Producing Community: The MST and Land Reform Settlements in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyses the attempt to create an ‘imagined community’ among members of the MST (Movimento Dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Movement of Rural Landless Workers) as a way of maintaining high levels of participation. As one of the most active rural movements in Brazilian history, MST owes much of its success to high levels of involvement among members who have already achieved their initial goal of access to land. Movement leaders and activists encourage participation by creating a community through ideas and practices and distilled into symbols, slogans and ritual. The lived experiences of community differ from the imaginings, however, and in this paper I show how MST members negotiate the movement's expression of community in ways that reflect historical experiences of economy and society. Ultimately, MST's imagined community is effective because the movement has established itself as a successful mediator between the settlers and the Brazilian State.