The grammars of action in solidary economy and justification of practices of consumption

Abstract

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of critical consumption in an alternative market. On the assumption that besides a rationality characterized by the utilitarian calculation, the economic relations also contains a morality. We analyze from a qualitative approach the critical consumption practices in a Solidary Economy Fair in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. Thus, from the empirical research in this alternative market we configured the axiological rationality underlying the consumer in the form of a social grammar to describe the relationship between consumption and ethicity, and that can be identified through the grammars of care, authenticity and solidarity.