Landless Workers Research Articles

Educação popular em assentamento do movimento dos sem-terra: inclusão, vez e voz dos segmentos populares

Este trabalho se propõe analisar a Educação Popular destacando sua importância dentro da realidade social, política e econômica de nossa sociedade, procurando estabelecer relações quanto a sua importância no sentido de oferecer ferramentas para que os excluídos possam dizer a sua palavra. O tema desta reflexão é muito relevante diante da situação dos países da América Latina, nos quais as conquistas na maioria das vezes, aconteceram e acontecem através de lutas das camadas populares organizadas em movimentos sociais. Também será efetuado reflexões, a partir de pesquisa é desenvolvida no Assentamento 1º de Maio, no Município de Curitibanos (SC). Neste local residem pessoas vindas de outros municípios e do meio rural de curitibanos e região. Para alcançar este intento, traçaram-se os seguintes objetivos específicos: caracterizar conceitualmente a educação popular; historicizar o processo de formação do Assentamento 1º de Maio no Município de Curitibanos ; descrever o projeto de Educação Popular, estabelecendo relações com o processo de efetiva participação da comunidade do referido Assentamento. Esta trabalho se propõe ainda, desmistificar a realidade dos assentamentos, trazendo para reflexões a experiência educacional desenvolvida no Assentamento 1º de maio.. Quanto aos objetivos classifica-se como exploratória; quanto aos procedimentos de coleta de dados é uma pesquisa bibliográfica, de campo e estudo de caso. Quanto aos instrumentos e técnicas de coleta de dados, foram utilizados a entrevista e diário de campo. Espera-se com este projeto, levantar os referenciais teóricos e metodológicos de educação popular desenvolvido pelo Movimento dos Sem Terra.

Os movimentos sociais e a mídia em tempos de globalização: um estudo das abordagens de jornais brasileiros e espanhóis sobre o MST e os Direitos Humanos

Neste artigo, trabalhamos algumas problemáticas envolvendo a mídia tradicional, os movimentos sociais – em especial o Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) – e os Direitos Humanos (DH) em tempos de globalização neoliberal, por meio de um estudo comparativo das edições online dos jornais Folha de São Paulo (Brasil) e El Mundo (Espanha), em 2010. Adotando uma postura crítica, histórica e dialética, fazemos uma intersecção entre esses objetos com o objetivo de problematizar questões e apontar possíveis saídas levando em consideração a urgência de um (re) pensar dos DH e o papel da mídia nesse cenário. Para tanto, utilizamos os pressupostos teóricos de Roland Barthes, Douglas Kellner, Joaquín Herrera Flores e David Sánchez Rubio. Direitos

Prevalence of intestinal parasitoses in families of landless workers' movement

Prevalence of intestinal parasitoses in families of landless workers' movement

<b>Educação do Campo: contradições e perspectivas</b>

http://dx.doi.org/10.5902/198464444172 O presente trabalho tem como objeto de estudo a educação do campo. Objetivou analisar e debater a educação do campo no contexto educacional brasileiro, indicando seu caráter e sua importância a partir da década de 1990 na perspectiva de construção de uma educação voltada a emancipação humana e que contraditoriamente se encontra orientada e respaldada também pelas políticas educacionais neoliberais. Para isso realizou-se pesquisa documental e bibliográfica a fim de demonstrar as relações e contradições a partir dos dados da realidade e das idéias pedagógicas que constituem a educação do campo. As principais contradições estão na relação teoria e prática, movimentos sociais e Estado. Palavras-chave: Educação brasileira, Educação do Campo, Política Educacional

Nonviolent Resistance and Culture

This article investigates what culture means for nonviolent resistance. While literature on nonviolence has had a tendency to look instrumentally at culture, this article suggests an intertwined relationship. Activists are themselves embedded in their own cultures, and there is no “outside culture.” The authors suggest an innovative model of three strategies for analyzing the cultural aspects of a nonviolent struggle: (1) occasionally borrowing existing powerful symbols and cultural elements, such as flags or religious symbols, which is then applied; (2) partially remodeling“old” culture in the spirit of nonviolence. This strategy is illustrated through the Khudai Khidmatgar of the North‐West Frontier Province in the 1930s and shows how the nonviolent struggle there, was “negotiated” with Islam and a traditional code of honor; and finally, (3) systematically creating a nonviolent movement culture, which is a much more complex process, is illustrated through the movement for landless workers in Brazil, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra.

