Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore new arrangements of exchange and social solidarity. Ethnographic analysis of local alternative food and basic needs allows us to rethink notions of sustainability, justice, labour and welfare, central issues which contribute to a reflection on social change.

Paper long abstract:

In Portugal, owing to the current social and economical crises, labour is in a deep decline since 2008. Employment systems have undergone changes mainly with respect to contracting and the redefinition of legislative framework of labour, at the same time of the weakening of institutional support models. This crisis of modern hiring (Santos, 1989) is aligned with neoliberal rules of economic growth based on costs-savings. The decline of wage labour gives way to a new worker which must learn how to live under the aegis of weak bonds (Senett, 2001), should be autonomous and embodied the responsibility of his own work possibilities. In Portugal, current productive system tends to selectively dispose of labour according to economic needs of employer. Due this conjecture of crisis this often means a constant movement of labour mainly focused in headcount reduction. This changes may be framed by analytic processes like "Accumulation by dispossession" (Harvey, 2004), such are, among others, informalisation and flexibilization of work and contracting, which generate loss of social rights and the "jobbers" (Sá, 2010) entitlements. New forms of communal cooperation are an attempt to reduce economic, social and personal vulnerabilities, everyday life difficulties, directly connected with labour crisis. In this way, Innovative practices have been emerging aligned with Social Economies (Laville, 2010; Singer, 2002) managing a wide range of goods and encouraging progressive forms of trade and solidarity. These new proximity markets (Laville, 2010) counteract profit requirements, accumulation and competitiveness of capitalist market, and provide new discursive matrices (Appadurai, 1996).