1. Landless Workers’
Movement in Brazil
By Alice Li
Mehma Saluja
Sara Barbosa
Qixian Zhou
Xichang Jia
‘Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra’
(MST)
2. Learning Objectives
1. Understand the aims and goals of this
movement
2.Analyze and discuss the movement’s mistica
pedagogy
3.Recognize and articulate the transforming
potential of adult education
4.Recollect personal connections and identify
dynamics through opposing self-expressions
5.Recollect personal connections and identify
dynamics through opposing self-expressions
6.Access the hegemonic forces behind each
unique expression
2
3. 1. Introduction
2. Explanation of Radical Pedagogy
3. MST in the literature
4. Analysis: MST, Women, Radical Pedagogy, and
Agroecology
5. Conclusion
content
3
6. ◉ Long history of violent land conflict
in Brazil in the mid-20th century
◉ MST was born and developing in
southern Brazil at the end of the
1970's
◉ Officially organizing itself at the
national level in 1985
◉ One of the largest social movement
in Latin America
6
What is MST?
7. To achieve a self-sustainable way of
life for the rural poor
7
8. Maps
8
"in the way they see fit, true to local context"
23 of Brazil's 26 states
· 10-15 families in one unit
· 2 representatives: one male,
one female
· 400 state body members
· 60 national coordinating body
members
· 475,000 families in total
1.5 million
membership
15 leaders
MST is considered to be
libertarian socialist
anarchist organisation
non-hierarchical pattern within
organization
9. ‘Brain pause’ time
Open your phone and
complete a quick quiz
about the general
knowledge of MST
9
Knowledge Quiz
11. ◉ Dehumanizing
◉ Students sit passively
◉ Engage with content uncritically
◉ No critical engagement
◉ Teacher deposits information into
students
◉ Hierarchy in the classroom instills
deference to authority
◉ Supports societal hegemony
11
Radical Pedagogy: The Banking Method
12. ◉ Radical Pedagogy challenges hegemony by
exposing the power-knowledge nexus
◉ Knowledge and the truth are constructs
◉ Levelling of classroom hierarchy by teacher
dropping the all-knowing persona
◉ Teacher uses a problem-posing method
instead of just giving the solution
◉ Teacher becomes co-inquirer with students
◉ The goal is to facilitate the emergence of
critical consciousness or conscientisation
12
Radical Pedagogy: Opposing Hierarchy
13. ◉ Problem-Posing help students understand
○ the system they live in is oppressive
○ why this oppression exists
○ how this oppression impacts them individually
and collectively
○ the possible solutions to the oppression
◉ Education is experiential and grounded in the lives of
the students
◉ Leads to students understanding of the hegemonic
forces oppressing them
◉ The end goal is transformative praxis
13
Radical Pedagogy: Problem-Posing
14. “
the conscientization process “is marked by depth in the interpretation of
problems, self-confidence in discussions, receptiveness, and refusal to shirk
responsibility. The quality of discourse is dialectical since persons at this level
can scrutinize their own thoughts and recognize proper causal and circumstantial
correlations. Conscientization for Freire entails a radical denunciation of
dehumanizing structures, accompanied by an announcement of a new reality to
be created. It entails a rigorous and rational critique of the ideology that supports
these structures and is brought about not through intellectual efforts alone but
through praxis, the authentic union of action and reflection”
14
Elias and Merriam
15. “
the conscientization process is the practice of freedom which “aims
to transform society by eradicating patriarchy, by ending sexism and
sexist oppressions, by challenging the politics of domination on all
fronts”
