Propaganda, collective participation and the ‘war of position’ in the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement

Abstract

The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) is recognized as Brazil's most successful social movement. Although its goal is agrarian reform, the MST has been the subject of significant educational scholarship due to the emphasis it places on education reform, and formal and informal education. The MST's pedagogy has been extensively analysed. However, what remains remarkable about the MST is the on-going participation of its members after they achieve their immediate goal of land allocation. This article presents findings from a content analysis of 25 years of the movement's journal—the Jornal Sem Terra (JST). Although the usage of media within movements has received considerable attention, the majority of this scholarship focuses on external media. This article explores implicit pedagogical usage of the JST. Specifically, grounded theory is used to analyse how the MST pedagogically advocates on-going participation in collective relations through its usage of the Portuguese term formação, whose meaning is nuanced, but can be summarily understood as training or development. Through a content-analysis of the JST, three key themes on cooperation as on-going participation are illustrated, documenting how formação - as a pedagogical imperative for new cooperative social structures—is part of the struggle Gramsci terms the ‘war of position’.