterprises, and more than being a political option, it is a concrete need of the women when facing their responsibilities. Therefore, for the women, this is a starting point for strengthening the SE project, to assert itself as an economic activity based on associated and self-managed work, in the construction of another model of democratic, solidary and sustainable development (Pinheiro& Paula, 2014; Resf, 2016; Santos, 2017) .

Considering the theoretical constructions developed up to this point in the research, the self-organizing dynamics of women who work in the SE should be based on the search for a substantive organization in which rationality is shaped in substantive terms, under a community orientation (Ramos, 1989), in a context where practices are collectivist and not individual. Such actions materialized in organizational actions, words, and goals have the purpose of implementing a gender justice that effects mechanisms of redistribution, recognition, and representation for women (Fraser, 2002), using feminist management practices and transforming organizations into spaces of human emancipation (Martin, 1993, 2003).

In order to situate and systematize feminist self-management practices in the SE, specifically in the RESF enterprises, the context in which they develop was observed. The enterprises occur in a peripheral context, marked not only by gender, but also by factors such as race and class. This context, historically subaltern, debates (post)colonial feminist theories, articulates alternative logics of survival and of living well in daily ways of doing, and is oriented towards community development, as pointed out in the isonomy enclave proposed by Ramos (1989). Thus, SE enterprises are situated in a space of isonomy, forming substantive organizations that seek, beyond the production and commercialization of products and services, the emancipation of the individuals involved. Serva (1997) identified that substantive organizations are guided by principles, values, collective action, and the search for balance between the individual and the organization. Interpersonal relationships are intense and strong, where members share values, seeking reflection on the daily life of the enterprise.

The decision-making processes are collective and based on the exchange of free information, the structures are more flexible and less bureaucratic, and work performance is assessed collectively through periodic meetings, with members being compensated according to their commitment to their work. Finally, Serva (1997) observes that such enterprises, under a substantive logic, seek support for their actions in the community and in society. Thus, the practices in substantive organizations are guided by a substantive rationality, where the means and ends follow values shared by the group. When relating this approach to the feminist management practices considered by Martin (2003), the theoretical alignment is observed, since the administrative dynamics in organizations that allow themselves to be feminist bring with them a political vision of the organization, by asking about women's issues, promoting greater awareness and community ties, democracy and participation, valuing mutual concern and care, and seeking transformative results.

For Guerardi (2009), the practice influences the union of the community based on three main dimensions: joint venture, mutual engagement and shared repertoire. For the author, this is not something sudden, but incremental, gradually developing in the community a perception of the value that is being added based on the union of people. The author observes that the mutual engagement of the participants in a community is characteristic, and there is a common action among them, that of negotiation. In view of the diversity, this negotiation process is continuous, since the fact that they share the same goals does not mean they share the same opinions, and negotiation arises to obtain minimum levels of cohesion and reciprocity in order to maintain the community. Based on these considerations and theoretical relationships regarding the substantive rationality that permeates the tele-affective structure of the actions undertaken in the RESF, it is possible to systematize what can be regarded as feminist self-management practices.

From the theoretical point of view, it is possible to consider the intrinsic relationships that substantive organizations and their collectivist practices maintain with the feminist management model devised by Martin (1990). In this sense, as a theoretical development, the feminist management practices devised by Martin (1993, 2003) assist in the systematization of feminist self-management practices. The orientation towards substantivity in the collective ways of doing of enterprises self-managed by women seeks, besides income generation, the emancipation of women in communities. Such practices must seek to achieve gender justice in real terms in the dimensions of redistribution, recognition, and representation of women in community dynamics. The feminist management practices proposed by the author fit with the approaches used thus far in this study, as well as being in communion with the specific context of the Solidarity Economy and the RESF. By addressing feminist self-management practices, it was possible to both use the practices proposed by the author, and identify new practices when studying in the field; therefore, these practices will serve as a basis for the research.

Methodological support

The methodological approach to the research problem, in terms of its nature, is qualitative, in the stages of data collection and analysis, as proposed by Creswell (2007) and Ramos (1989). The analysis categories that formed the basis for the collection instruments were the three-dimensional approach to gender justice, feminist management practices, and rationality in substantive organizations. The data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with five women producers from the RESF and direct and indirect field observation of women's practices in the network between 2018 and 2021, totaling 55 hours of field diary entries, more than 18 hours of interviews, and other interactions with women in their production, marketing, and management practices in self-managed SE enterprises. The RESF currently includes 29 networks, with a total of 222 enterprises in the country. In the state of Ceará, the network works with 26 enterprises formed by 266 women, in the areas of handicrafts, clothing, ecological and family agriculture, and food (RESF, 2013). The criterion for choosing the women interviewed was based on their area of activity, with two being from the crafts area, one from the clothing area, one from the area of ecological and family agriculture, and another from the food area.

The data analysis was based on critical discourse analysis (CDA) ( Wodak, 2004 ) and from the perspective of oral history, especially using the new history approach, through interviews (absolute transcription) and observation (Meihy, 2002). For Godoi, Bandeira de Mello and Silva (2006, p.182), oral history favors forgotten or invisibilized voices. For the authors, based on this perspective of what is not in the mainstream, it is possible to register "claims, anguishes, suggestions, criticisms and apprehend their points of view," which can contribute to understanding contemporary organizational life. In this sense, it is a search for representativeness of other forms of organization using otherness, aligning with the post-colonial perspective of organizational studies (MEIHY, 2002; SOARES, 2019) . CDA, on the other hand, adheres to research on women, in view of its approach focused on the historical and political perception of discourse, notably by Ruth Wodak, who develops gender studies in the field of discourse. CDA offers the possibility of deconstructing naturalized conceptions, revealing oppressive processes, as well as adjacent interests. This research, according to the framework proposed by Wodak (2004), is based on the elements shown in Table 1 .

