Social practices and strategizing: A study of produce merchants in the Vila Rubim market

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand the relationship between the meanings of social practices and strategy creation used by the produce merchants in Vila Rubim, Vitória, ES, from 1970 to the present time. To provide empirical evidence of the conceptual framework that was developed, we conducted a case study. The data gathered from the documents and interviews were treated using discourse analysis, and those obtained from observations were treated using content analysis. The possibility and the act of approaching the neighboring merchant's customer is the link that joins the homonymous strategy and tactic, but the process in each of them has different implications (strengthening or transgressing the established order) and develops in different and dynamic ways. Thus, the denomination of strategies and practices is dynamic, relational and temporary because the focus is on the process that permeates each strategy and its articulations in the practices and meanings in each flow. In their socio-historic process, the produce merchants in the VR Market articulate various flows. Among them, the empirical investigation identified fourteen flows, nine as strategies and five as tactics, according to the social references assumed in the analysis.