The Landless invading the landless: participation, coercion, and agrarian social movements in the cacao lands of southern Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

This contribution draws on Nancy Fraser's concept of ‘participatory parity’ to analyze the reproduction and contestation of inequalities internal to land reform settlements affiliated with the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) located in the cacao lands of southern Bahia, Brazil. These inequalities are variously manifest in unequal control over land and legal documents, disparities in status and what Fraser calls ‘voice'. These circumstances help account for quantitative evidence that shows a strong preference among local landless populations for land reform organizations that are more decentralized and less hierarchically organized. These circumstances also motivate direct actions undertaken by grassroots MST settlers seeking to destabilize the conditions that ground these inequalities. This research highlights the importance of attending to local histories and interactions through which participatory disparities are christened and reproduced; indicates potential methodological consequences; and examines the interplay of transgressive action, dialogue and recognition as settlers struggle to bring about ‘participatory parity' – or what they might call genuine ‘friendships' – in their communities.

Keywords:

• social movements
• inequality
• participatory democracy
• participatory parity
• authority
• voice
• Nancy Fraser
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express sincere thanks to José Henrique Bortoluci, Aaron Ferris, Webb Keane, Michael Lempert, Bruce Mannheim, Barbra A. Meek, Gregory Duff Morton, Susan Paulson, Rebecca Tarlau and two anonymous reviewers for critical comments and conversations about earlier versions of this paper. He would also like to express his gratitude to the team at Taylor & Francis for their skill, thoroughness and patience in the process of transforming the original manuscript into its present form.

Funding

Fieldwork for this contribution was supported the following institutions: National Science Foundation, Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants (2009); Fulbright-Hays, Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (2009); American Philosophical Society, Lewis and Clark Fund (2010); Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, International Research Award (2010).

Notes

¹ Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra.

²To capture relevant sociological distinctions, I translate militante as either ‘militant’ or ‘activist’ according to each person's situation in the MST hierarchy, which differentially distributes the exercise of command and control over other members. ‘Militants’ can be understood as more central to the exercise of command and control, whereas ‘activists’ are more marginal.

³All names in this contribution are pseudonyms.

⁴I owe this observation to conversations with Gregory Duff Morton (personal communication, March 4, 2014).

⁵Wolford (2010b) similarly suggests that the way relationships between MST leaders and settlers are institutionalized may contribute to the reproduction of certain inequalities.

⁶For an account of the contentious circumstances under which the disease may have appeared in Bahia, see Caldas and Perz (2013).

⁷Indeed, given the incredible complexity of Brazilian property law, ‘definitive title’ has an almost mythical status for large and small landowners alike. See Holston (2008) for an important discussion of the complexities and pitfalls of property ownership.

⁸Gregory Duff Morton (personal communication, March 4, 2014) suggests that in Bahia's arid interior, such contributions proceed more voluntarily, partly because settlers have fewer resources from which to draw.

⁹Wolford (2010a, 199) presents similar evidence.

¹⁰While there is a clear quantitative shift in the percentage that settlers keep, settlers’ observations highlight an insufficient qualitative shift in their control over the means of production.

¹¹ Declaração de Aptidão ao Pronaf.

¹²It is unclear how the MST's regional leadership was able to intervene here. Ondetti (2008, 187–88) seems to suggest an institutional understanding between movement leaders and INCRA officials more than anything else.

¹³In 2009, Brazil's minimum monthly salary was R$ 465.

¹⁴In 1999, Brazil's minimum monthly salary was R$ 136.

¹⁵At this point, I have been broadly influenced by J.M. Bernstein's publicly available lectures on G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit, which develop a theme of what Bernstein elsewhere calls the ‘transgressive-legislative deed’ (Bernstein 2003, 421).

¹⁶This would appear to forestall the operation of what Fraser calls ‘cross-redressing’ (2001, 83).

¹⁷Tracking this particular history helps to navigate the complex debate between Nancy Fraser's ‘perspectival dualism’ and Axel Honneth's ‘normative monism’ (see Fraser and Honneth 2001), since what Fraser understands as an ‘objective’ condition for participatory parity appears to be at least initially grounded in (or emerging from) various relationships of intersubjective recognition.

Additional information

Jonathan DeVore has been conducting research in land reform and squatter communities in southern Bahia since 2002. He finished his PhD in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Michigan in August 2014, and he is currently preparing an ethnographic monograph based upon his research.