Resumen
This paper explores the strategic relevance for communities of properly managing collective symboliccapital under a neoliberal context, focusing on the impact of neoliberal policies in the capacity of communities to control the appropriation of value of their agro-food productions. The current economiccrisis in Spain increases the pressure on the social and economic reproduction of the lowerclasses withinlocal communities, and threatens the virtuous balance between the management of common resourcesand the collective symbolic capital associated with them. Entrepreneurial and institutional logic favorsthe capturing of collective symbolic capital by local bourgeoisies and transnational companies, whiledepleting the local common resources that had been exploited sustainably by local communities forcenturies. The case study of the cultivation of clams in Carril, Spain, illustrates this process, while theconclusions from previous research on other Spanish agro-food systems are presented to provide acomparative analysis and potential development alternatives based on different strategies for themanagement of collective symbolic capital
Palabras clave
Collective action. Commons. Value. Neoliberalism. Agro-food systems. Collective symbolic capital.