15
bell hooks
16. Banking Method of Education and Critical Pedagogy
Click the picture on the computer
screen to watch a short video on the
banking method and radical
pedagogy
Focus on the designing characteristics of the
Banking Method and of the Radical Method
17. Quiz: Banking Method and Radical Pedagogy
Click the book to go to the quiz about
the banking method and radical
pedagogy
19. ◉ Mistica is the belief that
communities can emancipate
themselves through conscientization
◉ From its inception, mistica was
promoted through local meetings
◉ Kingdom of God on Earth
◉ From the beginning, MST has been
concerned with education and
conscientization
19
MST and Mistica
20. ◉ MST’s first counter-hegemonic attempts
involved agricultural cooperatives
grounded in Cuban-inspired socialism
◉ Radical adult education played an
important role in teaching members
cooperative economics
◉ The establishment of cooperative farms
fits the radical tenet of turning knowledge
into transformative praxis
◉ However, the cooperatives failed
20
MST, Socialism, Cooperatives, and
Transformative Praxis
21. Tell Us What You Know : MST in the
Literature
Click the image to complete a quick
open-ended question
23. Let’s Get Empowered!!
Watch this short video showing
the direct action (praxis) of MST
women
While watching take note of how the video makes you feel.
This will prepare you for the next activity.
24. Discussion: How did the video make you feel?
Click the picture on the computer
screen to join the discussion on the
video.
Take the time to read some of your peers’
responses
25. ◉ Women in MST were oppressed by the
larger society and in MST
◉ First action was to have land laws changed,
so that women could own land
◉ Example of transformative action through
consciousness raising
◉ Also, represents the beginning of the
infusion of feminism in MST
◉ Next, MST women succeeded in
establishing an egalitarian structure for MST
25
The Early Success of Women in MST
26. ◉ In 2000, MST women establish
agroecology as official MST policy
◉ Focus on well-being of producers and
food sovereignty
◉ Embedded in conscious raising, as it
involves turning knowledge into
practice
26
Women and Agroecology
28. Introduction to
Agroecology
Click the picture on the computer
screen to watch a short introductory
video on Agroecology
Be prepared to discuss your ideas and opinions about
Agroecology
29. Join the Conversation
Click the picture on the computer
screen to join the conversation
about Agroecology
Make sure to read some of the responses of your peers
30. ◉ Revolutionary feminist pedagogy
◉ Egalitarian gender representation
◉ Purposeful result of the advocacy
work on women in MST
30
Radical Pedagogy, Agroecology and
Feminism
31. ◉ Curriculum challenges hegemonic
gender norms
◉ Combination of theory and practice,
which reflects the consciousness
raising component of connecting
knowledge to practice
◉ Egalitarian school dynamic is
influencing the traditional gender
dynamics in the students’ homes
31
Agroecology Curriculum and Gender
32. Feminism and Gender in MST
Click the image and answer the open-
ended question
33. ◉ Curriculum goal is to have students
engage with critical consciousness
and become MST leaders
◉ Spread agroecology through working
in MST communities
◉ Practice agroecology to provide
school with food
33
Agroecology Curriculum and Radical
Pedagogy
34. ◉ MST certificate program based in
radical pedagogy
◉ Three weeks in school, three weeks in
home community
◉ Problematization = understanding
sources of oppression
◉ Conflict mapping as consciousness
raising
34
The Agrarian Question, Agroecology, and
Educacao do Campo
36. ◉Search the Internet for “Eviction of
Quilombo Campo Grande”
◉Take Five Minutes to familiarize
yourself with the Brazilian
government’s eviction of all the
families living in this MST
settlement
◉Take some notes and get ready for
som transformative praxis
36
On Your Own
37. Happening Now
Click the image and the read the article
about evictions in Brazil. Be prepared
to use information from this article and
the
38. ◉ Thank you for taking the time to work
through this lesson and the Eviction of
Quilombo Campo Grande research
you did to write emails to relevant
Brazilian authorities demanding no
more land evictions
◉ The email information of the relevant
authorities is found on the next page
38
On Your Own Time: Transformative Praxis
39. Minister of Agriculture dpi@agricultura.gov.br
Agrarian Court bhe.vagraria@tjmg.jus.br
You can find me at
◉ @username
Emails!
39
40. Let’s review some concepts
Yellow
Is the color of gold, butter and
ripe lemons. In the spectrum of
visible light, yellow is found
between green and orange.
Blue
Is the colour of the clear sky
and the deep sea. It is located
between violet and green on
the optical spectrum.
Red
Is the color of blood, and
because of this it has historically
been associated with sacrifice,
danger and courage.
40
Yellow
Is the color of gold, butter and
ripe lemons. In the spectrum of
visible light, yellow is found
between green and orange.
