Overview

In Challenging Social Inequality, an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars and development workers explores the causes, consequences, and contemporary reactions to Brazil's sharply unequal agrarian structure. They focus on the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST)-Latin America's largest and most prominent social movement-and its ongoing efforts to confront historic patterns of inequality in the Brazilian countryside. Several essays provide essential historical background for understanding the MST. They examine Brazil's agrarian structure, state policies, and the formation of rural civil-society organizations. Other essays build on a frequently made distinction between the struggle for land and the struggle on the land. The first refers to the mobilization undertaken by landless peasants to demand government land redistribution. The struggle on the land takes place after the establishment of an official agricultural settlement. The main efforts during this phase are geared toward developing productive and meaningful rural communities. The last essays in the collection are wide-ranging analyses of the MST, which delve into the movement's relations with recent governments and its impact on other Brazilian social movements. In the conclusion, Miguel Carter appraises the future of agrarian reform in Brazil. Contributors. Jose Batista Goncalves Afonso, Sonia Maria P..P. Bergamasco, Sue Branford, Elena Calvo-Gonzalez, Miguel Carter, Horacio Martins de Carvalho, Guilherme Costa Delgado, Bernardo Mancano Fernandes, Leonilde Servolo de Medeiros, George Meszaros, Luiz Antonio Norder, Gabriel Ondetti, Ivo Poletto, Marcelo Carvalho Rosa, Lygia Maria Sigaud, Emmanuel Wambergue, Wendy Wolford

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9780822351863

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Reviews

This collection offers as definitive a history of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers as is now possible. The contributors examine the movement's founding and rapid expansion in every state; its conflicts with landowners and political authorities; its methods, grassroots practices, and achievements in seeking to impart the arts of husbandry, equality, and democracy to the rural third of the nation, which is largely landless, hungry, and bereft of the means of citizenship. Challenging Social Inequality is a complete guide to a social movement of enormous importance, one comparable to the civil rights movement in the United States particularly with respect to its capacity to mobilize, raise consciousness, and bring about change. Ralph Della Cava, Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University

""This collection offers as definitive a history of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers as is now possible. The contributors examine the movement's founding and rapid expansion in every state; its conflicts with landowners and political authorities; its methods, grassroots practices, and achievements in seeking to impart the arts of husbandry, equality, and democracy to the rural third of the nation, which is largely landless, hungry, and bereft of the means of citizenship. Challenging Social Inequality is a complete guide to a social movement of enormous importance, one comparable to the civil rights movement in the United States particularly with respect to its capacity to mobilize, raise consciousness, and bring about change."" Ralph Della Cava, Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University

Challenging Social Inequality is the most comprehensive study to date of the agrarian question in Brazil and of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers, the social movement that has challenged land concentration, social inequality, and poverty in Brazil since the mid-1980s. The contributors, most of whom are Brazilian, examine the movement's history, organization, and strategies, and its interaction with the state, political parties, and other social movements. In addition, Miguel Carter addresses complex and controversial issues in the introduction and conclusion, further expanding our understanding of contemporary Brazil. -Leslie Bethell, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford This collection offers as definitive a history of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers as is now possible. The contributors examine the movement's founding and rapid expansion in every state; its conflicts with landowners and political authorities; its methods, grassroots practices, and achievements in seeking to impart the arts of husbandry, equality, and democracy to the rural third of the nation, which is largely landless, hungry, and bereft of the means of citizenship. Challenging Social Inequality is a complete guide to a social movement of enormous importance, one comparable to the civil rights movement in the United States particularly with respect to its capacity to mobilize, raise consciousness, and bring about change. -Ralph Della Cava, Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University

Author Information

Miguel Carter is Founding Director of DEMOS - Centro para la Democracia, la Creatividad y la InclusiÓn Social, a new think tank based in Paraguay.  

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