An education in gender and agroecology in Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement

ABSTRACT

This article explores the implications of a blended agroecology and gender education within Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST). The discussion is first situated within MST’s struggle for land and for peasant families’ livelihoods, generally, and under neoliberalism, specifically. Central to the struggle against neoliberalism have been critical educational models that evolved towards agroecology and a gender-equality-oriented pedagogy. Women have played important roles in the movement’s growth, particularly the development of the education sector. Using data from a literature review, observations, and interviews, the article argues that MST’s education, focused on agroecology and accompanied by gender-oriented pedagogy, empowers women and men to disrupt the traditional sexual division of labour in rural communities, and within land struggles, more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• education
• MST
• agroecology
• neoliberalism
• empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Instituto Educar is referred to simply as Educar in the rest of the article, reflecting the colloquial name for the institute.

2. In addition to secondary-level education in 2014 Educar began an undergraduate agronomy course with the Federal University of Fronteira Sul, Erechim.

3. The interviewees are referred to by initials. All interviews were completed by Schwendler in 2011 unless specified otherwise.

4. The falsification of land titles.

5. This programme involves the purchase of organic food, seeds, milk by the government from the smallholders to be distributed for free to hospitals, community restaurants, etc.

6. Via Campesina is an international movement which joins peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants, and agricultural workers from around the world (VIA Campesina 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of London (Convocation Trust Appeal Fund for the Central Research Fund) and the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Higher Education, Brazil.