O trabalho Institucional e a institucionalização de boas práticas de produção: um estudo no campo mineiro da cachaça

Abstract

In keeping with Brazilian and mining culture, cachaça is a product that stands out as a genuinely Brazilian product. Marked by its own unique and peculiar sensory characteristics, cachaça is a drink that has been present in the Brazilian historical context since colonial times, as an inferior product and consumed by the poorest classes. Nowadays, this perspective has been reframed thanks to the popularization of the drink and its innumerable flavors and aromas, pleasing more refined and elite palates, in Brazil and abroad, where it has been a great success. Its production practices have also undergone changes, given the current context and requirements of the public and the market. In view of the above, brought under one of the currents of Institutional Theory and understanding the institutionalized practices that already permeate the field, the objective of this work is to understand how the institutional work carried out in the cachaça mining field has contributed to the institutionalization of good production practices, evidencing the contributions of this work to the institutionalization of good practices for the production of cachaça, particularizing its political, technical and cultural specificities, evidencing the reactions and resistance of organizations producing cachaça to the ongoing institutional work. The theoretical current that underlies this work is called Institutional Work, with the creation, maintenance and interruption of institutions as analytical pillars, these three being recurrent in the analyzes of this study. This research refers to an exploratory research, with a qualitative and descriptive character. In-depth interviews with producers, public servants and agents relevant to the cachaça field were used as data collection techniques, documentary analyzes in institutional files and websites and non-participant observation. Thematic content analysis was used as an analytical method in order to build the results presented. The main notes brought are that cachaça has been an institutionalized drink in Brazil for centuries, and that its mode of production has undergone changes due to changes in the normative set that govern its production, being delegitimized institutions and new institutions created, such as the use of stainless steel materials and equipment, highlighted by the technical work of institutionalizing good production practices. The inspection and inspection process has also undergone considerable changes, with the establishment of a partnership between MAPA and IMA, which is a political work to institutionalize good practices, but which has been resisting this action. While in cultural work there is the institutionalization of good production practices related to the use of solid and liquid residues generated by the production of cachaça, in addition to the educational work that was created by IMA in order to legitimize good practices. It is also added that producers and agents in the field continue to seek to strengthen, legitimize and institutionalize good production practices.