Blue
Is the colour of the clear sky
and the deep sea. It is located
between violet and green on
the optical spectrum.
Red
Is the color of blood, and
because of this it has historically
been associated with sacrifice,
danger and courage.
Editor's Notes
By the end of this class, learners will be able to
We will start our lesson by firstly giving a brief historical introduction on the movement, then at the end of this session, we will pause for a moment by testing your general knowledge on this topic
History of mst
Aims of mst
Some figures
Brazil has long history of violent land conflict, during 1970s, toward the conclusion of the military regime, Brazil was going through a political opening process. The existing tensions that stymied growth in the rural were not resolved by Brazilian capitalism.Land concentration, the eviction of the poor from rural areas, and agricultural modernisation continued, while a huge exodus to the metropolis and colonial policies entered a moment of crisis.In this context, mst was born and structured in Ronda Alta, Rio Grande do Sul and with the Landless Farmer Movement of Western Paraná as its origins. MST was officially founded in 1984, during the 1st Meeting of the Landless Rural Workers in Cascavel, Paraná. The following year, the MST officially organized itself at the national level at the 1st National Congress of the Landless.
Aim: to achieve a self-sustainable way of life for the rural poor by providing poor workers with access to land through land reform and advocacy on societal factors such as unfair income distribution, racism, sexism, and media monopolies.
The structure of the MST consists of a core base of 10 to 15 families living in the basic organisational unit of the MST camp settlement. This base addresses the issues faced by the member families and the members elect two representatives, one female and one male, to represent them at the settlement/camp meetings. These representatives then attend regional meetings to elect regional representatives and then members of the MST State Coordinating Body.There are currently 400 state body members (approximately 20 per state) and 60 national coordinating body members. Each MST family is involved in a base, with approximately 475,000 families,therefore there is an estimated informal membership of 1.5 million across 23 of Brazil's 26 states. The structure of the MST is considered a large libertarian socialist or anarchist organisation, as the MST is not a political party and has no formal leadership, only a decentralised group of about 15 leaders who rarely appear in public to minimise the risk of getting arrested, which was an important strategy as it allowed the movement to maintain constant and direct communication between member families and their representatives, aiming to empower people politically by allowing them acting "in the way they see fit, true to local context".
Quiz on how well they learned the facts of mst, questions can be something like ‘in which year was mst officially founded’, ‘in which part of brazil’, ‘the aims of mst’, ‘how many members in mst’, ‘how many states’, ‘which of the following organizational structure can describe mst? ‘ , ‘is mst hierarchical’ these are just some examples
The purpose of this lesson is to determine whether or not MTS’ educational philosophy and practice is grounded in critical pedagogy. In addition, this lesson has been designed with critical pedagogy in mind.
Freire’s critical pedagogy criticizes the banking method of education, which is a learning dynamic where the instructor teaches content from the front of the classroom. Freire argues this approach to education is dehumanized, as all the students do is sit passively and uncritically take in the content that the teacher deposits in them. There is no critical engagement with the content. Also, Freire argues the hierarchical structure of the banking classroom supports societal hegemony by instilling deference to authority in students, as nothing the instructor does is open to contestation.
Radical pedagogy challenges hegemony by advocating in favour of a critical analysis of taken-for-granted assumptions to expose how power creates knowledge and reveals what we take for granted as objective fact is nothing more than hegemonic constructs. The instructor acts as both a problem-poser, and a co-inquirer with the students, which levels classroom hierarchy. According to hooks, critical pedagogy needs to take power into consideration and move away from the traditional teacher-student dynamic with the teacher dropping the all-knowing persona . With the teacher no longer seen as the single possessor of knowledge, the goal of critical pedagogy is to facilitate critical consciousness or conscientization.
Using problem-posing, the teacher helps students understand that the system they live in is oppressive, why this oppression exists, how this oppression impacts them individually and collectively, and the possible solutions to the oppression. As Freire says in his dialogue with Horton, the best approach to intervening is “to reject giving the solution,”, which is the opposite of the banking classroom. By critically investigating and analyzing hegemonic constructs that directly impact their lives, students begin to realize the power of hegemony and the oppressive system that hegemony perpetuates.
