The social movements' politics for the rural world

Ilse Scherer-Warren,Pedro Stoeckli Pires

doi:10.1590/s1413-05802007000100002

Abstract

The starting point of this paper is that the political reach of a network-structured movement is related to its capacity to articulate several organizational scales (from local to regional, national and transnational), and to develop various forms of political action (at the levels of collective organizations, political articulations and mobilizations in the public sphere). From this, the paper then examines which rural collective actors are the most expressive at each level, the strategic political actors in the formation of interorganizational networks, the rural social movement's demands, struggles and political challenges, and, finally, the mode of development of the difficult and contradictory relationship between some of these social movement networks, the State and rural elites in the present political conjunture.

Highlights

Social movements that are the most expressive and broadest in political scope have increasingly been acting as interorganizational networks with a plurality of themes
The political range and the mobilizing capacity of a network structured movement is connected to its ability and creativity to discuss/network various organizational scales – from local to regional, national and transnational – and to develop a variety of forms that can be represented in the following synthesis: Format of the organized civil society: 1
MOBILIZING LEVEL in the public sphere: Marches, campaigns, “weeks”, “cry of the excluded”, “communal assistance” etc.; SOCIAL MOVEMENTS NETWORK: The group of practices and politics formed by the three previous levels (Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), indigenous movements, quilombolas3, people affected by the construction of dams, rural women etc.)

Summary

Introduction

Social movements that are the most expressive and broadest in political scope have increasingly been acting as interorganizational networks with a plurality of themes.

Results

Conclusion