Table 1
: CDA data structuring

	MACROTOPICS (major theories stemming from the central concepts)	SUB-TOPICS (average theories derived from the data)	DISCOURSE Texts (small theories)
DATA MODELING (theoretical lenses)	Management based on the substantive rationality (Ramos, 1989; Serva, 1997 )	Organizational form Modes of cooperation Reciprocity ties	Excerpts of speech throughout the analysis (interdiscursivities and intertextualities)	ANALYSIS of the research corpus (discursive strategies - products of the linguistic action produced by people: perspectivation, self-representation, argumentation naming and predication)
	Women and work (Fraser, 2007; Guérin, 2003; Hirata, 2002; Martin, 2003; SaffiotI, 2013)	Occupation and work from the perspective of gender inequality Productive and reproductive work
	Forms of learning (Gherardi, 1994, 2012; Gherard & Strati, 2014)	Organization of learning in a network Collective learning processes

Wodak (2004)

The choice of Wodak (2004) as an analysis perspective is due to the fact that she herself adheres to the perspective of oral history, since her proposal is a historical-discursive analysis, observing the speech situations of the subjects. Even so, we consider what Gill (2002) says, namely, that the descriptions and evaluation of narratives are not separate activities, and thus, they occur simultaneously throughout the CDA, since they move between text and context. As a result of the adoption of thematic oral history, some analysis functions were already defined, but the perspective was kept open for the codes and functions that the empirical field revealed, which helped in the proposition of new feminist management practices, embedded in the self-management paradigm of the RESF enterprises. Therefore, there is no broad empirical generalization, as the analysis does not seek to identify universal processes, since it is adapted to the interpretative context. This does not prevent the CDA from being representative of its context, which adheres to the objective of the study of feminist self-management practices.

The research subjects, considered in light of oral history as research collaborators, are producers from the RESF that operate in the state of Ceará, encompassing a sample of 26 enterprises formed by women, including informal groups, associations and cooperatives. It is important to relate the profile of the women who make up the RESF network. Most of the women are, on average, 40 years old, and predominantly mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and with dependents, some of them even being the family breadwinners. The women generally have a basic level of schooling, and, in some cases, there is a certain degree of illiteracy and even functional illiteracy. They have worked in the enterprises for more than five years, on average.

The names of the research collaborators, recorded in the article, are fictitious and pay homage to Brazilian women who are important to the discussion of the issue of women's work: (a) Dandara dos Palmares (recognized as a black warrior from the Brazilian colonial period who actively fought against slavery); (b) Nanci Valadares (a professor and researcher who wrote important works related to self-management as a management paradigm); c) Carolina Maria de Jesus (a Brazilian writer known for her book Quarto de Despejo ; d) Laudelina de Campos Melo (an advocate for domestic workers' rights andthefounder of the first domestic workers' union in Brazil); and e) Eleonora Menicucci (a Brazilian sociologist and former Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women).

Analysis and discussion of the results

The feminist self-management practice identified throughout the research in the organizational dynamics of the RESF women was one that develops collective and network learning. In the first observations, and based on the interviews, I noticed that learning, in which women teach each other, is a commonand collective practice in the enterprises, both within the groups and in the network interactions. The RESF women believe that the learning acquired from the organizational processes of self-managed enterprises is a way to consolidate the union of the women and groups. For Meihy and Ribeiro (2011), these learning relationships are part of the definition of belonging to associations or community groups that continuously rebuilds their bonds.

As shown in Table 1 of section 3, this study articulates the learning process based on theoretical lenses derived from management based on substantive rationality, women and work, and forms of learning, which, based on the speech, reflect subtopics that relate to these major theories. Considering the critical discourse analysis approach by Wodak (2004) , there are, within a network, several possible connections between different macro-topics, between subtopics and texts, which form the discursive strategies. In this study we predominantly identified the discourse strategies of perspectivation, self-representation, and naming in the women's speech.

According to Wodak (2004) , the strategy of perspectivation is used when the speech of the author of the discourse points out that what they say is based on their particular point of view, and the self-representation is present in the text in which the speaker describes themselves and how theyperceivesthemself. Naming, on the other hand, occurs when it is interesting for the speaker to differentiate between "us and them," which denotes the construction around internal and external groups. Due to Meihy's (2002) oral history perspective, we chose to provide larger excerpts of the women's speech, instead of splittingit, in order to preserve and value it. It can be observed that in the analysis there are constant interrelations between the large, medium and small theories that orbit the learning processes of the women in their self-management dynamics.

Learning, as a process in the organizations, is not limited to a process of knowledge acquisition for a particular productive activity, as it enables training for citizenship and emancipation of the subjects (Costa& Carrion, 2009; Faria, 2017 ; França Filho, 2013; Pinheiro & Paula, 2014; Santos, 2017 ; Silva, 2018) . It should be noted that the profile of the women, mainly due to their low or even no education, leaves them facing a series of limitations in relation to the search for new knowledge that they seek to overcome with training among themselves, so that the issue is not only or exactly a lack of interest, but rather a certain embarrassment and even a certain inertia when faced with the challenge of acquiring more technical knowledge related to business. Another aspect to be observed, which is no less relevant, concerns the previous condition of these women, as former domestic workers or former workers in the textile area, whose craft was learned by working throughout their lives, being transferred from one generation of artisans to another.

