This study was undertaken in 2005 and is founded on interviews with leaders of fortythree rural associations in four municipalities from the northeastern part of the State of Pará. It observed that generally such institutional forms of cooperation, officially supported, have not matched the spontaneous forms of cooperation, according to peasant traditions and rooted in trust and mutual responsibility.
Frequently, associations that were just formal had to engage into agreements or to follow agreements between financial institutions, public and private organizations and the peasant producers. Associations with more effective economic, political or cultural outcomes were those that had, prior to their constitution, implemented collective or community activities, kinds of associations based on shared commitments and trust. These contradictions that traditional communities experience when they participate in the modern institutional
system merit attention.
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