Countering Inequality: Brazil's Movimento Sem‐Terra

Abstract

Data from a national survey of formerly landless peasants residing in federal land‐reform settlements in Brazil (Pesquisa Nacional de Educação na Reforma Agrária—) confirm that the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem‐Terra—) has been far more successful than other settlement movements in assuring a better quality of life for its members. This superior performance is attributed to an organizational structure that demands and assures membership involvement, and a commitment to participatory education in an environment that fosters and supports 's goals and objectives. 's members have higher self‐perceived social status than members of non‐ movements, have better residential environments and more material possessions, and experience an education that emphasizes the movement's principles of social justice, radical democracy, and humanist and socialist values.

• Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem‐Terra (MST)
• rural education
• Brazil
• Pesquisa Nacional de Educação na Reforma Agrária (PNERA)
• agrarian reform

Notes

1. PNERA 2004 is the only survey with microdata available online that can be analyzed statistically. Other studies such as Sparovek (2003), Leite and others (2004), INCRA (2010), and Simmons and others (2010) do not provide microdata available for comparative analysis or robustness checks, although they present similar results to PNERA. An important difference is that these studies analyze all INCRA settlements without making a distinction between MST and non‐MST settlements. The majority of studies on the MST, such as Simmons (2005), Hannah (2009), and Pacheco (2009), are based on participant observation, extensive interviews, or document/event analysis.

2. In all, twenty‐nine social movements are listed. Besides the MST, the most prominent social movements leading land occupation include the Federação dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura, Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura, Comissão Pastoral da Terra, Coordenação Estadual de Trabalhadores Assentados, Movimento Terra Trabalho e Liberdade, Central Única dos Trabalhadores, Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores, Movimento de Libertação dos Sem Terra, and Movimento Terra Trabalho e Liberdade.

3. The exceptions are Amazonas, Acre, Roraima, and Amapá.

4. For current statistics and further information on the MST movement, visit the movement's website at www.mst.org.br or the Friends of MST website at www.mstbrazil.org/index.html.

5. See Wolford (2010b) for more information on the history of INCRA and its importance to the MST.

6. See, for example, Branford and Rocha (2002), Wright and Wolford (2003), Ondetti (2008), Wolford (2010a), and Tarlau (2013a).

7. Because the teacher's survey does not make a distinction between MST and non‐MST schools, we only analyzed the leaders and families surveys.

8. A previous study by Carter and Carvalho in 2009 estimated that 134,440 families had won land through MST land occupations since 2006.

9. This number was drawn from the leaders' questionnaire. Leaders were asked whether the settlement had an organized social movement and the code for said movement.

10. For more on MST's identity, see Wolford (2010a).

11. Caboclo is a person of mixed indigenous Brazilian and European descent, while brasileiro is a person of mixed descent (indigenous, African, and European).

12. When established in 1998, PRONERA was a federal program to provide youth and adults living in settlements with more access to schooling. A major component of this program was the creation of university courses specifically for settlement students. Today, PRONERA is defined as a public policy of the federal government whose main goal is to provide human development through education (PRONERA 2012). Some researchers continue to define it as a federal program (see Tarlau 2013b).

13. For an extensive discussion of the Itinerant Schools, see Camini (2009) and Moraes and Witcek (2014).

14. There are about 14,000 students living in settlements who have received their bachelor's degrees since PRONERA began in 1998. More than forty public universities have accredited PRONERA courses (Tarlau 2013a).

15. For an extensive discussion on the establishing of schools in settlements, see Tarlau (2013a).

16. For more on the use of mística in MST schools, see Tarlau (2013b).