DYNAMICS OF AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION AND RESISTANCE

The paper analyses in the Latin American context the dynamics associated with the capitalist development process, namely, the productive and social transformation of an agrarian society and economy into a modern industrial capitalist system. This process implies a process of primitive accumulation (separation of the direct producers from the land) and the proletarianization of the peasantry. The project of development with international cooperation was designed and serves to assist the dispossessed rural poor in adjusting to the forces of progressive change released in the process, rather than resisting them. The paper also deals with the resistance of the rural landless workers and other elements of the peasantry against the neoliberal model of capitalist development that threatens the viability and sustainability of their livelihoods.

Reforma agrária e land reform: movimentos sociais e o sentido de ser um sem-terra no Brasil e na África do Sul

Este trabalho apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa comparada sobre a atuação do Landless People´s Movement (LPM), da África do Sul, e do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST), realizada entre 2005 e 2009. No lado brasileiro, impera a ideia de reforma agrária, ou seja, uma ação política voltada para o uso produtivo ou agrícola da terra, que tem, como pano de fundo, critérios legais de produtividade. Na parte sul-africana, vemos o embate se estruturar sob a nomenclatura de land reform, slogan que remete a uma mudança na distribuição do território, visando à reparação das injustiças cometidas pelos governos do apartheid. Sendo assim, indicamos que esses dois casos comportam tipos diferentes de sujeitos da ação política. Tendo como referentes agentes históricos distintos, os movimentos sob análise, nesses dois países, procuram se legitimar por meio de diferentes "grandezas" que justificam suas existências e suas lutas. Neste artigo, procuraremos apresentar as especificidades de cada um dos sem-terras desses movimentos, a partir das suas formas sociais de "engrandecimento e justificação social" diante de suas bases e do Estado.

Memória, relatos e práticas de espaço: cidades em áreas de ocupação recente na Amazônia (Mato Grosso, 1970-2000)

In this paper we discuss some theoretical and methodological approaches for the researches on the history of some cities - located at the north-east of Mato Grosso state (Araguaia), working with the small events, the lived situation, the negotiating games and all kinds of conflicts in the fight for land in a space where small and big farmers and landless workers dispute. We aim to reach, in the narratives of men and women, the patterns for the analysis of social and cultural practices in these cities, trying to offer a possible comprehension of the Amazon occupation in the last decades of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century.

Relações de saúde e trabalho em assentamento rural do MST na região de fronteira Brasil-Paraguai

Com o presente artigo, busca-se relatar e analisar as relações entre saúde e trabalho de pequenos produtores rurais do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). Quanto à metodologia, adotou-se o aporte da investigação participativa e as bases da educação popular. O estudo realizado tornou possível uma compreensão de saúde e de trabalho mediante as narrativas dos trabalhadores e histórias relativas às lutas coletivas contra a exclusão e a violência no campo. Constataram-se importantes aspectos próprios a esse grupo populacional, como o sentido de conquista da propriedade da terra, os conflitos advindos da 'militância' e as diferenças de gênero e geração. Com base nos relatos, analisaram-se também os acidentes e os riscos relacionados à atividade de trabalho no assentamento rural, principalmente a exposição ao agrotóxico. Confirmaram-se, ainda, a solidariedade e a cooperação como valores importantes e como base de novas relações, um modo distinto de organização social coletiva do trabalho.

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

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’.

