Towards a political ecology of education: the educational politics of scale in southern Pará, Brazil

Abstract

Social movements have initiated both academic programs and disciplines. I present ethnographic data that I gathered during 17 months of fieldwork with the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in southeastern Pará, Brazil, to explore the MST’s role in creating agroecological education opportunities. My analysis highlights three factors in southeastern Pará that initiate environmental education opportunities. First, activist professors are key players, serving as mediators between the state and social movements. Second, recurring events incubate environmental educational institutions and degree programs. Third, by collaborating with institutionalized education, movements are able to develop their own radical educational spaces. These three factors result in a gradual anti-neoliberal transformation in southeastern Pará’s rural educational opportunities. I develop a theoretical perspective of the political ecology of education to understand the relations between these three factors and educational change. By drawing attention to the educational politics of scale, I help advance theories of environmental education in a neoliberal age.

Keywords:

• political ecology of education
• Landless Workers' Movement
• environmental education
• scale
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant [BCS-1060888]; Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship; Fulbright Foundation Fellowship. Pilot research in 2009 was funded by the University of Georgia’s Dean’s award; Melissa Hague award; and Tinker award. Additional field research in 2013 was supported by the University of Georgia’s Wilson Center Foundation.

Notes

1. I capitalize Educação do Campo when referring to the education reform movement; otherwise, the phrase refers to locally relevant pedagogy.

2. Space constraints preclude extended discussion of the content of these programs; in this manuscript, I focus on the origination of these critical environmental education opportunities and the institutions that offer them.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant [BCS-1060888]; Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship; Fulbright Foundation Fellowship. Pilot research in 2009 was funded by the University of Georgia’s Dean’s award; Melissa Hague award; and Tinker award. Additional field research in 2013 was supported by the University of Georgia’s Wilson Center Foundation.