Getting Ahead Collectively

Getting Ahead Collectively: Grassroots Experiences in Latin America is a seven-chapter book that first discusses certain types of developmental sequences in Latin America. The emergence of cooperative action and the intangible benefits and costs of cooperatives are then explained. The book also explores the ""intermediate"" organizations that have grown all over Latin America to help low-income people better their condition. The last chapter details the social and political effects of a dense network of grassroots development efforts.

PrefaceIntroductionChapter One Inverted Sequences Is Security of Title a Precondition for Housing Improvements? Cali (Colombia) vs. Quilmes (Argentina) Education in Literacy-Prerequisite or Induced? Some Experiences in ColombiaChapter Two Other Notable Sequences Inventing a New Linkage: A Microempresa in Santiago de los Caballeros From Private Cooperation to the Public Arena From Debt Pooling to Pressure Group: The Tricycle Riders of Santo Domingo From Sewing to Advocacy: A Women's Academy in Comas (Lima) Collective Ventures and Private Lives What Will They Do with Their Free Time? The Dairy Plant in Durazno (Uruguay) The Effect of Education on Family Ties: A Rural School in Alto Chelle (Chile)Chapter Three The Emergence of Cooperative Action: outside Aggression Aggression by Nature: Flooding in Argentina and Erosion in Uruguay Aggression by Society Land Swindles: Argentina and Colombia The State as Aggressor: Argentina and ChileChapter Four The Emergence of Cooperative Action: Prior Mobilization The Principle of Conservation and Mutation of Social Energy Some Colombian Examples Extensions of the PrincipleChapter Five Intangible Benefits and Costs of Cooperatives Benefits (with a Story from Peru's Altiplano) Digression: Sport and Social Change Costs (with Stories from the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Peru)Chapter Six Organizations Involved in Social Activism Four Case Studies Asociación Para la Vivienda Económica (AVE), Córdoba, Argentina Museo de Aries y Tradiciones Populares, Bogotá, Colombia Asociación de Promoción y Desarrollo Social (APDES), Comas (Lima), Peru Instituto de Promoción Económico-Social del Uruguay (IPRU), Montevideo, Uruguay National and International Aid to the Grassroots: An InterpretationChapter Seven What Does it All Add up to?