In studies of practice, belonging to the community is a requirement for learning. According to Guerardi (2009), individuals learn by belonging, and the dynamics develop the mutual engagement of the community based on three main dimensions: joint venture, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire. For the author, this is not something sudden, but incremental, with the community slowly developing a perception of the value that is being added based on the union of people. The joint venture represents the levels of negotiation in the project, the mutual responsibility of the members, the common interpretations, and the work rhythm. Mutual engagement represents the doing together, the social complexity embedded in the context in terms of diversity of situations, and the very maintenance of the group. The shared repertoire, in turn, represents the histories and historical events, styles, actions, tools and artifacts, discourses and concepts adopted in the enterprise.

It can be can observed that an intersectionality of gender justice concepts allows women to grow from their experiences, while they share different actions and ways of doing things in their daily lives, a characteristic perceived as familiar in the interdiscursive ness of the women's discourses. An example of this is the influence of domestic work on the way the enterprises are organized, in order to cover the women's needs, and the very way of learning based on the reports of experiences shared in their group encounters, forming a group consciousness about the condition of women. The self-management paradigm itself allows the women to organize themselves in the way that best develops their learning. They decide how and when this learning process will take place, and at the same time this learning process occurs in a fluid way in all the interactions that take place in the enterprises. Self-management constitutes a set of practices that can influence the attitude and awareness of its practitioners in the generation of new behaviors marked by equality and solidarity.

For Singer (2008), the practice of self-management results, therefore, in the sharing of responsibilities and the promotion of collective thinking, insofar as they are potentially educational dynamics. According to Nicolini (2013), formal educational environments are important and necessary, but the workplace is an important place of learning, since there is contact with practice and learning about how to perform the job functions. Work and learning are close and interrelated human activities, especially in the context of the Solidarity Economy, in which self-management prevails in the organization of activities. According to Gherardi and Starti (2014), the engagement of members promotes the opportunity for them to develop their capacities and share learning.

In the RESF, women build knowledge through spontaneous engagement, mutual exchange, and multiple experiences. This process depends on the women's interest in developing in a particular domain of knowledge and staying connected through emotional ties with each other. The women's mutual engagement is a necessity for self-management to occur at some level, which is why Singer (2008, p. 19) reflects that the greatest enemy of self-management is the members' disinterest. In this sense, the practice of collective and network learning was verified especially throughout the field observations in the periodic meetings in the network, which evidenced the women’s engagement in sharing responsibilities and knowledge for the common good of the group, as verified in the following field diary reports:

The woman who spoke was Mrs. Nanci, a representative of the RESF. She was also sitting at the wheel, notebook in hand, and was talking about an order that "Doña Z" had received, of one hundred dolls for door weights to be delivered in four days. She said that there were two other craftswomen who worked with this type of product, but that they'd need more help to "handle" the order. Soon several women volunteered to help, there was a small buzz of women talking, and one of them spoke in a louder voice asking for order. She said that "it'd be good if Doña Z could give us a quick workshop on how to make the doll." Many women agreed and were excited about the possibility of learning how to make the doll door weight. Doña Z confirmed that she could give the workshop that very afternoon, since she had some materials (...) It was agreed that after the meeting, which Nanci said would be very quick, they'd start the workshop. There was a small buzz of voices. The women were very anxious about the workshop and apparently excited about the order received (...). (Observation n. 07, March 02, 2019)

(...) The RESF representative, Mrs. Lélia, said that "because of the lateness of the hour," it was about 3:50 pm, it'd be good to end the meeting to start the workshop, because the order should be a priority at this time. The women agreed. They quickly began to gather the chairs. Some went to a room at the site, got three plastic tables, put them together and put a tablecloth on top. The craftswoman who proposed to teach the workshop seemed to give the initial directions. She asked the women to arrange the contents of her bag on the table and to also get their materials such as scissors, needles, and thread. Apparently the women already had these materials. They got their tools and Doña. Z began to teach them the materials they'd need and how to make the doll door weight. Two other women took care of setting up a table with a snack. Apparently each one had brought something for a snack. Some had already started to have a snack while following the workshop (...) I followed the workshop, which lasted until about 4:50pm. Some women had to leave because they had to pick up their children or grandchildren from school, or other domestic commitments. At the end of the workshop there were already about eight dolls ready. (Observation n. 07, March 02, 2019)

The moment of receiving an order triggered a decision-making process that resulted in steps, defined by the women themselves. It was surprising how quickly they decided, that same afternoon, to hold a small workshop to manufacture the product, in order to share the production work among themselves. Everything happened in a flexible way, typical of a substantive logic of organization, when I noticed they had already decided what to do and how, with no major obstacles, and the women quickly organized themselves to teach each other how to make the doll. The concern for each other, the intense interactions and reciprocal relationships among the women, lead to substantive feminist practices of cooperation and exchange of information, as Ramos (1989) and Serva (1997) point out when thinking about substantive practices, and Martin (2003) when thinking about feminist management practices.

The perspective of substantive rationality, coupled with a feminist vision of administrative practice, focuses on the collective interest, as demonstrated by the field observation. There was no moment of individuality or of trying to "hold on to" the knowledge only for a few. The knowledge was shared in a very calm way, as if it were already a practice incorporated by the women in the network. Those who wanted to learn stayed and learned; those who did not just stayed around having a snack and talking about different subjects. Others left, but most of the group stayed. Later, talking to the RESF representative, she informed me that the network has craft, food, and agroecology groups, so when a workshop occurs, everyone likes to participate to learn new things, regardless of the type of product they usually work with.