Click “See previous responses” to view you and your peers’ answers
Next we will have a quick look at some of the literature related to MST with a focus on education within the movement.
From its inception, MST’s goal has been the uplifting of the Brazilian rural poor through its mistica framework. This framework originated from the liberation theory, which focuses on political oppression and how communities can emancipate themselves through conscientization, which establishes the organization as one concerned with education. In its early years MST grew into a national organization by facilitating conscientization through educational meetings. The mistica framework placed the Kingdom of God as existing on earth thereby encouraging communities to participate in its endeavours. This helped draw the districts closer, reduce marginalization, and remove their fear when facing oppressive situations.
In the beginning, the focus of MST was agrarian reform in the larger of context of eschewing global capitalistic markets in favour of a socialist approach. MST saw capitalism as the root of peasant problems, as it facilitates wealth and wage gaps through unequal distribution of resources, which created millions of landless peasants in Brazil. MST’s cooperative approach to agriculture was inspired by Cuban socialism with adult education playing a vital role in teaching MST members about cooperative socioeconomics through a Freirean approach to literacy. Members engaged in conscientization and then turned their knowledge into cooperative praxis. However, MST's implementation of cooperatives failed. Instead of upholding the traditional concepts of family-based social structures as its members were taught would happen, MST appeared to target maximum production and capital accumulation, thus enabling existing social injustices in rural Brazil. Moreover, the government's neoliberal policies and aggressive pursuit of capitalism meant little or no state support for the people and a great deal of support for large corporations engaging in agribusiness. As such, MST’s cooperative system collapsed.
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The following section locates dialectical and dialogical engagement, reduced hierarchy between the teacher and students, experiential learning, the breaking of the culture of silence, the challenging of hegemonic ideology, the process of conscientization, transformative praxis, and the challenging gender-based discrimination within the movement itself.
Women in the MST movement faced the oppression their impoverished male counterparts faced from hegemony, endured additional hegemonic discrimination, and experienced subjugation within the movement itself. The first significant change came in 1988 from advocacy work of women from the Annoni settlement who engaged in Freirean consciousness-raising. This group of women lobbied the government with the result that "the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution established that for land distributed via agrarian reform 'titles of ownership and use rights should be granted in the name of men, women, or both, independently of their marital status.” Therefore, they engaged in self-driven consciousness raising by critically analyzing one element of their oppression, and then harnessing transformation in their frames of reference to engage in transformative praxis. These women took action to change the understanding of land ownership in Brazil, thus, changing knowledge of a hegemonic discourse, which really reflect the ultimate goal of radical pedagogy and consciousness raising. In addition, this action represents the beginning of feminism within MST due to change that entailed gender. This larger vision of change coincides with hooks, who argues the conscientization process is the practice of freedom which “aims to transform society by eradicating patriarchy, by ending sexism and sexist oppressions, by challenging the politics of domination on all fronts.” In 2000, the organization's political structure was changed due to the critical advocacy of women, which resulted in women rising in prominence in the movement. Again, we can see women in the movement engaging in the radical pedagogy of tenet of transformative praxis
Women in the MST movement faced the oppression their impoverished male counterparts faced from hegemony, endured additional hegemonic discrimination, and experienced subjugation within the movement itself. The first significant change came in 1988 from advocacy work of women from the Annoni settlement who engaged in Freirean consciousness-raising. This group of women lobbied the government with the result that "the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution established that for land distributed via agrarian reform 'titles of ownership and use rights should be granted in the name of men, women, or both, independently of their marital status.” Therefore, they engaged in self-driven consciousness raising by critically analyzing one element of their oppression, and then harnessing transformation in their frames of reference to engage in transformative praxis. These women took action to change the understanding of land ownership in Brazil, thus, changing knowledge of a hegemonic discourse, which really reflect the ultimate goal of radical pedagogy and consciousness raising.
