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This series tackles one of the central issues of our time: the rise of
large-scale social movements and the transformation of society over
the last thirty years. As global capitalism continues to affect broader
segments of the world’s population—workers, peasants, the self-
employed, the unemployed, the poor, indigenous peoples, women,
and minority ethnic groups—there is a growing mass movement by
the affected populations to address the inequities engendered by the
globalization process. These popular mass movements across the
globe (such as labor, civil rights, women’s, environmental, indigenous,
and anti-corporate globalization movements) have come to form a
viable and decisive force to address the consequences of the opera-
tions of the transnational corporations and the global capitalist sys-
tem. The study of these social movements—their nature, social base,
ideology, and strategy and tactics of mass struggle—is of paramount
importance if we are to understand the nature of the forces that are
struggling to bring about change in the global economy, polity, and
social structure. This series aims to explore emerging movements
and develop viable explanations for the kind of social transformations
that are yet to come.
This book focuses on the macro-and microfactors that have shaped
the processes of peasant mobilization, agrarian reform, and coopera-
tive formation in contemporary Brazil. Specifically, this study exam-
ines the role of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra ,
or Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in the process. This
study turned out to be quite a challenge. At an earlier stage of this
study, one of the authors, Wilder Robles, in the context of collecting
data for his doctoral dissertation, was interested only in examining
the interrelationships among peasant mobilization, agrarian reform,
and cooperative formation through the macroanalysis of three closely
related processes: democracy, globalization, and social movements.
However, he soon found that this approach had serious limitations.
During his stays in many MST and in other encampments and settle-
ments, he discovered a multitude of problems the landless peasants
faced. There were internal conflicts, ideological differences, limited
material resources, and lack of access to technology and markets.
Some of these problems were beyond the landless peasants’ control.
Nevertheless, they were determined to advance agrarian reform. He
soon realized that the struggle for agrarian reform and the struggle
for cooperative formation were two interconnected struggles, requir-
ing different albeit complementary analyses. |
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