The RESF representative also said that many women who work with handicrafts specialize in certain types of products, such as straw, ceramics, or clay, so they exchange a lot of knowledge among themselves. The practice of collective learning caught my attention, as a way of organizing and streamlining the exchange of information and knowledge very quickly on demand. The women showed a high organizational capacity in the way they dealt with each other, with facilitation of learning and rapid dissemination of ideas. Such flexibility in solving crises and organizing for production and marketing is typical of enterprises formed by women and/or that adopt the feminist economy perspective ( Bauhardt, 2014 ; Guérin, 2005). It can be seen from the observations that flexibility in the ways of learning encompasses a non-hierarchical view of learning, where all knowledge is understood as important, depending on the situation and context with which the women are dealing, which differs from the hierarchical learning practices of predominantly bureaucratic organizations.

Within the scope of studies on practices, Gherardi (1994, 2012) reflects that gender issues are reflected in every organization, whether in the physical environment, or in language, in procedures and spaces, materializing through practices within a fabric of organizational dynamics, notably influenced by the hierarchical processes of hetero-management. The way women use the little time they have, due to the accumulation of activities they are involved in, ends up making the process dynamic; however, this inequality of conditions based on gender is an obstacle for women to be able to self-manage in a more planned way. Even though adversity results in learning, and decision making according to the situation is a characteristic of feminist management, as Martin (2003) points out, it is important for the women to have the time to organize their actions in a more planned manner.

The women learn from the moment they join the group, because the very acceptance of new participants undergoes the group's deliberation. In an open and democratic way, they decide, along with the candidates for membership, who should join the group. The practice of self-management together with democratic participation is one of the major learning experiences for the women, mainly because they are given, by each other, the right to deliberate and have a voice and the power to make decisions, as can be seen in the following field diary report. As soon as they join the group, the women realize that the dynamics are different, there must be an acceptance by the group, and the predominance of collectivism encourages learning together.

Then the meeting moved on to the presentation of two craftswomen who were present and wished to join the group. Clara asked them to introduce themselves and present "their art." The first craftswoman said that she was from Maranhão, but that she has been in Ceará for ten years, that she lives in the favela, near the Urban Social Center, and that she works with cloth dolls and with sewing and embroidery. She said she'd like to participate in the group because she has difficulty in marketing her products and would also like to exchange experiences with the other women. The second newcomer said that she is from Ceará, that she has always lived in Conjunto Ceará, and that she works making hand-painted beach bags, with raw cotton and straw. She also said that she'd like to participate in the group to learn new things and have more space to sell her products. The women in the group listened attentively, and Clara asked the group to deliberate on whether to accept the two craftswomen's entry into the group. The women were receptive, there was no one in the group working with beach bags, for example, and they accepted the women's participation. (Observation n. 06, November 05, 2018)

It can be perceived that the inclusion of new members undergoes the acceptance of the group, not as a way to "test" that woman, but to verify her alignment with the purposes of the group, which results in learning to share decisions and responsibilities. Regarding the engagement of new members, Gherard and Strati (2014) report that legitimized peripheral participation is a specific mode of engagement by which new members of a community socialize and learn, as well as enable the perpetuation of the community. This legitimized peripheral participation is characterized as a progressive involvement of the new member in the community, with the development of actions performed by them, which can even change the dynamics of the group, but only if the group legitimizes them. For this, the establishment of trust relationships between women is essential, both as a result of the bonds of proximity that strengthen over time and the values that are adopted by participating in the network (Guérin, 2005; Martin, 2003; Santos, 2017 ; Serva, 1997) .

The term "peripheral" signifies the path that the new member of the community must take until they are actually effective in the community, and the word "legitimated" gives the idea of the acceptance of the new member into the community by means that are recognized as legal for entry. In the case of the women, this inclusion process occurs in a very fast and fluid way, even though this legitimization is gradual. The women who join the group also inform their availability for the activities. When they join the group, they inform their responsibilities for domestic and care work, and this is a mark in the network. The articulation of productive and reproductive work occurs constantly. Statements like "I can only go to the meetings in the afternoon" or "Saturday isn'tpossible, my husband's at home" are common in the organization of the women's activities. Therefore, throughout the research we noticed the predominant assumption of responsibilities and commitments of the women to domestic and care work, which prevent or even hinder them from living a life beyond their homes. This observation is in line with what Hirata (2002), Costa (2011) and Saffioti (2013) point out in their studies on the sexual division of labor and its impacts on women's productive life.

The women's discourse strategies demonstrate that social relations are partially discursive and, therefore, the texts denote more about the social interactions and the nature of the relationship established among the women, whether symmetrical or asymmetrical, of power or subordination, cooperative or competitive, close or distant ( Wodak, 2004 ). In the critical analysis of the discourse it can be seen that the distance between the women is reduced from the moment they join the enterprise. This distance does not follow the path of subordination or hierarchy, but of the formation of reciprocal ties between the women and the entrants. This strengthening of ties does not occur for free, but through the exchange of life experiences and ways of producing and commercializing. Therefore, there must be exchange so that the distance between the women decreases and trusting relationships are established; that is, exchange is part of the learning process, as Guerardi and Strati (2014) note.

The learning for emancipation, based on the experiences that the group has, occurs based on belonging to the group, in the intimacy of the women's homes, and from sharing their lives with each other. It is believed that this kind of learning, from belonging to the community, raises the women's ability for reflection and adds to the training actions that take place in the network. The workshops promoted within the network are also concerned with sustainability in the production processes. For example, the groups do not use plastic bags; they make their own bags out of recycled paper or reuse paper bags that they can get hold of.

