book reviews

Abstract

total failure, the author suggests that an unwillingness to acknowledge the disparate identities of its constituent groups has left the movement in crisis. Wolford argues that in this way the MST has engaged in a politics of identity which privileges 'scale' over 'place', benefiting struggles at the national and transnational level by presenting a unified identity whilst losing at the sub-national level by failing to account for difference (p. 76).This study presents an important step beyond previous examinations of the MST in English, deploying a more nuanced theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between identity, land and politics in Brazil. However, Wolford's analysis could have been extended further through a deeper engagement with Antonio Gramsci's conceptualization of common sense, something which the author entertains but ultimately discards (p. 22). For Gramsci, common sense is understood as a world view shaped by the priorities of the dominant class -a framing that views common sense as a barrier to be overcome (Gramsci 1971: 419 -20). The relationship between the movement and its members might be further clarified by analyzing the MST's efforts to overcome this barrier by developing the critical consciousness of rural workers. Whilst Wolford does progress beyond the view of the MST as a 'monolithic' identity, in effect her study simply supplants it with several further identities which are left unchallenged. A more fruitful direction for further enquiry might be an analysis of the educational program of the Landless Workers Movement which encourages rural workers to question the moral economies which the author describes.