<b>O trabalho no campo e no contexto do MST</b><br>doi: 10.5007/2175-8042.2010v22n35p130

This paper analyses rural working in a bourgeois society, especially the type of working generated inside MST – Rural Landless Workers Movement. The ontological and historical meaning of the Marxist conception of work is our starting point followed by reflections on the Brazilian rural reality and its working and living conditions. Next, we point out the several relationships between city and rural areas as well as between rural working and capitalist industrial production. MST is thought to be the movement which expresses the contradictions of the bourgeois society and aims at raising human relationships and types of working of superior quality of those in vigor in our society.

Ethnobotanical study of traditional uses of medicinal plants: The flora of caatinga in the community of Cravolndia-BA, Brazil

The Caatinga is one of the most characteristic vegetation types in northeastern Brazil, where there are several endemic species of medicinal plants. Information on the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses would represent a vital role in the discovery of novel products from plants. An ethnobotanical survey about utilization and conservation of medicinal plants was applied to residents of “Assentamento Palestina” which currently is expropriated and distributed in batches to families of Landless Workers in the region of Cravolândia-BA, Brazil. The semi-structured interviews were applied to the analysis of data on the plants, and resulted in a collection of 87 species, belonging to 42 families. The most representative families as to potential of use were Asteraceae, followed by Lamiaceae and Rutaceae. The most popular modes of preparation were tea (mentioned in 65.49% of cases), followed by juice (1.76%), syrup (15.54%), in natura (13.32%), maceration (5.55%) and baths (4.44%). Native plants are a very significant component of locally used medicinal plants. Key words: Popular medicine, therapeutical herbs, conservation, cultural meaning.

This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil

This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil

Resources of origin, investments and expectations of rewards in the militancy of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST)

The problem studied consists of the relations between the interests and militancy and the differences in expectations of rewards in an agrarian reform settlement linked to the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). In this settlement, many ‘leaders’ gathered the ‘socialisation of production’. The situation arising from these circumstances produced the different reasons for engagement and different relations with the militancy. In the transition from the encampment to the settlement, it becomes important for the leaders to reinforce their positions both of ‘leadership’ and as mediators of policies and public resources, while it becomes difficult for those settled to maintain their previous investments in strong engagement. Consequently, these new conditions tend to increase the differences between the expectations of rewards from the militancy. These expectations can be pragmatic, such as viability as a farmer, or have a more symbolic character, which is associated with the struggle to create social organisation models.

La Via Campesina: Peasant-led agrarian reform and food sovereignty

Faustino Torrez summarizes the findings of the Agrarian Reform Commission of La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement that initiated the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform. The process included a global encounter with the landless peoples in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the La Via Campesina conferences, and the global fora in Valencia and Porto Alegre. La Via Campesina has been developing a new concept of agrarian reform that recognizes the socio-environmental aspects of land, the sea and natural resources, in the context of food sovereignty. Integral agrarian reform encompasses policies of redistribution, just, equitable access and control of natural, social and productive resources (credit, appropriate technologies, health, education, social security etc.) by peasants and their families, indigenous people, landless workers, artisanal fisherfolk, pastoralists, the unemployed, Dalit communities, Afrodescendents and other rural peoples. He argues that development policies should be based on agro-ecological strategies centred on family and peasant agriculture and artisanal fishing; trade policies that oppose dumping of products in the market and favour peasant and family farm production oriented towards local, national and international markets; and public policies in the areas of education, health and infrastructure for the countryside that complement trade and other policies.

Writing the History of the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil: Empowerment, Recognition and Agency

Writing the History of the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil: Empowerment, Recognition and Agency