Workshops that work with the use of recyclables are common in the groups. There is a desire to develop the production process in a sustainable way; however, there is also a need to focus on raw materials that are available. The use of materials from recycling is not a choice based only on sustainability values, but because of the opportunity cost, the materials are often the most accessible to women, and therefore they make use of them in manufacturing handicrafts. However, whenever these training sessions occur, they start by bringing up the issue of sustainability as something to be sought in the production and commercialization processes, resulting in a collective and networked learning about sustainability. This process of sustainability training occurs among themselves, when one realizes that another is producing handicrafts with reusable raw materials.

(...) I learned how to... compost, to work with recycled material like I told you... make use of it, save water... use any little thing to make... and then oh... I'm here at my door, I can't get a space because everyone parks here, instead of buying one of those cones, I made it. With cement, a can... it was... (Mrs. Eleonora, agroecology area producer, 65 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

(...) I was learning together, other groups passing on ideas. Now in handicrafts... they didn't sew, I've already had two workshops... sewing, I'm already sewing some pieces. I learned how to crochet, I'm doing some crochet things... necklaces, earrings, and some other things... (Mrs. Laudelina, food producer, 58 years old, Fortaleza, February)

The speech situations of the collaborators demonstrate discursive strategies of perspectivation to demonstrate involvement in the learning process itself, in the very construction of their learning in the production processes, including highlighting, implicitly, their point of view on the use of available resources and their openness to learn new methods of production. In this sense, the following speech situations were identified: I (learned), I (did), group, network, freedom, exchange, produce, collaborate, care, construction, work, support, knowledge, dialogue, we do, woman. Even though this perspective in the women's discourse describes an individual point of view, it can be seen that they bring elements of collective learning dynamics. At various points there is a relationship between the words "I" and "group" with the word "learn," with it being perceived that "learning alone" becomes "learning in a group" as trusting relationships are established. In this way, the act of learning as a social practice is performed as a political dimension for the women, making learning a process of productive and reproductive life, where knowing is not separated from doing, and the individual is not separated from the collective.

As observed by Wodak (2004) , the practice of women is much more social than discursive, as power is given from the exchange of information and establishment of relationships. In this practice there lies a political dimension inherent to the experiences of women, who, in their private and public contexts, suffer oppressive processes and social inequality. An important observation concerns the exchange of information, learning, and sustainability: the women share information in a cooperative way about suppliers and inputs. The exchange of information, in this case, is related to the issue of learning, especially in the improvement of the product and better ways of producing. Information about the use of recyclables emerges as a necessary and satisfactory option for the production of handicrafts.

The women feel excited about learning to work with recyclable inputs. The way in which the women sell is also different; they do not work too hard to attract customers, but instead their own approach of producing handicrafts while displaying the product is a way of drawing the customer's attention, paying attention to the differential of what is handmade. It was noticed, throughout the observations at the sales points, that the women have the habit of producing while they carry out the marketing activities. While talking to one of the craftswomen, she said that many women dislike going to the fair, they prefer to produce and get together, but at the time of selling, few are available, for various reasons, some because they have no way to leave their children or elderly relatives, others because their own husbands do not allow them to participate in the fair or because they have no money for the ticket, among other reasons.

From the critical analysis of the speech and the observations, it was possible to note the shyness and timidity of many women at being at the selling points, which requires a more daring sales profile. Maybe that is why the women do the production activity while selling, in order to mitigate the discomfort of being "in the store window." This observation is in line with what the post-colonial feminism authors point out when discussing the condition of subalternity and coloniality that affects women in their subjectivity. The Indian author Gayatri Spivak (1990) analyzes the capacity of the subaltern to represent themself. For the author, the subaltern condition is that of silence, because its legitimacy has been given by someone else, who takes its place in the public space, representing them.

In effect, the subaltern becomes dependent on mediators so that they are considered legitimate claimants; however, by accepting this condition of represented, the subaltern becomes an object in the hand of the representative and, with this, their representativeness is not fully constituted, a recurring situation when it comes to women's rights (Spivak, 1990). Hence there is the need for the subaltern to occupy spaces, emancipating themselves from structures that do not meet the demands necessary for the implementation of their citizenship. In general, such emancipation occurs through non-coopted social movements, where the actors take over the spaces of deliberation, based on their own claims. Therefore, the Solidarity Economy, in a self-managed and substantive logic, broadens its perspective by adopting feminist management practices, qualifying its economic paradigm.

The speech that follows demonstrates a difficulty in women's self-representation. Including as discursive strategies, they see themselves as shy, timid, and with difficulty of representation. This perception is presented as a condition prior to the women's entry into the network, while when they enter the productive groups, the women start to develop processes of self-worth. In conversations with the RESF representatives, they said that one of the network's tasks is to emancipate these women so that they do not feel insecure in sales activities, and to this end they hold workshops on how to make a sale, how to negotiate, how to behave, among others. The shyness in participating in the sales activities is often due to a lack of self-esteem that makes them feel unable to position themselves for a sale. The interviews showed that this issue of the women's shyness is developed in specific actions and, in the statements of the women themselves, many say "I improved a lot after I joined the group, before I couldn't even use lipstick." The learning for emancipation is a gradual process:

(...) this lady that waited for her husband to die, I mean... two stories that... one needed her husband to die for her to recognize that she had that freedom, that she didn't work outside, but she worked inside the house, that she had an economy, that's it... it's the life of our women that we still have a lot to learn from them... with all of us, we have a lot to learn, we have a lot to teach and we have a lot to reproduce. And to say that there are still very few books and articles that we find to talk about this whole feminist issue, I think that there are still very few, they should be more widespread, they should be more common, we should know where to find these things for us to seek and bring as a way to show women... all these experiences... (Mrs. Nanci, producer and representative of the RESF in Ceará, 52 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

(...) and then you realize that they learn and absorb much more than with the one who is already there with them every day, that's why... that's why I need it. I talked to Dandara to see if I could find someone to do some training, open up the dialogue... instead... on the day of the Network meeting, let's do a workshop? (Mrs. Nanci, producer and representative of the RESF in Ceará, 52 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

A very common discourse strategy in the speech of the women who have been participating in the groups for some time is naming, by differentiating them in time and context. For the women who are already in the groups, "they," "that lady" is a previous condition, a form of previous woman, which denotes the construction around the internal and external groups of women, those who are not in the network and those who are. They name the women who are entering as participants in a process of learning or relearning "to be a woman," which is built cooperatively, including with the exchange of experiences.

