Ajustando as peças do tabuleiro : a cooperação da Misereor em comunidades agrícolas do Sul do Brasil (1959-1979)

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand cooperation projects for the development of the German Episcopal Institution Misereor in the Southern Region of Brazil between 1959 and 1979. Misereor was founded in 1959 in West Germany in a context of re-signification of the world geopolitics after the Second World War and, more specifically, in a context of openness to modernity on the part of the Catholic Church in the context of the Second Vatican Council and its Social Doctrine. The thesis that Misereor was strengthened in the scenario of international cooperation with a proposal for the development and dissemination of the Catholic-Christian ideals of modern society, as elements that converged in the proposal of the Catholic Church for the constitution of a world of peace and equilibrium based on the prophylaxis and the integration of countries seen as underdeveloped in the dynamics of Western capitalism. In order to do so, the hypotheses considered are: 1) The principle of subsidiarity represented a tool of social action of the Catholicism based on the principle of the individual facing its social condition, the common good and solidarity; 2) the cooperation was assumed as a convergent element with the geopolitics of the Western capitalism; 3) the development was institutionalized by the Catholic Church to keep a standard and prophylaxis of links and intentionalities; 4) in this context, agriculture received a singular look at Catholic cooperation; 5) in the specific case of Misereor, there was an approximation with the foreign policy of West Germany, which sought to build a new world image and to enter into the geopolitical dynamics through cooperation to the development. For the analysis it is considered the methodology of Political History as a proposal that considers the relations of cooperation for the development composed by different power relations and intentionalities, composing a web of historical events constituted by subjects and institutions inserted in a diversified social and political context, seeing this reality as a game of scales, where the region reconfigures itself from the focus of analysis. For the analysis, we consider the cooperation projects developed in agricultural areas in the States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná in a scenario of modernization of agriculture and the formation of a political scenario in rural space. The analysis is based on two perspectives: a) food production and income generation; and (b) the training / instruction of the rural producer. We conclude with this analysis that the ideal of development represented an effort to integrate the underdeveloped peoples into the dynamics of Western capitalism based on the principles of individual and society defended by the Catholic Church as elements of justice and world peace.