Caracas, September 20, 2023. This Wednesday, sociologist and founder of the Venezuelan Observatory of Popular Economies, Edith Pineda, affirmed that Venezuelans who seek to rebuild community relations, through their experiences, lessons learned, challenges, and actions, must tell the story of the Bolivarian communal project.
During her participation in the radio program En Clave Comunal, broadcast by Radio Nacional de Venezuela, Pineda commented that the People’s Power Ministry for Communes and Social Movements made great efforts to systematize and record Venezuela’s communal experiences so that they become a living memory.
“Systematization is the central axis of what we do in the Ministry of Communes. Building a commune implies recognizing different ways of thinking and doing, and this process must become visible in the territories. We have to tell the story ourselves so that it is not lost. We have to plan it ourselves and tell it from our realities and our own struggles. This great collective work has recently borne fruit and we presented three publications at the 19th International Book Fair of Venezuela, at the Municipal Palace of Caracas,” she explained.
The researcher explained that the presentation of the books “El Arte de ponernos de acuerdo” (The Art of Agreeing), “Balance y Desafíos en la construcción de una economía para la vida” (Balance and Challenges in the Construction of an Economy for Life) and “Segundo informe periódico sobre la contribución de las economías populares a la soberanía alimentaria” (Second Periodic Report on the Contribution of Popular Economies to Food Sovereignty) was a success, since the work of the popular participatory processes in the territory was distributed with community spokespersons, as well as with national academics and international researchers.
“Each publication has its singularities. They are three books marked by systematization at different levels. We talk about community work methods. We show different profiles of community spokespersons: we have interviews, discussions, summaries, collective debates, quantitative data, files, and surveys of central interventions by academic advisors and community members. We made many collective reflections on decolonization and on how to look to the future while caring for and protecting Mother Earth because we are part of her,” said Pineda.
Sociologist Edith Pineda insisted that to build a commune it is necessary to break with traditional forms of knowledge production.
“It is a significant challenge to recognize other ways of doing and thinking. Those who participated in these experiences compiled in the three publications go through a deep process of research, political formation, planning, evaluation, diagnosis construction, and implementation of actions. It is an integral process in terms of knowledge. The men and women of Venezuela put life at the center and work every day for it. It is the value of caring for and sustaining life. The effort of these publications is to make visible the communal reality of Venezuela, that narrative, that knowledge under construction. Those interested in having the books can enter the People’s Power Ministry for Communes and Social Movements web page and download them free of charge through a QR code,” he said.
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