The organizational models of emaus ragpickers in the state and its response to crisis

Abstract

Despite their common inspiration driven by the Abbé Pierre movement in France in 1949, today there are significant differences between the ragpickers groups. This article aims to classify the various groups in the Spanish state and analyze whether their particular characteristics have led them to propose different strategies to deal with the crisis. This first propose a typology based on the analysis of five variables (legal form of life on community leadership and participation, growth, action orientation) to help draw the organizational model of the various groups of Emaus in the state, which leads us to classify them into four categories (Community Foundation , Social Enterprise, Mixed). In general, the differences between these models are previous to economic crisis, but we have observed that there are differences in the responses to it. Although it is still early to establish a typology of responses to the crisis, we can tentatively highlight some keys that seem to contrast the differences between the proposed models. We believe it is important to understand these different models and response strategies, as all of them are present in other social institutions or companies related to the Social Economy and the Third Sector, and therefore help to understand what might be the key to future this type of Alternative Economy.