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

Abstract

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