Introduction How can market-based, politically oriented consumerist actions contribute to the creation and management of ecosystems for Solidarity Economy? Based on the case study analysis of Esperança/Cooesperança, a solidarity economy network in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil, this paper argues that alternative marketspaces can promote ecosystems for Solidarity Economy by promoting what Escoffier (2018) calls “mobilizational citizenship”. Esperança/Cooesperança became a template and source of best practices for the development of a national-level program of public support to Solidarity Economy-based commercialization, with the purpose of poverty reduction and social inclusion, between 2004 and 2014. The analysis is based on three periods of fieldwork, carried out between July 2008-July 2019, January 2012 and September-November 2016. Literature review A tendency in the study of market-based, politically oriented consumerism actions shifted the focus of analysis from individual consumer choices to how grassroots networks promote sustainable development through production re-localization and food system reterritorialization (Grasseni 2014; Forno, Grasseni and Signori 2015; Giambartolomei, Forno et al. 2018; Laville 2018). To what extent does the impact of such initiatives extend beyond their immediate goal to “socialize and mobilize individuals and families over environmental and social justice issues, starting with day-to-day consumption practices and decisions” (Graziano and Forno 2012: 122) and promotes alternative economic ecosystems? The still-evolving concept of Solidarity Economy can be used to understand the synergies which make such development possible. Solidarity Economy refers to cooperative, inclusive and self-organized alternatives to dominant economic structures, founded upon voluntary association based on free will, whose criteria of performance prioritizes the creation and redistribution of social value over capital accumulation (Mance 2007; Laville 2018). It represents an alternative to corporate production and commercialization, while further challenging this paradigm and its stakeholders through prefigurative economic and political practices (Ould Ahmed 2015). The main distinguishing factor of Solidarity Economy is the promotion of worker self-management through: a) the removal of the distinction between capital and labour through worker ownership, often in the form of cooperatives and associations; b) the promotion of equitable and mutually supportive relationship both within individual initiative and within wider society; and c) the effective equal decision-making power for each participant (Auinger 2009). This form of promotion of worker self-management brings economic behaviour and decisions about its governance into the sphere of public debate, framing it as part of a wider political project of democratic deepening based on participatory governance, wider socio-economic inclusion and the visibility of social formations and economic practices which, due to their characteristics, are marginalized and rendered invisible and marginalized by the criteria of capitalist and bureaucratic governance (Dacheux and Goujon 2011). Case study The strategy of Esperança/Cooesperança is centred on the use of public space in the town of Santa Maria, the largest urban area in the region, for the commercialization of produce by organized groups of subsistence farmers and artisans that were economically marginalized from the market by globalized supply chains. Such strategy aims at more than merely providing a source of income for these groups. The marketspace developed by Esperança/Cooesperança, which hosts regular fairs of goods and services by producers who were economically marginalized by globalized supply chains, gives visibility and promotes the political legitimacy of non-capitalist economic practices of marginalized group such as subsistence farmers, landless workers, indigenous people and women heads of household. Besides, it functions as a site of political education and mobilization for both producers and consumers, promoting forms of political incorporation that emerge from processes of “production of belonging” inherent to the local identities of struggles “updated and reformed through processes of micro-mobilization” (Escoffier 2018: 775). By publicizing their economic practices, it builds their political subjectivity and agency of its participants by mobilizing agentic memory, symbols and practices of belonging, as well as promoting grassroots leaderships through practices of decentralised protagonism, aimed at influencing policy-making and regulation in their favour. In parallel to the commercialization of the participants’ good and services to the wider public, in functions as a site of non-commodified exchange of skills, goods and services between participating producers. The marketspace and regular fairs promoted by Esperança/Cooesperança had a significant impact in poverty reduction in the city of Santa Maria and across the state of Rio Grande do Sul. They were the template for a national-level policy of support to Solidarity Economy-based commercialization during the governments of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Roussef. They also became a source of best practices for Solidarity Economy fairs across Europe. References Auinger, M., 2009. “Introduction: Solidarity Economics – emancipatory social change or self-help?”, Journal für Entwicklungspolitik 25: 4–21. Dacheux, E., Goujon, D., 2011. “The solidarity economy: an alternative development strategy?”, International Social Science Journal 62, 205–215. Escoffier, E. 2018. “Mobilisational citizenship: sustainable collective action in underprivileged urban Chile”, Citizenship Studies, 22:7, 769-790. Forno, F.; Grasseni, C.; Signori, S. 2015. "Italy’s Solidarity Purchase Groups as ‘citizenship labs’", pp. 67-88 in Huddart Kennedy E., J. Cohen M., Krogman N. (ed.), Putting Sustainability into Practice. Applications and Advances in Research on Sustainable Consumption. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Giambartolomei, G.; Forno, F.; Sage, C. 2018. "Urban Food Strategies: the role of Food Champions and policy entrepreneurship in Cork and Bergamo" pp. 96-104 in Re-imagining sustainable food planning, building resourcefulness: food movements, insurgent planning and heterodox economics, Coventry: Coventry University. Graziano, P. R.; Forno, F. 2012. "Political consumerism and new forms of political participation: The Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale in Italy" in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644(1): 121-133. Grasseni, C. 2014. “Seeds of Trust. Italy's Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (Solidarity Purchase Groups)”. Journal of Political Ecology. 21(1): 178-192 Mance, E.A., 2007. “Solidarity Economics”. Turbulence: ideas for movement 2007: 1–9. Laville, J-L. 2018. A Economia Social e Solidária: Práticas, Teorias e Debates. Coimbra: Almedina Ould Ahmed, P., 2015. “What does ‘solidarity economy’ mean? Contours and feasibility of a theoretical and political project.”. Business Ethics: A European Review 24, 425–435.

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Solidarity Economy,Economic Ecosystems,Politically Oriented Consumerism,Mobilizational Citizenship,Alternative Marketspaces,Public Space

• Sociology - Social Sciences