Gramsci as Theory, Pedagogy, and Strategy: Educational Lessons from the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement

Abstract

In this chapter, I analyze the educational initiatives of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America. Over the past three decades, MST leaders have developed a set of pedagogical and organizational proposals for education, which local activists attempt to implement in public schools across the country. I argue that the MST’s attempt to enter the state and govern public schools is not a form of cooptation but, rather, a strategic attempt to transform the civil society terrain, what Antonio Gramsci referred to as a “war of position.” This often leads to contradictions, tensions, and defeats, but these educational interventions are critical to the MST’s larger political struggle: garnering the moral and intellectual leadership of civil society for an alternative hegemonic project. In this chapter, I use the case of the MST to highlight what I see as Gramsci’s three educational contributions: (1) his deeply educational theory of the process of social change, (2) his analysis of the pedagogical process through which learning and education should take place, and (3) his suggestions about appropriate strategy when attempting to engage the state and transform public institutions, including school systems. I illustrate these three contributions through an analysis of Gramsci’s writings, returning continually to the case of the MST to show how Gramsci’s educational proposals are being implemented in the twenty-first century.