A Educação das Crianças Pequenas nas Cirandas Infantis do MST

This article discusses kids’ riddles on permanent and itinerant MST (a movement of landless rural workers in Brazil) aiming at investigating this practice of education experienced by children whose parents are struggling for a place to live. Riddles are part of non-formal education held by cooperatives, training centers and the MST itself. Such practice aims at organizing children in landless communities, developing educational work, whose perspective is human emancipation. The Itinerant riddles happen in some activities of the MST, such as courses, marches, meetings, congresses and the permanent riddles are those operating in MST’s settlements, schools, training centers etc. The theoretical framework used in this research was Florestan Fernandes (2004), Gobbi (2004); Finco (2004), Meszaros (2005), as well as the materials produced by MST. The methodological procedures have been defined in order to understand the functioning of these riddles, their nature and development on their relations. The data was collected through documentary research, observation and a semi-structured interview. The survey results indicate that riddles are spaces that allow children to participate in the community since their childhood. Besides, they configure themselves by building the collective childhood in which children learn to share objects starting from simple things such as toys, pencils, snacks, up to sharing community life with other homeless children as the maroon, Indians and homeless. They struggle against social inequalities, thus multiply the collective victories and, fill the countryside and the city of joy, dreams, utopia, with the possibility of building an emancipator education, linked to a project of the working class, for all children in the countryside and the city. REVISTA MULTIPLAS LEITURAS Revista Multiplas Leituras, v. 3, n. 1, p. 103-118, jan. jun. 2010 105

Energy Security: The Planetary Fulfillment of the Enclosure Movement

This essay examines the transformation in land relations known as the enclosure movement that paralleled the rise of the British Empire. It reveals this transformation to be a major motivator in today's cultural and political orientations toward the environment, and toward land relations in general. It argues that the ontology of enclosure has continued to spread in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to geographical locations formerly connected to British and European colonial expansion, adversely affecting the struggles of today's agricultural communities. The major manifestation of the enclosing ontology appears in the trope of “energy security,” a term meant to justify the enclosure of third world agricultural spaces for the future development of presumably green-friendly plant alternatives to oil. The essay also explores the activities of the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST) and its alternative relationship to the land. It concludes with an admonitory statement about the future viability of the geopolitics of enclosure.

Rural work and health conditions of families in the landless workers movement - MST and temporary rural workers: the case of Unaí, MG

famílias do MST e dos bóias-frias de Unaí-MG com enfoque nas relações de trabalho, produção, segurança alimentar, organização política, acesso aos serviços e políticas públicas. Foram coletados dados por meio de questionários aplicados a 202 famílias, e realizadas observação estruturada e discussões em grupo. Serão destacados também os resultados do processo de apresentação e discussão dos dados analisados para as comunidades pesquisadas. Os trabalhadores bóias-frias apresentaram um alto índice de insegurança alimentar (39,5%) e estavam mais expostos aos agrotóxicos se comparados aos assentados e acampados. A grande maioria das famílias de bóias frias gostaria de mudar de ocupação e entre o que havia de pior no trabalho estava a hora de acordar e o deslocamento. Mais da metade das famílias do assentamento conseguia viver apenas da produção do lote e entre as famílias acampadas 22,1% conseguiam retirar seu sustento do lote. As famílias do MST têm maior dificuldade de acesso ao SUS, porem o fato de ser Sem Terra, estar organizado, melhora as perspectivas de sua saúde em comparação com os bóias-frias. A modernização conservadora no campo brasileiro têm agravado as condições de vida e trabalho dos bóias-frias, enquanto que a Reforma Agrária tem possibilitado uma melhor condição de vida e de saúde para as famílias, quando comparadas nas áreas estudadas.

Agrofuel policies in Brazil: paradigmatic and territorial disputes

The expansion of agrofuel crops challenges us to rethink policies, territories, human agency, and the paradigms used to explain them. In Brazil, policies supporting the expansion of agrofuel crops and the intensification of agrofuel production are reorganising rural land use and undermining some forms of participation in the capitalist and family modes of production. To reflect on this new reality, we study peasant movement reactions, proposals, and territorial disputes with agribusiness. Using the Pontal do Paranapanema region of São Paulo state as a case in point, the paper analyses territorial disputes between expanding sugarcane plantations and agrarian reform settlements as well as biodiesel production projects developed by the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the Western São Paulo Federation of Settlement and Family Farmer Associations (FAAFOP). It also analyses the agrofuel policies of other peasant organisations, including Via Campesina. The production of agrofuels has changed the processes of land acquisition and use by both agribusiness and the peasantry, provoking new insights into the nature of territorial conflicts and thereby stimulating the need to revise perspectives on the agrarian question in Brazil.