Click “See previous responses” to view you and your peers’ answers
Underlying this shift to agroecology has been a critical pedagogy in the camps that supports gender parity and women's empowerment. As a teacher at an MST school states, “We are trying to construct a more revolutionary feminism, to get both men and women involved in the debate. We are increasing the level of women’s participation by ensuring that in the organisational structure there is one woman and one man at each level.” This type of transformation clearly aims to combat gender discrimination within MST, and is a strong example of hooks’ revolutionary feminist pedagogy, which challenges discrimination on all fronts. This is a purposeful development, as MST women involved in consciousness raising actively advocated for the adoption of peasant and popular feminism with a focus on a gender-oriented MST struggle and agroecological education
Another pedagogical goal of MST’s agroecology curriculum is challenging patriarchal gender norms, which still have a salient presence in Brazil and within MST, which aligns with hooks’ radical feminist pedagogy. The curriculum includes discussion and analysis of “gender asymmetries within society in general and peasant culture in particular.” Moreover, the curriculum includes a combination of theoretical analysis and practical experiences to raise gender awareness, which coincides with the connection between knowledge and practice with consciousness raising. The practical side to this goes as far to have the students divided into egalitarian groups where the young men and women have the same power and impact on decision-making. According to Schwendler and Thompson, this directly challenges gender norms in the families of the students, and is resulting in changes in family dynamics. This is another salient example or transformative praxis.
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The encampment curriculums are grounded in gender and agroecological studies with a pedagogy that is clearly critical. The goal is to have students, twenty-five percent of whom are women, engage in critical consciousness, including engaging in transformative praxis, to become organic intellectuals and leaders in the MST. Students are sent out to "influence agricultural production by advancing counter-hegemonic agricultural practices'' through remaining in the countryside and working with MST agricultural communities. Within the critical tradition, learning is experiential and grounded in the lives of the students , which is exactly what the agroecology curriculum does by having students practice agroecology to provide the school with food, and then head out to communities for three months every year of their studies to teach and engage in agroecology.
The certificate program in ‘The Agrarian Question, Agroecology, and Educação do Campo’ exemplifies radical pedagogy with the curriculum including a rotation of three weeks at the school and three weeks in the home community, which reflects the experiential and place-based learning of radical pedagogy. According to the program’s professors, the first section of the course focuses on problematization, including dislocating exercises and field trips that “graphically depict contradictory forces, such as the infrastructure of exploitative industries and the spaces of social movement resistance”. This coincides with radical pedagogy’s focus of having people understand the sources of their oppression. The second step is conflict mapping, which can be seen as a continuation of consciousness-raising, as the focus is on “providing the tools to critically analyze the contradictions of hegemonic land use, and the spaces for popular resistance” (Meek 1187).
Click “See previous responses” to view you and your peers’ answers
The certificate program in ‘The Agrarian Question, Agroecology, and Educação do Campo’ exemplifies radical pedagogy with the curriculum including a rotation of three weeks at the school and three weeks in the home community, which reflects the experiential and place-based learning of radical pedagogy. According to the program’s professors, the first section of the course focuses on problematization, including dislocating exercises and field trips that “graphically depict contradictory forces, such as the infrastructure of exploitative industries and the spaces of social movement resistance”. This coincides with radical pedagogy’s focus of having people understand the sources of their oppression. The second step is conflict mapping, which can be seen as a continuation of consciousness-raising, as the focus is on “providing the tools to critically analyze the contradictions of hegemonic land use, and the spaces for popular resistance” (Meek 1187).
Click “See previous responses” to view you and your peers’ answers
The certificate program in ‘The Agrarian Question, Agroecology, and Educação do Campo’ exemplifies radical pedagogy with the curriculum including a rotation of three weeks at the school and three weeks in the home community, which reflects the experiential and place-based learning of radical pedagogy. According to the program’s professors, the first section of the course focuses on problematization, including dislocating exercises and field trips that “graphically depict contradictory forces, such as the infrastructure of exploitative industries and the spaces of social movement resistance”. This coincides with radical pedagogy’s focus of having people understand the sources of their oppression. The second step is conflict mapping, which can be seen as a continuation of consciousness-raising, as the focus is on “providing the tools to critically analyze the contradictions of hegemonic land use, and the spaces for popular resistance” (Meek 1187).
