Beyond the Politics of Protest: The Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil

The MST and the EZLN Struggle for Land: New Forms of Peasant Rebellions

“…These spaces of subsistence have also provided a material basis from which to build something more than ‘economic’ responses. They have allowed the EZLN and the MST movements to envision and implement development alternatives based on alternative models of societies and polities that are rooted in autonomous rural community (Earle and Simonelli 2005; Fernandes 2005; Robles 2000; Vergara‐Camus 2007). The right to land, as a means for subsistence and social reproduction, but also as a means to regain human dignity and attain higher levels of autonomy, is at the centre of these development alternatives.…”

“…However, it is still useful to look at the agricultural production of MST settlers and Zapatista subsistence peasants in terms of capitalist and noncapitalist dynamics. For these two movements, the existence of spaces of resistance based on subsistence agriculture, which are not completely dominated by the capitalist logic, has permitted the development of responses to the neoliberal crisis of peasant agriculture.These spaces of subsistence have also provided a material basis from which to build something more than 'economic' responses.They have allowed the EZLN and the MST movements to envision and implement development alternatives based on alternative models of societies and polities that are rooted in autonomous rural community (Earle and Simonelli 2005;Fernandes 2005;Robles 2000;Vergara-Camus 2007). The right to land, as a means for subsistence and social reproduction, but also as a means to regain human dignity and attain higher levels of autonomy, is at the centre of these development alternatives.…”

“…However, he seemed to suggest that the type of solidarity arrangements was more the result of the agrarian structure of a peasant society and less the fruit of the efforts of peasant organizations. The experience of the MST and the EZLN show that by controlling a territorial space – the encampment and the settlement in the case of the MST and a whole network of indigenous communities in the case of the EZLN – these organizations were able to replace the state and provide peasants with political representation and basic services (Robles 2000; Fernandes 2005; Vergara‐Camus 2009; Burguete Cal y Mayor 2003). From these ‘autonomous rural communities’ they were able to develop a radical understanding of politics and social change based on the re‐creation or strengthening of the bonds of solidarity among peasants and landless rural workers.…”

“…The data collected by Villafuerte, for instance, show that two-thirds of remittances are received by families living in municipalities that are predominantly non-indigenous, and his data do not show how the remaining third is distributed nor the amount of remittances indigenous municipalities receive (see Villafuerte 2005, 479). 8 For a theorization of the importance of the control of a territorial space for the struggle of the MST, see Fernandes (2005). to replace the state and provide peasants with political representation and basic services (Robles 2000;Fernandes 2005;Vergara-Camus 2009;Burguete Cal y Mayor 2003). From these 'autonomous rural communities' they were able to develop a radical understanding of politics and social change based on the re-creation or strengthening of the bonds of solidarity among peasants and landless rural workers.…”

Reframing agrarian citizenship: Land, life and power in Brazil

“…5 There is an extensive literature on the origin and expansion of the MST as a national movement. In English see in particular Branford and Rocha (2002); Robles (2000Robles ( , 2001; Wright and Wolford (2003). In Brazil, definitive works are Fernandes (1999Fernandes ( , 2000; Morissawa (2001); Sté dile and Fernandes (1999 different meanings and experiences attached to land, membership in the MST, and alternative organizations of civil society.…”