The learning for cooperation among the women materializes in the mutual help they give each other, including at the points of sale. Collaboration occurs in the simplest, yet significant, attitudes. For example, the women help each other a lot, even though they are from different groups; during the lunch break, they take turns to go to lunch at their own time, in a fluid and organized way. Even though there are episodes of individualism, because the reality is made up of mixed phenomena, collaboration and cooperation are predominant and worked on as a form of learning.

(...) in general there is more collaboration. You... let's say, out of our 10 groups, there's one group where the woman is like this... she... and so, as I said, it's a very big learning process that we need to handle with a lot of affection and care because the person sometimes does it without even feeling it, without even knowing that they're acting that way. And how are you going to make the person realize that they're doing that? It's not you saying, coming to her and saying with all the words... it's a whole construction, you have to do some games, some dynamics where suddenly, she'll realize that she does what's being presented to her... and then she starts in that process "look, I want to change, it's hard, but I'll try"... so there's that. (Mrs. Nanci, producer and representative of RESF in Ceará, 52 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

(...) this... I learned... like that... because I was very individual. Because I worked alone and had no support from anyone... I was the one who made my decisions, I saw what was best for me. So much that today I miss it when I'm here doing something, if I had one of the girls to give an opinion, to give a tip... ah, that was very good... that helps a lot. (Mrs. Laudelina, food producer, 58 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

According to Pinheiro and Paula (2014), self-management allows for the reconciliation of democratic decisions and economic efficiency. The authors argue that democracy in collective decisions enhances economic results, since it reduces conflicts, reduces the concentration of power, and increases group cohesion, besides expanding the learning process due to the diversity of possibilities that it generates with new ideas and values. This social perspective covers the learning processes, since self-management is improved based on emancipation towards citizenship. In this sense, Guerardi and Strati (2014) state that the adoption of a social perspective on learning does not imply understanding what kind of cognitive process and conceptual structure are involved, but seeks to explain the nature of the social engagements that promote the context for learning.

From the women's speech situations, it is possible to perceive strategies of perspectivation and self-representation of themselves when they demonstrate an initial individualistic view, which is transformed into a collective view with the passage of time and with the group dynamics when referring to themselves in the past: "I learned", "I was." In view of this ontological and epistemological perspective, the learning process shifts from the individual to the structure in which learning occurs (context), shaping learning into a collective phenomenon that involves the entire community, linking organizational learning to social learning.

(...) when the Network comes together it's good because we have more knowledge, we debate, we see what's happening out there and we clarify more ideas... more learning... I see it that way (...) In the group we... because many ideas arise... so we clarify, we have more knowledge. In groups it's much better. The more we get together, the better. (Mrs. Laudelina, food producer, 58 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

(...) we talk a lot, nobody decides anything alone, nobody says anything alone, when we have something we decide how we're going to do it, how we're going to take it, what we're going to take, if we're going to avoid plastic bags we avoid them... we do everything to avoid plastic bags, to use paper bags... we've already had several workshops, learning how to make the bags, we go around these stores... these printing stores... where there's that paper left over, that paper goes to the garbage, there are many colleagues that can, they can afford a car, their husband has a car and he goes there to get it and distributes that material to us and we keep doing it... (Mrs. Eleonora, agroecology area producer, 65 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

The nature of the social engagements of the women in the Feminist Solidarity Economy Network is based on mutual affective and relationship needs, which promote the context for learning, as Guérin (2005) reflects in his studies on women in the Solidarity Economy. The discourses point to the women's self-representation and collective perspective; the term "we" is recurrent in the speech and demonstrates an engagement in the processes of training and collective learning. The "we" translates a nature of body, of whole. Regarding economic efficiency, the women's technical training is also a concern of the RESF. Regarding the engagement of new members, Gherard and Strati (2014) report that legitimized peripheral participation, which are specific modes of engagement by which new members of a community socialize and learn, also enables the perpetuation of the community. In other words, legitimized peripheral participation is characterized as the newcomer's progressive engagement in the community with the development of the practices performed by them. Technical training is necessary so that the women can manage resources, learn how to price their products, and how to calculate their work time, which is one of the major difficulties they face.

(...) we bring a lot (noises of children in the background) it's... training in this... in this area of... finances, right? In the area of finances, pricing, accounting, we always look for our partners and tell them our difficulties and they bring them. Because we also have some women that are illiterate, they can't read and write and are ashamed and afraid, but then when we realize that we're very careful, with a lot of tact for them to be... entering into the process without... not in an aggressive way... we approach them slowly... there are some that don't want to and say "no, I don't want to learn that" and we understand, but there are others that, even with all the difficulties, they say "no, I want to learn. I'm here to learn" and then we go deeper and… we try to bring that woman and from her, she goes to that other one... (Mrs. Nanci, producer and the RESF representative in Ceará, 52 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

The practice of collective and networked learning is a characteristic of women's enterprises in the Solidarity Economy. For Gherardi (2009) , the collective process of group learning is incorporated as a characteristic element of the group and ensures its identity, taken as a system of activities in which knowing is not separated from doing, therefore the women of the RESF collectively produce knowledge through activity, connecting knowing and doing. According to the author, practices are recognized patterns, which, although they vary according to the context in which they are carried out, they are recognizable and, through their very execution, disseminate and modify constantly, recursively.

