The relatively good recycling performance in Brazil is associated to material recovery chains involving a huge number of informal waste collectors. Over the past decades, social activists have supported grassroots recycling cooperatives and these organizations have spread around the country becoming consecrated in the National solid waste policy as a legitimate form to organize recycling. This article analyses the emergence of “solidarity recycling” in Brazil, addressing the cultural and political relations and processes that have led to its legitimation. Cross-fertilizing Bourdieu’s sociological approach and the strategic action fields perspective, a qualitative, retrospective, and longitudinal study was conducted using secondary and primary data from various sources. Evidence shows that the emergence of solidarity recycling has resulted from both structural convergences and strategic actions unfolding across multiple fields, indicating the complementarity of the used approaches and the importance of accounting for the interconnection of arenas.

Palavras-chave: Teoria das organizações; Institucionalismo; Poder nas organizações; Dinâmica organizacional.Abstract: This paper analyzes how different approaches of organizational analysis use the notion of 'field'. The philosophical grounds and proposals that motivated the usage of this concept in the social sciences, associated to a specific relational approach illustrated by the sociological approach of Bourdieu, are taken as a reference. Identifying the genesis and paying particular attention to the configuration of scientific concepts in this approach, theoretical tools of sociological institutionalism in organizational analysis and the strategic action field approach are discussed. The paper concludes that overcoming limitations commonly associated to neoinstitutionalism involves reconfiguring its conceptual tools. A broader and more flexible concept of field, intrinsically articulated with conceptions of action and power, is considered to be particularly relevant.

The article addresses how societal inequalities shape market arrangements. While business scholars developed important work about the interplay of organizations and societal economic inequalities, less has been said about the embeddedness of markets in unequal social structures. We argue that this issue may be addressed by cross-fertilizing the sociological approach of Bourdieu and the Strategic Action Fields perspective. To demonstrate our view, we assessed the extreme case of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling markets in Brazil, conducting a qualitative study based on the precepts of abductive analysis and using data from different secondary sources, interviews, and participant observation. We verified the existence of correspondences between the power of strategic action fields and the positions the individuals controlling them occupy in what Bourdieu calls the social space and show how these differences enable inter field connections that tend to reproduce social hierarchies.

RESUMONeste ensaio, exploramos as distinções teóricas e complementaridades metodológicas existentes entre abordagens que conceitualizam as estruturas sociais com base nas noções de campos e redes. Essas perspectivas se opõem tanto à visão atomizada quanto à supersocializada da ação e buscam superar a dicotomia entre estrutura e agência, mas possuem diferenças conceituais importantes. Aspectos epistemológicos e conceituais são discutidos, evidenciando que apesar de ambas serem consideradas relacionais, elas evitam a reificação da teoria de maneiras distintas. Apontamos que a forma como a noção de campo é utilizada por autores como Pierre Bourdieu e Neil Fligstein é articulada em um referencial teórico relacional, no qual a definição da estrutura é inseparável da de agência e do poder, possibilitando a superação de limitações da abordagem de redes. Enfim, argumentamos que o uso das técnicas de análise de redes pode ser orientado pelas teorias de campos. PALAVRAS-CHAVECampos; Redes; Estrutura Social; Cultura, Poder. ABSTRACTIn this essay, we explore the theoretical distinctions and the methodological complementarities between approaches that conceptualize social structures as fields and networks. These perspectives oppose to both the atomized and over socialized views of action and aim to overcome the dichotomy between structure and agency. Initially, epistemological and conceptual aspects are discussed in order to explicit the differences between the approaches. We point that the way the notion of field have been used by authors as Pierre Bourdieu and Neil Fligstein is articulated in a relational framework in which the definition of structure is inseparable from the ones of agency and power, allowing to the overcome of limitations of the view of structures as networks. Finally, we argue that the use of network analysis techniques may be orientated by field theories.

Important research efforts have been developed to account for power in the analysis of supply chains. This paper argues that further gains may arise by considering organizations as social constructions mediated not only by power relations, but also by cultural representations intrinsically intertwined to it. Its purpose is to discuss the dynamics of stability and change in supply chains based on the Strategic Action Fields (SAFs) approach. A theoretical essay was elaborated discussing some of the main implications of this perspective to the study of supply chains and presenting propositions to enable the construction of research objects and guide empirical studies in the area. Propositions emphasize how ongoing cultural-political relations circumscribed to different fields, including the organization, with its internal disputes.