Resumen de Liminal organization: : Organizational emergence within solidary economy in Brazil

Fabio Bittencourt Meira

• This article synthesizes the results of a research on the emergence of organizational forms within solidary economy in Brazil. Discussion on solidary economy highlights the problem of how to apprehend its typical interstitial organizing phenomena. The response is given with the aid of Victor Turner�s anthropological concepts �liminality� and �communitas��or �anti-structure��which define the ontology of social interstices. After contextualization to contemporary capitalism and to the field of organizational studies, a new approach to the solidary economy organizing process is proposed through the theoretical construct called liminal organization. The analytical framework is applied in a case study of a company taken over by workers. Empirical evidence shows that liminal organizations live in contradiction as organizing processes in which structure and anti-structure are permanently tensioned.