This is a phenomenon perceived in the RESF enterprises, which are formed by different groups, but have common characteristics in their dynamics, as well as practices that may differ at some point, but remain similar, since the context will define the way of learning (Nicolini, 2013). The feelings of togetherness and trust are necessary for the exchange of knowledge, which starts from the exchange of the women's experiences, a solution for these groups, as well as for the resolution of problems, in less time than it would occur individually, emphasizing the collective nature of the phenomenon.

(...) look, when there's a request, we get together to produce at Casa e Renda, when it's not it's... for a meeting, for example, they hold meetings so that we can be closer to each other and sometimes "ah, I can't leave my house because of my grandson, because of this and that" they come to me and hold meetings at my house. So, even that's made easier. So, that's why we only have to give thanks... that... that way we learned and we're learning more every day with this Network. (Mrs. Carolina, handicraft producer, 57 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

It should be noted that there is not only substantive learning in self-management, but feminist learning, since the exchange of information depends on the degree of trust that the women establish from the exchange of their experiences throughout all processes, not only those of production and marketing. On the other hand, the notion of learning in practice is not just acquiring knowledge, because, according to Gherardi and Strati (2014), learning becomes knowing-in-practice, it is something that happens in action, in knowing as practices are developed, thus learning becomes the very transformation and conservation of ways of doing. In the RESF, learning is doing and doing is learning; however, even if we consider that practice and learning are central aspects of each other's constitution, they differ from each other. There is learning in the practices, and the practices are the fields of learning. Considering learning in the RESF as a constantly changing process that is both gradual and incremental, the future of this community depends on the knowledge that is integrated and distributed in the life of the community (NICOLINI, 2013). Learning in the community is an act of belonging, in which learning necessarily requires the subjects' involvement. In the RESF, the feeling of belonging comes essentially from the objective that unites them, the search for the valorization of women's work in the Solidarity Economy.

(...) if I could be born again I would be born a woman again. And if I could be born with some knowledge, then I wouldn't go through a lot of things that I went through... but if we can't... we have to go on... living is an eternal learning process. It's dying and learning ... you never stop learning... ever. (Mrs. Eleonora, agroecology area producer, 65 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

Because it's through this valorization of women that I'm here today firm and strong (tone of excitement) because if it wasn't for them... all this movement, the Sea... Network, Estrela Netwok, Cearense Network, Feminist Link and others we... you know... (...) my work was valued... and I learned everything in this Network. (Mrs. Carolina, handicraft producer, 57 years old, Fortaleza, February 2019)

The women's discourse demonstrates strategies of perspectivation and self-representation focused on collective action, which transforms the women's lives not only in the economic sphere. The speech situations "woman," "firm," "strength," and "live" appear frequently in the speech, denoting learning processes that go beyond production practices, but learning for collective life and for the emancipation of women in peripheral contexts. It should be noted that most of the women are breadwinners and find strengthening bonds in the participation and organization of the productive groups. Table 2 presents a summary of the analysis regarding the feminist practice of self-management and collective and networked learning.

Table 2
: Analysis of the feminist practice of self-management and collective and networked learning

SOCIAL PRACTICE	DISCOURSE ELEMENTS	DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES	THEORETICAL LENSES
Non-hierarchical organization of learning practices	Collective learning No definition of who teaches and who learns	Predominance of perspectivation and self-representation	Management based on the substantive rationality (Ramos, 1989; Serva, 1997 )
Intense exchange of information inside and outside the network based on reciprocal bonds	Exchange of information as a way of establishing trust	Predominance of self-representation and perspectivation	Women, work and care (Fraser, 2007; Guérin, 2003; Hirata, 2002; Martin, 2003; Saffioti, 2013)
A form of learning that prioritizes experiences with a system of activities in which the knowing is not separate from the doing	Knowing is doing Doing is knowing Living is learning	Predominance of naming and perspectivation	Forms of learning (Gherardi, 1994, 2012; Gherard; StratI, 2014)

Source: Authors.

Learning cannot take place if participation is not possible, which is in line with what self-management, as an organizational paradigm, envisions in its dynamics (Singer, 2008; Guérin, 2005). The development of women and the dynamics sustained by women's communities go together, forming identities, which in the RESF essentially seek the valorization of women's work (Gherard & Strati, 2014). Taking as a basis such theoretical reflections on practice and the importance of context, understandings, rules and tele-affective structures, it is possible to make several reflections on the condition of practice itself in the context of the SE, in particular of women as subjects in the SE.

The point of contact can be noted between the rationality observed in the SE as a tele-affective structure, which appropriates specific dynamics in its structure. The theories of practice also situate the body as part of the way of doing, an important issue for women, as a material arrangement, the bodily practices situated in specific, subaltern contexts, as the performance of women in the SE, and thus the work of women in the SE can be pondered, as a specific context, within another specific context, that of the Solidarity Economy (Guérin, 2005). The social practice of women embedded in a context like the SE, where self-management is a paradigm, is able to subvert important contradictions, experienced in the socioeconomic context by women, for example, the contradiction of the emancipation of women in management and organizations, which characterizes the relevance of the social phenomenon of peripheral women self-managing enterprises in the third sector.

Conclusions

The objective of the research was to identify and analyze how women's organizational practices occur in Solidarity Economy enterprises and how they reflect the substantive rationality of a feminist management, materializing as a model of self-managed productive organizations. One of the feminist self-management practices identified was the development of collective and networked learning, which was analyzed in this research based on the interactions and dynamics in the context of women collectively organizing themselves in the RESF. The observation of the dynamics of the women in the RESF demonstrates that flexibility in the work system is related to a value structure that shapes the way work will be performed, thus being oriented under a substantive logic of rationality, together with some level of instrumentality, but with the predominance of substantivity (Ramos, 1989; Serva, 1993).

An important contribution lies in the theoretical articulation made, relating the SE to the feminist and post-colonial debate in the context of substantive organizations and management practices. The theoretical support allowed us to understand and align the episteme of an organizational practice that is performatized under the aegis of a rationality that meets the economic context and beyond, since feminist organizations seek the emancipation of women in their various demands, transposing the discussion on management practices that communicate with gender justice and that allow a certain minimum level of citizenship for women in peripheral conditions (Fraser, 2007; Martin, 2003; Santos, 2017 ).

The substantive understanding of feminist organizations from a post-colonial perspective provides important connections for researchers who intend to study the SE and the issue of women in income generation processes from a broad perspective of knowledge, as the study used both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of empirical data collected in the field since 2016. As reflected by Gaiger (2007), empirical and comprehensive studies on the SE are scarce, let alone those that relate the issue of post-coloniality with women's issues ( Bauhardt, 2014 ; Costa, 2011 ; Gonin et.al , 2013; Kuyen & Kappes, 2013). There is a need to intensify research on women in the context of the SE, firstly because of their significant representation, and secondly because of the lack of articulation between research activities and the development of public policies to foster the SE that look at the issue of women in peripheral contexts, who are especially affected by scarcity and social inequality (Guérin, 2005; Santos, 2017) .

In the context of the feminist self-management practice under analysis, collective and networked learning, the results point to the following findings: (I) no hierarchization of the organization of learning practices; (II) intense exchange of information inside and outside the network, based on reciprocal ties; (III) a form of learning that prioritizes experiences with a system of activities in which knowing is not separated from doing. These findings that build the practice of collective and networked learning were not foreseen in Martin's (1993) research and contain a theoretical contribution in the field of organizational studies focused on a substantive rationality, within the scope of analyses regarding self-management in the Solidarity Economy and feminist practices in the doing of the economy and of management itself.

The ways in which learning is constructed, in which women teach each other, is a common dynamic in the enterprises, collectively, both within the groups and in the network interaction. The women of the RESF believe that the learning acquired in the organizational processes of the self-managed enterprises is a way to consolidate the union between them and the groups. For Meihy and Ribeiro (2011), these learning relationships are part of the definition of belonging to associations or community groups that continuously rebuild their bonds. Therefore, learning is not limited to a process of acquiring knowledge for a particular productive activity, as it enables training for citizenship and emancipation of the subjects (Costa & Carrion, 2009; Faria, 2017 ; França Filho, 2013; Pinheiro& Paula, 2014; Santos, 2017 ; Silva, 2018) .

Learning cannot take place if participation is not possible, which is in line with what self-management, as an organizational paradigm, envisions in its dynamics (Singer, 2008; Guérin, 2005). The development of women and the practices sustained by their communities goes hand in hand with identity formation, which in the RESF essentially seeks to value women's work (Gherardi & Strati, 2014). Taking as a basis these theoretical reflections on practice and the importance of context, understandings, rules and tele-affective structures, it is possible to make several reflections on the very condition of practice in the context of the SE, and in particular, of women as subjects in the SE. The point of contact can be noted between the rationality observed in the SE as a tele-affective structure, which appropriates specific dynamics in its system.

Post-colonial thinking is attentive to the fit of feminist thinking to the reality of women in peripheral contexts, such as the SE. When dealing, for example, with gender justice and feminist management practices, it is necessary to understand that many women in peripheral contexts do not recognize themselves in a condition of inequality in relation to men and end up reproducing and naturalizing the conditions of oppression to which they are subjected in their daily practices. Thus, they may even engage in a self-managed and substantive Solidarity Economy, but it is not feminist and does not adhere to the condition of women in the economy. This highlights the importance of self-management and a substantive rationality that points to the question of women, incorporating this value into the self-management practices.

The practice of collective and networked learning is a characteristic of these women's enterprises; this collective process of group learning is incorporated as a characteristic element of the group and guarantees it an identity, taken as a system of activities, in which knowing is not separated from doing. Therefore, the women of the RESF collectively produce knowledge through activity, connecting knowing and doing ( Gherardi, 2009 ). Beyond workshops, courses, and other training activities, it is in the interaction with each other that learning develops in a more relevant way. Considering learning in the RESF as a process in constant change, at the same time gradual and incremental, the future of this community depends on the knowledge integrated and distributed in its life, because it believes that learning in the community is an act of belonging, in which learning necessarily requires involvement that arises from the intense exchange of information, mutual care, and the feeling of belonging that comes essentially from the goal that unites it.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Center for Studies in Gender, Age and Family (Negif) of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), which throughout the research contributed to the dialogue with the theoretical and empirical field in its research and extension activities related to the themes of human rights, women, gender, and education, involving the training of undergraduate and post-graduate students, contributing to the changing of gender relations in the spaces where they are found.

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Associate Editor: Josiane Silva de Oliveira

Data availability

The O&S encourages data sharing. However, in compliance with ethical principles, it does not require the disclosure of any means of identifying the research participants, fully preserving their privacy. The practice of open data seeks to ensure the transparency of research results, without requiring the identity of research participants.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Aug 2023
• Date of issue
  Jul-Sep 2023

History

• Received
  05 Apr 2022
• Accepted
  02 Jan 2023